Mark Williams (2)

This review is based on the Blinkist version of the book...thus a summary and my review needs to be qualified as such. Presumably the original full text has much more details and research.....but it also takes much longer to read. If I like the Blinkist version, I might seek out and read the full book. Meantime here are a few nuggets that particularly struck me:
Mindfulness is a mental training technique that’s compatible with all sorts of beliefs and ideas. You can be mindful anywhere show more from a minute to an entire day–it’s completely up to you. As for distracting you from your goals, it’s been shown that mindfulness actually helps to focus your mind.
Essentially, it’s all about compassionate awareness. You observe your thoughts and the feelings they evoke like you would clouds in the sky, without criticising or taking action. Take an example from everyday life. As you walk home from work, you begin thinking about how your colleague was rude to you earlier in the day. You could send an angry email complaining about their behaviour when you get home. But what would happen if you just watched your negative thought take shape before flying away–wouldn’t it be better to simply let it pass?........Mindfulness is about the ability to let negativity pass over you like a raincloud. It grounds you in the present and keeps you attentive to what’s happening right then and there.
Mindfulness has been shown to boost physical health and alleviate. Take it from the authors of a 2003 study published in the peer-reviewed American medical journal Psychosomatic Medicine. They found that mindfulness strengthened the immune system–preventing and battling flu, colds and other viruses....But that’s not all. Another research paper published in 2008 by Jon Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues showed that mindful meditation can help alleviate chronic pain......participants were much less likely to relapse into depression when they combined mindfulness with antidepressants–the overall chance of relapse plummeting from 68 to 30 percent!.....One study carried out in 2006 found that regularly practicing mindful meditation reduced anxiety, irritability and depression. Another group of scientists led by psychologist Amishi Jha established additional mental benefits in 2007. Mindfulness, their study found, boosted its practitioner’s memory, reaction times and physical endurance.....Finally, an article by Norman Farb and his associates in the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience journal, published in 2007, found that meditation strengthens and expands the part of the brain responsible for empathy. [I find that I’m a bit sceptical of these “scientific” findings but I’m unable to access the original articles or any critical reviews of that research so I guess one has to just accept the claims with a reservation].
When your mind is occupied with all the things you have to get done, your mind’s in the doing mode, which is an important aspect of mental life. Without it, you wouldn’t be able to make plans and ensure everything gets done.....By contrast, when you’re living in the moment, you’re in a completely different mode–call it the being mode. Let’s start with the doing mode. It’s an analytical frame of mind, and when you’re in it, you’re comparing things, focusing on goals or going over past events. All that thinking is exhausting......it’s easy to get caught up in reflection without actually doing anything.
The being mode is an entirely different state. When you’re in it, you’re much more present in the moment and reliant on conscious choices. When you’re doing, it’s easy to devour a couple of donuts at your desk without even really noticing. But when you’re being, you’re much more likely to seek out what you actually want and enjoy it. The doing mode can involve a lot of negativity, which may quickly become a quagmire. That’s because the mind and body are connected. Your mood affects your thoughts, and vice versa– creating both positive and negative feedback loops. It’s a different picture when you’re in the being mode. Because you’re present in the moment, you can experience feelings more intensely rather than trying to escape them,......In other words, you break the negative cycle associated with the doing mode.
That’s what mindfulness is all about: taking a break from doing and simply being!
You can train yourself in mindfulness by following an eight-week program.
The benefits outweigh the work you’ll be putting in, and at the end of the course, you’re guaranteed to feel less stressed, calmer and ready to tackle life’s many adversities head on!...The first week of the course is all about becoming aware of your autopilot.....A great way to begin taking back some control is to dedicate time to a meditation called “mindfulness of the body and breath.” It’s a simple eight-minute exercise designed to fully center you in the present.
1. Start by getting comfortable....Once you’ve done that, turn your attention to your breath. Do this exercise twice a day for the first week.
2. The second week of the course is designed to center you in your own body....The 14-minute “body scan” meditation aims to unblock the communication channels between your body and mind....Follow the same procedure as the previous meditation, but now imagine that each breath inflates the body part you’re focusing on as you inhale and deflates it as you exhale. Pay close attention to the sensations you experience as you do this–the tingling in your feet or butterflies in your stomach, for example......Do this twice a day for the whole week.
