Experience with mindfulness?

My therapist recommended the book Mindfulness by Dr. Mark Williams and Dr. Danny Penman, I bought it a couple of days ago. Haven’t started reading it yet.

Anyway, anyone got experience with mindfulness? My therapist said he haid good results with patients with sz and sza.

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I learned about mindfulness in the hospital and partial day program based on dbt. I gave up on meditating but still do the 5 senses and breathing stuff. Dbt and mindfulness really helped me overcome the dissociation I experienced. It brings you back to the present when your mind drifts away and helps with focus. It takes practice to learn to rely on the skills instead of falling into your old routine. I fell out of the habit of it, I should try it again to get out of this new rut i’m in. I seem to have forgotten everything I learned and am going back to those ingrained coping skills that are unhealthy.

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For me it was a game changer! I had a break from hearing voices for 2 hrs after my mindfulness assessment. They then allowed me to do a 8 week course designed at mindfulness for psychosis.

It was really helpful at the time and I still have the mp3’s I was given during it on my phone, but I only use them now when I start to become unwell.

I would say some practitioners get into the spiritual side of it all and I never mastered things like mindful activities. Like mindful walking or washing up!

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I saw a therapist for about 3 weeks. It was the first time I heard about mindfulness. They tried to explain it to me, and to this day I don’t have a clue what it’s all about.

Good luck with it Minnii.

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My therapist is very down to earth, I think he’s more interested in how it can make me distance myself from my delusions. :slight_smile:

Thanks for your input everyone :slight_smile:

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Minnii you too can be one with the universe…mindfulness of everything you share reality with is a large step to enlightenment…good luck on the path to nirvana…not the band…overated under enthusiastic mumbling music…anyway you got this…

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I have had good experiences with mindfulness. Whenever the voices start up I will try and ground myself, focusing on the tv or focusing on sitting in a chair.

Or if I am in a store getting groceries I will focus on my feet walking or on my hands pushing the cart. It helps me stay in the moment and decrease my mind wandering.

Bob

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I find mindfulness helps keep the anxiety and worry down, which in turn prevents my psychosis spiralling out of control. I get stressed and then I get my fuzzy thinking which leads to suspicious thinking… So controlling my breathing and worry I can prevent all that. I do them regularly throughout the day, they can vary in length my exercise from a few minutes to forty five minutes. As there is no right or wrong way of doing it, it’s not like blocking out thoughts entirely merely accepting them and bringing attention mostly back to the breath!

I’ve based most of my practices around Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work. But it’s a matter of what suits, I found his work easy to read and it was the one recommendes by my nurse.

Give it a go! Also look up guided mindfulness on YouTube! Plenty of exercises which are spoken and can help you through if you prefer that sort of thing :slight_smile: Good luck with it!

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Your therapist intends to treat you by having you read self-help books? Well, it’s your life.

Apparently mindfulness is being mindful of eating you’re cake, according to a fully qualified psychiatrist who at least didn’t accept money to make people’s problems go away to my knowledge? Don’t some of them actually wish to help people who are struggling? Please tell me there’s at least one out there. Let me guess Duluth corner of mainstreet and whatever only one in the world? I don’t know. Look at the professions history and compare it to other professions. Compare that to my life’s experience and I’d love to watch the guilty fall. Love to. I do see one at the “behest” of my family…some can’t get away from family.

■■■■.

I think it could be good for you. My therapist is a little wary as far as I’m concerned, because she thinks I have a tendency (common in ruminative depressives) to “go through mindfulness and out the other side.” She says that if I practice it, I need to make certain to merely note and reserve judgment.

I have that book and I like it very much - it’s clear and has a good pace. Let me know what you think.

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@ChestRockwell, @wrongemboyo - why do you assume that this is the only thing her therapist is doing to treat her? It would be sketchy if it were, I agree, but mindfulness is just one tool out of many. My therapist recommends books on it, too, but we spend our sessions working on other things.

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Thanks @Dante13, I’ll look it up :slight_smile:

And @ChestRockwell, no it’s not the only thing, we talk about a lot of things, this is just to help me with my anxiety and my insight over my delusions. He’s a great therapist actually.

mindfulness is like CBT 101… watch your thoughts… start speculating why they occur.

then you see behavior chains and platforms of thought based on your selfview and worldviews… your judgements/importance of other people… your habits and addictions and how you think about those…

marvelous stuff…

I’d say that the potential for bad thoughts never goes away… but their relevance does.

with mindfulness alone you at least learn to let ■■■■ go… whether it’s part of you you don’t like or… something you can’t change about the world.

We are all just pieces in a worldly puzzle… gotta learn to fit to some degree.

With mindfulness comes a lot of acceptance and modesty. It’s a good practice and probably the easiest way to meditate.

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The sorry mockingbird is outside my window.

Decided against original reply.

I am currently reading a book about mindfulness by a Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh.

It’s very good too. Lots of illustrations and cool advice on how to live in the moment, meditation, breathing etc.

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The therapists at the Dept. I go to are all about mindfulness. It’s a big thing. Breathing and meditation and other techniques that I’ve learned about in classes and N.A.M.I. support groups has been all new to me, as I have been in the system for many, many years. It’s about bringing yourself back before you float away. Getting centered. Focusing. Accepting. But it takes a dedicated practice. What works for one might be different than what works for another. You gotta experiment with different methods to see what’s the best for you. I can’t just read a book and get it. It has to be explained to me by someone who understands it well. Keep trying new things, I would suggest. Or else you’ll remain stuck.

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Thanks for the input. Highly appreciated :relaxed:

I did transcendental meditation for a couple of years. Its promoters make inflated claims about its effectiveness, but I did find it to be pretty effective relaxation therapy. I’m wondering how mindfulness works and if it can help me.