Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World

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Mindfulness is at least as good as drugs or counselling for the treatment of clinical-level depression. One structured programme known as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is now one of the preferred treatments recommended by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. 9

International bestselling and award-winning author Dr Danny Penman provides a concise guide to letting go and finding peace in a messy world, simply by taking the time to breathe. Ivanowski, B. and Malhi, G. S. (2007), ‘The psychological and neurophysiological concomitants of mindfulness forms of medita- tion’, Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 19, pp. 76–91; Shapiro, S. L., Oman, D., Thoresen, C. E., Plante, T. G. and Flinders, T. (2008), ‘Cultivating mindfulness: effects on well-being’, Journal of Clinical Psychology, 64(7), pp. 840–62; Shapiro, S. L., Schwartz, G. E. and Bonner, G. (1998), ‘Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on medical and pre-medical students’, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 21, pp. 581–99.This fascinating book is crucial reading for all of us, especially at this time of global mental health crisis. It is a valuable resource for anyone who is struggling with stress, depression or anxiety, or who simply wants to live a more mindful and fulfilling life. Can Mindfulness Meditation Really Reduce Pain and Suffering by 90 percent? This Three Week Course Shows You How To Begin. The science of mindfulness has come of age ... Mark Williams and Danny Penman write with a voice that is authoritative, imbued with warmth and whispers inspiration. It is accessible and engaging, while drawing extensively on the foundations of Buddhist and contemporary psychology and the very best mindfulness research and practice. It is easy to understand why their first book, MINDFULNESS: FINDING PEACE IN A FRANTIC WORLD, is the bestselling book on mindfulness. This is a much-needed extension for all those who wish to go deeper Meditation improves the immune system. Regular meditators are admitted to hospital less often for cancer, heart disease and numerous infectious diseases. 10

Relieve Pain, Reduce Stress and Restore Wellbeing With Week Three of Our Mindfulness Meditation Course Zeidan, F., Martucci, K. T., Kraft, R. A., Gordon, N. S., McHaffie, J. G. and Coghill, R. C. (2011), ‘Brain mechanisms supporting the modulation of pain by mindfulness meditation’, Journal of Neuroscience, 31(14), pp. 5540–8. See ‘Depression in adults: The treatment and management of depression in adults’, NICE clinical guideline 90, issued October 2009; Ma, J. and Teasdale, J. D. (2004), ‘Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for depression: replication and exploration of differential relapse prevention effects’, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 72, pp. 31–40; Segal, Z. V., Williams, J. M. G. and Teasdale, J. D. (2002), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse (New York: Guilford Press); Kenny, M. A. and Williams, J. M. G. (2007), ‘Treatment-resistant depressed patients show a good response to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy’, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 45, pp. 617–25; Eisendraeth, S. J., Delucchi, K., Bitner, R., Fenimore, P., Smit, M. and McLane, M. (2008), ‘Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for treatment-resistant depression: a pilot study’, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 77, pp. 319–20; Kingston, T., Dooley, B., Bates, A., Lawlor, E. and Malone, K. (2007), ‘Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for residual depressive symptoms’, Psychology and Psychotherapy, 80(2), pp. 193–203. Mindfulness focuses on promoting joy and peace rather than banishing unhappiness. It’s precisely focused to help ordinary people boost their happiness and confidence levels whilst also reducing anxiety, stress and irritability. Designed specifically to help ordinary people who are struggling to keep up with the demands of the modern world. As Mark Williams writes in the book, this will help you ‘understand where true happiness, peace and contentment can be found’ and teaches you ‘how to free yourself progressively from anxiety, stress, unhappiness and exhaustion’.

Mindfulness Audio Sessions with Melanie Fennell

Use the hidden foundations of mindfulness to rediscover calm and reclaim your life in our chaotic world This book walks you gently through the beautiful, messy process of being human, and teaches you how and why all can be well’ Sir Kenneth Branagh. Mindfulness improves attention span, working memory and
reaction speed. It also enhances mental stamina and resilience. 2 You’ll find written instructions here (they’re worth reading to familiarise yourself with the technique). A person whose mind isn’t wandering, isn’t meditating…..

The first step to regaining control over your life is learning to notice when your mind has begun to subvert itself and slip into unconsciousness. This is done by first training it to focus on one single thing at a time and then gradually learning how to move this ‘spotlight of attention’ around as you wish. If you have practised mindfulness in the past, particularly if you have read our previous book, Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World, or taken a course based on it, you will have learnt to do this with a simple breathing meditation. The following meditation may therefore seem familiar but there are many subtle but crucial differences. These will deepen your experience and understanding. This is the kernel of what we want to share with you through our new book Deeper Mindfulness: it has, for us, become a treasure trove of new insights from the most ancient of Eastern traditions, as well as modern psychology and neuroscience. They have transformed our understanding of meditation and we hope that they will do the same for you, too. I have been living with depression and anxiety for almost 15 years and have found the mindfulness exercises I’ve done in my counselling sessions to be extremely helpful. I’d like to have some suggestions for resources to use outside of counselling to continue developing my skills. I have also found CBT to be helpful, although my exposure to this is very limited. I can imagine that the 2 in combination would make a fantastic tool for me to use in all aspects of my life. Despite my struggles, I’ve managed to achieve a challenging career specialty in the allied health professions and value greatly the strategies and tools I am able to draw on to help me manage my symptoms and allow me to get out and enjoy my life. Mindfulness Meditation Can Reduce Physical Pain by 90 Percent, Week Two of Our Course Shows You How

Many people interested in learning mindfulness find the Frantic World option a more realistic prospect.

With this in mind, over the next few weeks we’ll be giving away as many of the meditations from our book, Mindfulness, as possible. All of the meditations are from the core Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) programme co-developed by Professor Mark Williams of Oxford University. As you know, I wrote Mindfulness with Mark. MBCT has been proven by countless clinical trials to treat and prevent anxiety, stress, depression, unhappiness and exhaustion. For these reasons, we want to make as much of our Mindfulness course as accessible as possible. If you find the meditations useful, please let all of your friends and family know where they can get them (and feel free to Tweet or blog about them and our book too). Others may find that they develop a much richer and practical understanding of mindfulness by committing themselves to a structured process of learning that supports them from the beginning of the course to the end – and beyond. You come to realise that thoughts come and go of their own accord, that you are not your thoughts. You can watch as they appear in your mind, seemingly from thin air, and watch again as they disappear like a soap bubble bursting. You come to the profound understanding that thoughts and feelings (including negative ones) are transient. They come and go and ultimately you have a choice about whether to act on them or not. This is not one of those books where it has a beginning & end, then you think, "O.K., onto the next book, this a book where it drips into your psychi', a bit at a time. Williams and Penman nail it when they describe how we can run from life (and ourselves) but we'll never escape. DEEPER MINDFULNESS holds true to its name: the authors expertly point out how to identify those critical driving forces in our lives - feelings, and how feelings feel - but importantly have provided a pragmatic path and clear steps that we can take to leverage our minds to live better lives. Based in deep wisdom and written with compassionGuidance from a trained instructor who is experienced in coaching beginners, ensuring correct technique and able to answer any burning questions you may have, helping you set firm foundations in your practice and supporting you through any challenges you experience along the way. This leads to the central guiding principle of mindfulness: you cannot fail. Realising that your mind has wandered away from the breath IS the meditation. The Three-minute Breathing Space was created to deal with such situations. It’s a mini meditation that acts as a bridge between the longer, formal meditations detailed in our book Mindfulness and the demands of everyday life.