We find ourselves in a situation that is unexpected, complex and unthinkable a few weeks ago, brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic now spread across almost the whole world. It seems reasonable enough that we should sometimes lack the personal tools to cope with what has happened to our society. You are probably using more or less effective strategies automatically to manage it. You can also take on other resources more deliberately, which may help you cope better still. Some call this new scenario a war — the closest thing to a state of war this generation has lived through; others see it directly as a global catastrophe which, for the time being, forces us into confinement, a quarantine that changes the way we live.
Our habits today are completely different from the ones we had a month and a half ago. Negative sensations and emotions of varying intensity may plainly arise which we do not know how to face properly, among them:
Anxiety. Nervousness. Agitation. Loneliness. Fear. Distress. Worry. Sadness or apathy. Anger.
There are no ideal solutions for meeting these new circumstances, since every person has their own particular characteristics. It will vary, for instance, according to whether you are a member of the general population, someone with symptoms, someone who is ill, or a healthcare worker. Depending on your personality or your early learning, one piece of advice or another will suit you better.
What follows is a proposal for this period, in which I shall set out the theory and the practice of an activity that can help produce states of relaxation and well-being in all of us. Practised consistently, it can become part of our daily habits and turn into a philosophy of life. I am talking about getting through lockdown by practising mindfulness.
Where mindfulness comes from
The term mindfulness has no direct translation from English into Spanish, although it is recognised as “full attention and awareness”, living in the here and now. English adapted it from the word sati, from the Pali language. Its origins are ancient and lie in the Buddhist tradition, in Zen Buddhist meditation and in vipassana, under the ideal of living “the present moment”.
Attention, awareness and reflection on oneself or one’s surroundings are contemplative rather than evaluative. We observe openly, without prejudice, without judging, without criticism: a genuine sensory experience. Attention is adjusted voluntarily to each situation as it arises. The person who awoke the West’s interest in mindfulness was Jon Kabat-Zinn, molecular biologist, physician and professor at the University of Massachusetts. He used it as a therapeutic technique, through meditation, to produce the experience of full attention which, among other purposes, leads to physiological and emotional deactivation in the participant.
The benefits of mindfulness
Among the benefits that getting through lockdown by practising mindfulness can bring, these stand out:
- Physically: a healthier heart. Improved digestion. Less muscular tension. Better quality of sleep.
- Mentally: fewer intrusive thoughts and worries. A calmer mind. Better memory and powers of concentration.
- Emotionally: more pleasurable feelings and greater happiness. Reduced anxiety and protection against depressive states. Less loneliness. Better management and regulation of sadness or anger. We become less impulsive.
- Socially and relationally: learning to listen better and more actively. Responding rather than reacting. Greater gratitude, compassion and kindness towards others. Less criticism and judgement, of ourselves and of others.
- Physiologically and neurologically: a strengthened immune system. Slower cellular ageing. Improvement in the areas of planning, organisation and problem-solving. Increased grey matter density. Reduced stress hormones (cortisol).
The scientific evidence
The quantity and quality of articles and literature on the efficacy and validity of mindfulness practice keeps growing. There is, for instance, the correlation between sustained mindfulness practice and changes at the level of the brain (Lazar, Kerr, Wasserman, Gray, Greve, Treadway and McGarvey, 2005); the functional change it produces in the brain (Kilpatrick, Suyenobu, Smith, Bueller, Goodman, Creswell, Tillisch, Mayer and Naliboff, 2011); and the reduction in hormones associated with stress and inflammation, such as cortisol (Hoge, Bui, Palitz, Schwarz, Owens, Johnston, Pollack and Simon, 2017).
In the workplace it can produce greater self-confidence, building resistance and resilience, which in turn feeds into productivity and performance (Good, Lyddy, Glomb, Bono, Brown, Duffy, Baer, Brewer and Lazar, 2015). The University of Wisconsin in the United States showed, through a study, the following results after eight weeks of mindfulness training: practitioners had a more optimistic frame of mind and were able to connect with the more rewarding aspects of their work. Research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, meanwhile, concluded that mindfulness training increased job satisfaction and reduced emotional exhaustion (Hülsheger, Alberts, Feinholdt and Lang, 2012).
Practising mindfulness to get through lockdown
As I mentioned, mindfulness practice can be developed through programmes designed over several weeks by qualified professionals from the field of psychology. What I am proposing here, though, is a series of simple, everyday practices with which you can begin this meditative activity and gradually build it into your daily routine.
- Practice 1. Full attention to the breath. This exercise can be done anywhere, at any time. It consists in focusing all your attention for one minute on your breathing. With your eyes open, breathe more deeply (from the diaphragm) so that the air reaches the abdomen. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, as though blowing out a candle. Guide your attention to the sound and rhythm of your breath. Your mind will jump from one thought to another — that is normal, and we do not deny those thoughts. Return naturally to focusing on the breath and on the sensations that go with it.
Variation: with sustained practice you will be able to increase the number of minutes, feeling more comfortable and connecting genuinely with your body and mind. It can also be done with the eyes closed.
- Practice 2. Conscious observation of an object. Choose an object you have at home — any will do (avoid distractions such as a mobile phone). A picture, a vase, a plant. The idea is to guide your attention to it completely for several minutes. Do not assess the object for what it does or where it came from. Concentrate instead on its shape, its colour, its smell, or on whatever it suggests to you. In observing consciously we can have the sensation of being awake, because the mind frees itself from other matters and from automatic thoughts and focuses exclusively on the object.
Variation: you can change the object of observation and focus instead on listening attentively to music.
Other mindfulness practices
- Practice 3. Counting. With your eyes closed, focus your attention by counting slowly to ten, imagining the shape of each number and what it conveys in your mind. If other thoughts interrupt — again, that is normal — you can carry on from the same number or start again. With practice you will do the exercise naturally and with more pleasurable sensations.
Variation: count to 20, 30, 40, and associate each number with a colour, a size, a person and so on.
- Practice 4. Observing thoughts. In the situation of lockdown under COVID-19 we run on “autopilot”, and if you are stressed and worried it is very hard to change that state and move to one in which you can focus on conscious thoughts. Setting out to leave the stressed state can even be counterproductive and produce more stress. The idea in this practice is to choose one or several of the hundreds of thoughts that may pass through our minds over the course of a day and hold our attention fully on them — and, though others assail us, to return deliberately to the ones we chose. We choose the thought; the thoughts do not choose us.
Variation: choose and focus your attention on a part of the body or on bodily sensations.
You can also practise techniques used for this purpose such as the body scan (Kabat-Zinn, 2002), in which a person experiences the sensations their body produces by being guided consciously, actively and attentively through its different parts.
Getting through lockdown by practising mindfulness is an appealing proposal, and one that can settle into your life as a healthy habit. Your health will thank you for it.
Celestino González Fernández, PhD Candidate, Lecturer at CMI