3. Weeks three and four focus on developing greater compassion and sensory awareness. Week three is designed to help train an “approach system” that’ll get you into your being mode. But when your approach system is activated, you change the way you look at problems, and rather than trying to avoid them, you begin to view them with curiosity and compassion. It is all about accepting things as they are without immediately trying to improve them. Start with the eight-minute “breath and body” meditation. Slowly and gently raise your arms until they’re horizontal with your shoulders....While you’re doing that, focus your mind on your boundaries and how far you can stretch. Pay attention to individual sensations you might experience as you move your body. Do this once a day....In addition to this, week three involves doing the “three-minute breathing space” meditation twice a day.....Here, you just take two minutes to tune into your feelings, thoughts and body, before spending a minute taking deep breaths, focusing on inhaling and exhaling.
4. Great, now you’re ready for week four, which is about learning to take a step back from your thoughts.....The meditation you’ll be doing is called “sounds and thoughts,” and in it, you simply spend eight minutes doing nothing but paying attention to the sounds around you.
5. Weeks five and six are about exploring difficulties and kindness.....The ten-minute meditation you’ll be practicing daily over the next seven days is called “exploring difficulties.”.....Make yourself comfortable.....When you feel ready, turn your thoughts to to a difficult or unpleasant topic.....Once you’ve found the spot, let those sensations sink in while taking deep breaths......Combine this meditation with the “breath and body,” “sounds and thoughts,” “exploring difficulties” and “breathing space” meditations you’ve already practiced.
6. Now you’re set up for week six!...The next seven days are about tackling overgeneral memory.........Overgeneral memory is the tendency to think of some event in your past in purely negative terms.......This week you’ll focus on the “three-minute breathing space” meditation from week three, as well as a new exercise called the “befriending meditation.” Take a moment to attune yourself to your body and your breathing. Now begin implanting a positive affirmation by repeating it silently to yourself. The author’s affirmation is “May I be free from suffering. May I be as happy and healthy as it is possible for me to be. May I have ease of being.”......The next step is to mentally send your wishes of happiness to someone you love, then a mere acquaintance and, lastly, a stranger or someone you actually hold a grudge against......Giving and accepting kindness is the first step towards healing and letting go of the past.
7. The seventh and eighth weeks focus on physical and mental nourishment. Week seven is about figuring out what nourishes your body and soul, and what depletes you......This week’s exercise is a little different. Rather than just practicing meditations, you’ll be making a list of all the things that give you a sense of nourishment as well as those that sap your strength. This will allow you to strike a better balance between the two....Once you’ve done that, go back to the meditations you’ve already learned. Take the two you found most nourishing and add them to this week’s routine.......The important thing is to tailor everything you’ve learned to your own needs and schedule....
8. Ask yourself what you found most difficult over the previous seven weeks. What do you think you still need to work on? Was there anything missing? Answering these questions will help you weave your mindfulness parachute, meaning a patchwork of practices for you to engage in that address your particular needs.
Another great tip for maintaining a consistent meditation practice is to write down on a piece of paper why you’re practicing mindfulness. Keep this paper in a place where you’ll see it every day, as this will help keep you motivated........
The key message in this book: Mindfulness meditation helps you get a better perspective on your constantly changing thoughts, feelings and moods. A different view of things means you’re better equipped to confront your state of mind and avoid getting caught in negative feedback loops. This forms a great foundation for a happier and fuller life!
My take on the book? As a study of contemporary Mindfulness ....especially the variety popularised by Jon Kabat-Zinn....the book is probably a pretty good summary of the 8 week course. However, not everyone thinks Mindfulness is great. For example Ronald Purser in McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality suggests that Mindfulness is nothing more than basic concentration training. Although derived from Buddhism, it's been stripped of the teachings on ethics that accompanied it, as well as the liberating aim of dissolving attachment to a false sense of self while enacting compassion for all other beings...... He says that the mindfulness cheerleaders claim that we can train our brains to be happy, like exercising muscles. Happiness, freedom and wellbeing become the products of individual effort. Such so-called "skills" can be developed without reliance on external factors, relationships or social conditions.
Underneath its therapeutic discourse, mindfulness subtly reframes problems as the outcomes of choices. Personal troubles are never attributed to political or socioeconomic conditions, but are always psychological in nature and diagnosed as pathologies. Society therefore needs therapy, not radical change.
Seems to me that mindfulness is becoming a new religion under the guise of science and Purser is validly criticising the movement. Still....as an exposé of mindfulness, I think the book does a pretty good job. But it’s totally uncritical. Four stars from me. show less

