Category: Mindfulness

In the song, ‘The Sound of Silence,’ there is a line about people talking without speaking and people hearing without listening. Silence can be a haunting sign of the struggle to communicate. But is it always such a terrible thing?

If you have been in a lift, up at 5 am or on a bad date, you will have experienced silence. It may be something you vaguely remember from your younger years. Or silence may be fleeting, appearing for a moment with a power enough to shock you, before being consumed. Perhaps between family life, work and the busy streets of Singapore, silence may have been lost altogether. And with it may have gone the chance to contemplate, to reflect and to listen. Which is perhaps why some people find themselves wandering into a counselling room.

We may be tempted as therapists to fill a silence when it descends. It is awkward between people and may encourage a great deal of anxiety in you too; perhaps someone has nothing to say, or seemingly doesn’t care. Maybe you have run out of words. It may feel like you are not there, or perhaps that they are not and you are on your own. These are powerful feelings which encourage speaking just to break the silence (even in words, it is fragile). It may be experienced as a loss of something, which may be too much for some – including Paul Simon!

But there may be a different experience too. If you consider that ‘…silence is complementary to words in general…’ (Sabbadini 2004, P.229), it could be easier to see a role for it, one which offers something rather than taking it away. Buddhism and Mindfulness both speak of the benefits of silence. Perhaps allowing for a ‘…silent space within…’ (Sabbadini 2004, P.231) may give you something to make of these moments. Silence may be an opportunity to consider someone or something else, whether they are there or not. It is a communication, encouraging attention, both in you and in others, in contrast with the perpetual noise of modern life. It could be a chance to digest – try talking and eating at the same time to get a clearer idea of this – or simply a chance to pause. It also offers hope, even expectation – think of a silence falling over a crowd at a cinema or a concert as the performance begins. It is therefore something that can be recognised and even used, rather than avoided.

You are perhaps reading this in silence; or you may have life going on in the background. This may indicate how it feels to you, a good starting point to consider its role in your life. So next time it all goes quiet, perhaps hold on for just a moment before you allow the noise to kick in. You never know what you might hear.  

References:
Sabbadini, A. ‘Listening to Silence’, British Journal of Psychotherapy, 21 (2), pp.229-240
Simon, P & Garfunkel, A. ‘The Sound of Silence’, Columbia Records (Originally released as ‘The Sounds of Silence’, October 1964)

Written by:
Robert Leveson
Psychotherapist & Counsellor
SACAC Counselling

In today’s hyperconnected, instantaneous, and constantly evolving world, where we are perennially bombarded with information, emotions, thoughts and judgments, it is our body, and most importantly our mind that bears the brunt. This stress and anxiety of daily life manifests, in physical and mental dimensions, through disrupted sleep cycles, poorer eating habits, lower self-esteem, and more fragile and distant relationships.

Mindfulness is an ancient practice that has gained increasing prominence in the last few years, as a tool to combat and counterbalance the stressors of today’s life. Mindfulness can be described as the ability to pay attention and increase awareness of the current moment, in a curious, open and non-judgmental manner. In doing so, by developing, an approach of mindfulness, one can experience their daily life without either getting too fixated, or too distanced from their immediate experiences.

Mindfulness has been shown to provide multiple benefits in brain functioning and activity, including growth in the prefrontal cortex, and shrinkage in the amygdala [1]. These two changes are especially important when considering their impact on the way we respond to and manage our daily distress. Growth in the prefrontal cortex increases one’s ability to focus and sustain attention, while shrinkage in the amygdala reduces the activation of the “fight-or-flight” fear response. In combination, this reduces symptoms commonly associated increased levels of anxiety and stress.

