Читать книгу Personal Development With Success Ingredients - Mo Abraham - Страница 170

The mental and physical state that mindfulness brings about can be helpful in treating many diseases since stress is a key factor in everything from heart disease to bipolar disorder.

Mindfulness also helps many people who are not 'ill' but feel that they could be living a happier and more meaningful life. However, there are two particular conditions that mindfulness can have a particular impact upon:

1.Depression

When we are depressed, our negative thoughts and negative moods become intertwined. We feel awful, we think we are a terrible person or that everything is going to be awful, and that makes our mood even worse. A downwards spiral is very easy to get into, especially if you have been depressed before, and we gain no pleasure from the things that usually cheer us up, and nor can we see anything in perspective.

Mindfulness helps to halt the escalation of the negative thoughts associated with depression and teaches us to focus on the present moment, rather than reliving the past or being concerned about the future.

Mindfulness can help us experience the world directly and without judgement. We may notice that we are feeling awful but we accept it, rather than trying to fight it, or let it worry us, and we do not panic. Hopefully, a depressed state can be avoided in this way or at the very least accepted: people with depression very often feel guilty or anxious about being depressed and that makes it worse.

2.Chronic Pain

People who are in chronic pain have got stuck there because their brain became attuned to pain during an original painful condition. So, even though they are healed from a physical perspective, their brains are so well wired to feel pain that they take a lot of convincing that the body is not, in fact, under any threat.

Sufferers are usually trapped in a cycle where they have a good day, do too much, and then have a bad day or several of them, a process known as activity cycling. The 're-wiring' of the brain needed is usually done by the sufferer staying well within their limits and then gradually increasing their level of activity. It is also very important to exercise the body gently so that the brain stops 'being afraid' of certain areas.

Sufferers usually attempt to hold a painful area rigidly so that it never moves, and the clenched muscles that result can just cause more pain. Mindfulness means that the sufferer is firstly aware of their pain, and then accepts it, rather than worrying that they are hurting and not going to be able to do something later on. It also means that sufferers are aware when they need to rest and do not push themselves too hard, and thus avoid activity cycling. This process is not easy and chronic pain programs generally do not result in a complete absence of pain. However, sufferers generally find that they manage their pain much better and enjoy life far more as a result.