There are not many books that I've read that I can claim have seriously changed my life. I've read books I've loved, that have shown and taught me new things, but rarely do I find one that has such a profound positive change in my everyday life. This book came highly recommended and I can see why. Mindfulness is a practice that can change your life, and this book has so much good advice that is easy to put into practice straight away. Yes, there are ongoing long-term practises to work show more through, but just having someone put things into a certain perspective can have a positive effect on your life. A different view on how we see the world and suddenly things become a lot clearer.

I've had a lot of CBT and struggled with depression and anxiety as well as chronic pain and other health conditions, and having just been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome as well, mindfulness has provided me with a breath of fresh air and hope that I honestly didn't think existed. I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone with a chronic illness, mental health condition, or anyone who has suffered from abuse or bullying in their past.

Edit: After seeing a bad review below I want to add something. This book is listed on spirituality bookshelves by some users; it has absolutely nothing to do with religion. If you're picking this book up and expecting it to be linked to religion (particularly a Western religion) then you are going to be disappointed. That's not to say that religious people won't gain anything from it, just that it exists outside religions, politics, etc.

My advice is to go into this book without any expectations and just see what it can do for you. show less

I listened to this on audiobook, and I quite enjoyed it. The MBCT program it introduces is very similar to the MBSR program as outlined in Jon Kabat-Zinn's Full Catastrophe Living but with a few additions that make it specifically helpful to those who suffer from chronic or recurrent bouts of depression. These include the Three-Minute Breathing Space, the Body Door, the Thought Door, intended to help rewire our immediate reactions to unpleasant situations. I particularly like the focus on show more noticing bodily sensations and thoughts as symptoms rather than as part of who we.

I would listen to this book in the car on the way to and from the grocery store or in the kitchen while making supper and feel calm and relaxed and ready to cope with anything when I got home. And then I got home and the kids would be arguing or my spouse would wonder aloud why I spent $10 on mushrooms (it's because they were on sale and I bought a bunch of them) and I would totally lose my calm. But it was nice while it lasted.

The only thing I don't like about this book is that, like the MBSR program which I've done and found very helpful, it requires a pretty significant investment of time. Sure, it's worth it, but that doesn't make the time any easier to find or make it so I'm any less likely to fall asleep while trying to meditate. show less

From my Cannonball Read 6 review...

Many people find themselves with over-scheduled social lives, or work situations filled with a seemingly endless stream of projects, meetings and deadlines. Perhaps these people are facing challenges at home, or school, or with health. The challenges might seem minor to others, or perhaps others observe and wonder how the person is still functioning given everything that’s happening in their lives. We hear it a lot from women who have children and also show more work outside of the home – there are demands everywhere, and these women can’t seem to get a break.

Without going into too much detail about why I found myself drawn to this book (during yet ANOTHER trip to Powell’s in Portland – that place should just take all of my money now), but I wanted something that would help me to be more present in my life, and kinder to myself. My husband meditates, and it really helps him when he’s feeling a bit off. Given that, this specific book appealed to me in many ways – it wasn’t horribly long (about 250 pages), it had a clear plan (it focuses on an eight-week meditation program), and it even came with a link to audio files to guide the meditations.

I was successful in keeping up with the program for about a week. I did read each chapter, and I really enjoyed the messages within them, but I don’t think this book was what I wanted. I sort of want to meditate, and I mostly enjoyed the meditations in this book, but I found the information within the chapters leading up to the meditations themselves to be much more useful. It was probably not the best book for me given what I was looking for, but I think it was well-written, supported with some research, and not overly flowery. Yes, it the authors discuss self-care, but if you have an aversion to anything that seems new age-y (although meditation is hardly that), you can still read this book and enjoy it. I’m sure I’ll end up referring back to it during challenging days, but it hasn’t turned me into a regular meditator. show less