Mindfulness is all about bringing focus into your present moment. Unlike what is commonly believed, the only way to attain the benefits of mindfulness is not by carving out specific times or routines to practice mindfulness. Although that has shown to be very effective, mindfulness can also be incorporated as a part of daily life. Therefore, one can practice mindfulness just by starting to pay more attention to each of the activities they are performing, such as when they are eating, or taking a walk, or brushing their teeth, or on their commute to work. One needs to pay deeper attention to each of the activities they are doing, by connecting with one’s senses and taking “mini pauses” to absorb the current stimulus. One great way to focus on the moment, is to observe one’s breathing, which brings attention back to the self. There are also several app’s that are now available to help individuals start incorporating short mindful pauses in their daily hectic routines, which can be a great first step towards a more mindful life.  

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[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004979/

Written by:
Sukriti Drabu
Psychologist & Counsellor

The other weekend, I woke with a particular feeling. I just needed to take it slow that day. And so, that is what I did. Instead of going for a run at my usual spot, I walked, slowly, breathing deeply with my steps. I was struck with how right it felt for what I needed in that moment. My slow walk set the pace for the day, and inspired further slow paced activities.

There is much that has been written on the fast pace of our lives these days. And naturally, we do not always have the opportunity to take it slow. However, it is worth considering how we might consciously try to find moments to slow things down. As written in Sarah Wilson’s book “First we make the beast beautiful: a new story about anxiety”, it has been suggested that a big part of modern society’s stress comes from having so much of our life occurring at a speed that our bodies are not aligned with. That is, that we are out of sync from how we were originally designed to live.

Wilson quotes research that shows that mindful breathing while walking appears to be particularly helpful to reduce anxiety, in quietening our thoughts and providing an outlet for stress hormones. It keeps us present. This might look something like breathing in for three steps, and out for four steps, focusing on drawing energy up from the ground through your feet to the top of your head as you breathe in, and pushing energy back through your body into the earth as you breathe out. Walking though, is not the only way we can slow ourselves down. We can cook things from scratch, we can do slow yoga, we can hand-write, we can build something with our hands. Or we can simply block out some unscheduled time. Think about treating it as an experiment, and observe what the process is like for you.

Written by:
Thea Longman
DClinPsych/MSc, BPsych (Hons)
Registered Clinical Psychologist
SACAC Counselling

Allowing yourself to experience all emotions, whether pleasant or painful, can lead to greater psychological health, according to recent research conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Based on questionnaire and laboratory data, researchers found that people who typically resisted acknowledging their difficult emotions, or judged them harshly, reported more psychological stress than those who allowed themselves to experience difficult emotions.

This makes sense when we consider that emotional discomfort is a very normal human experience. Emotions such as sadness, anger and fear are not only common, but are also essential to our survival. They are like signals that send a message that something is important to us, or motivate us to act. Hence, trying to rid ourselves of these emotions not only takes up a lot of our time and energy, but in the long term is ultimately unsuccessful, as we are designed to have these emotions. In struggling with them, we end up magnifying our distress in experiencing both the emotion and the distress about having the emotion.

Allowing yourself to experience the discomfort, rather than struggling against it, is not about having to like or want the discomfort. Instead, it is about seeing the emotion for what it is and changing how we pay attention to it. For emotions do naturally pass, they build in intensity but then plateau and subside. We can use mindfulness processes to help us handle these emotional experiences.

As many people are probably now aware, there are a number of ways to engage in mindfulness processes, often coming down to individual preference. These include:

Noticing whatever you are feeling in the present moment. Observing sensations, their intensity, their location in the body, with curiosity rather than judgement. Identifying and labelling emotions.

Relating to your emotions with imagery, such as going up and down a wave in the ocean, floating leaves down a stream or even sushi passing you on a sushi train..

Noticing other sensations in the present moment, bringing your attention to what you can touch, see, hear, smell, taste, and what task you are doing.

Practicing kind self-talk, for example in reminding ourselves that it is normal and natural to have painful thoughts and feelings.

References

Ford, B., Lam, P., John, O. & Mauss, I. (2017). The Psychological Health Benefits of Accepting Negative Emotions and Thoughts: Laboratory, Diary, and Longitudinal Evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2017; DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000157

 

Written by:

Dr Thea Longman
Registered Clinical Psychologist                                                                    SACAC Counselling