How to Use Mindfulness to Treat Mental Disorders

Mindfulness can be a powerful tool to help those suffering from certain mental disorders recognize and stop certain types of behavior. While the term originated in Buddhist practice, many mental health professionals are now using this as a tool to help recogize patterns without feeling guilty or remorseful. There is even a new type of therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder, called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which incorporates mindfulness and other spiritual practices into treatment.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. One of the hardest things to deal with when someone has a mental disorder is discerning the true from the false. Hallucianations and thoughts have a strong hold on the one who is suffering, even though logically they make no sense.

2. In mindfulness, you will act as if you are observing yourself. To begin, you may want to set aside time each day to practice. A space of about 10 minutes is good to start. The goal of mindfulness is to live fully in the moment, without worrying about the future or yesterday.

3. During your designated mindfulness time, go about your daily activities as you normally would.

4. Pay attention to what is going through your mind at this time. Whenever you begin to feel anxious or agitated, stop and take three long, deep breaths.

5. Ask yourself why it is you are agitated. Chances are you were worrying about the future or dwelling on the past. Write this down and move on. Do not stop to analyze it or beat yourself up. If you are still feeling out of sorts, do more deep breathing until you calm down and return to your normal activities.

6. Repeat Step 5 every time you start to feel agitated.

7. If you are in therapy, bring this to your therapist and discuss it once you have written down your mindfulness sessions for one week.

Tips & Warnings

• Be patient with yourself. Learning to live mindfully takes practice.
• If you start out at ten minutes daily, you can increase the amount of time by one minute each day or week.
• Continue to write your observations down for at least one month, or as long as your therapist would like you to.
• Don't use these sessions as an excuse to beat yourself up. You are simply observing yourself without judgement.
• Don't give up if you get off-track! Just start back as soon as you remember.

[Merriment]

on 1/31/2009 Excellent tips!