Private Mindfulness Coaching
Do you feel that you know what you need to do for your wellbeing but you find it hard to put it into practice? Does it sometimes feel as though you are on a hamster wheel and can’t get off? If so you’re not alone!
Often time pressure and work commitments can mean that we are very much on the back foot in our lives. Sometimes we need to just step off the treadmill and take stock. Of course the reality is it is difficult to do this in practice.
This is where mindfulness comes in. We don’t need to spend an hour a day sitting in lotus position to experience the benefits of mindfulness in our lives. It would be great if we could, but the reality is that life often isn’t so accommodating!
“The real meditation practice is how we live our lives from moment to moment to moment.”
Mindfulness training can enable us to be more present in every aspect of our lives. A short daily practice can make all the difference. In fact there are many simple exercises that can take as little as 3 minutes and be of real help. Just a few minutes a day can enable us to gain greater perspective and address whatever challenges come our way.
Here’s a little exercise for you to try:
By using a mindfulness coach your can find space and calm to make clearer decisions in a busy life. Research shows that mindfulness can benefit us in a multitude of ways.
Gaining Perspective
Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of mindfulness is that it enables us to see our circumstances through a different lens. In the western world we have been taught to massively overvalue the critical, problem-solving part of our mind. This is the part of our mind that we train through school and learning. It is the part of the mind we associate with logic and reason. When life challenges arrive, we desperately go into “overthinking” to try and “fix” the problem. The reality is that this approach often doesn’t work. If anything we land up more confused and lost in the problem than we were at the start.
Insights don’t come from from overthinking. We have insights when the mind is quiet. We are all familiar with those sudden Eureka moments that come in the shower when we weren’t thinking of anything in particular. This is a preview of what mindfulness can do for us. Mindfulness enables us to quieten down the problem-solving part of the mind so we can access our inner resources. We can then return to problem-solving if necessary with new insight and awareness.
Issues that mindfulness can help:
Here are just a few of the many reported benefits of mindfulness.
Reduced stress
Research suggests that mindfulness can promote lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. The adrenal gland produces high levels of cortisol when we are experiencing physical or emotional stress. Hectic, stressful lives can result in a sustained release of cortisol which can contribute to wide-ranging, negative effects on the body.
Better sleep
Research has found that a mindfulness practice can improve sleep quality in adults with sleep disturbances. It was found to help short-term sleep problems by reducing the impact of sleep issues on daily functioning and breaking the “downward spiral” many get into with disturbed sleep.
Weight loss
Research by the Consumer Reports National Research Center found that mindfulness in association with CBT was an effective weight loss strategy. It works because it shifts the focus from calorie counting and exercise to noticing the role emotions are playing in overeating and food choices. In fact a 2018 article in the Washington Post highlighted that more and more research points to mindfulness — not certain foods — for weight loss. It reports on the first review of research papers on mindful eating and weight loss which found that:
Increased mindful eating has been shown to help participants gain awareness of their bodies, be more in tune to hunger and satiety, recognize external cues to eat, gain self compassion, decrease food cravings, decrease problematic eating, and decrease reward-driven eating.”
Depression and Anxiety
A 2014 review of meditation programs for psychological stress and wellbeing reported evidence from 47 clinical trials that mindfulness was associated with moderate improvements in depression and anxiety.
Researchers are now able to demonstrate using MRI scans how mindfulness can actually quieten down the part of the brain associated with fear.
Take a look at this article in the Harvard Gazette:
Improved attention
Even a short mindfulness training has been shown to significantly improve and sustain attention. Researchers found that a short 4 day meditation training program increased visuo-spatial processing, working memory, and executive functioning in participants.
Find out more
If you would like to know more about how 1:1 mindfulness coaching could help you, please contact Kate for an informal chat: kate@katedelaney.co.uk