Description
MINDFULNESS reveals a set of simple yet powerful practices that you can incorporate into daily life to help break the cycle of anxiety, stress, unhappiness, and exhaustion. It promotes the kind of happiness and peace that gets into your bones. It seeps into everything you do and helps you meet the worst that life throws at you with new courage.
The book is based on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). MBCT revolves around a straightforward form of mindfulness meditation which takes just a few minutes a day for the full benefits to be revealed. MBCT has been clinically proven to be at least as effective as drugs for depression and is widely recommended by US physicians and the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence – in other words, it works. More importantly it also works for people who are not depressed but who are struggling to keep up with the constant demands of the modern world.
MBCT was developed by the book’s author, Oxford professor Mark Williams, and his colleagues at the Universities of Cambridge and Toronto. By investing just 10 to 20 minutes each day, you can learn the simple mindfulness meditations at the heart of MBCT and fully reap their benefits. The book includes links to audio meditations to help guide you through the process. You’ll be surprised by how quickly these techniques will have you enjoying life again.
“Raisins are so insignificant; we tend to eat them by the handful while doing something ‘more important’…Once you see the difference that paying attention can make to small things in life, you start to get an inkling of the cost of inattention. Just think of all of the pleasures of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching that are drifting by you unnoticed…You only ever have a moment to live, this moment…”
Life can be more than what you think it is; what your mind tells you about reality. It can be more than the distance between here and there. The good news is that that life you are looking for is right here, right now, waiting to be unfolded. The richness, the variety, the luxury is already here, waiting to be savored. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to get that kind of life, you don’t need to quit work and travel the world, you don’t need any of that. What you really need to do is read this damn book and follow the practices! The magic will unfold itself. Let me explain:
Five years ago I purchased this book, and it is the best money I have ever spent. In fact, I would venture to say it is the best thing that I have ever done for myself. This book is basically my personal bible and drastically changed my life for the better. It will change your life for the better if you follow it; that I guarantee. The wisdom and the practice of this book will soak into the very fibers of your body and give you true satisfaction and peace you have always been looking for.
I used to be anxious, quick to anger, always worrying about the future. Always caught up in my head and my thoughts. I had chronic anxiety, depression, and was generally a nervous person. Modern society and extreme business have a way of amplifying this problem. After just a few weeks of using this book, my life changed. I feel that I am one of the happiest people alive, that I can be successful at anything I put my mind to, and that life is no longer passing me by. My relationships are fulfilling, work is meaningful, and I am no longer dependent on the external life to make my own happiness.
This book will teach you to allow life to unfold moment by moment; it will teach you to be kind to yourself and realize the true nature of thoughts. The truth that you are not your thoughts, thoughts & feelings & impulses are transient, and that you ultimately have control over how you relate to these things. Mindfulness will change your brain (yes, physically will change the structure of your brain) so that it is resilient, sharp, and meaningful. It isn’t some mystical crap, it has real scientifically-proven benefits. I invite you to read the book to find out more about this and how to practice mindfulness in your daily life. No matter what, know that mindfulness CAN work for you, that everyone’s mind is like a crazy monkey, it’s not just yours, and that your mind will jump around a LOT and that is completely and totally expected.
This program has become my “parachute”. I am 46 years old in excellent health and recently had succumb to severe anxiety that has been plaguing me for months. My doctor prescribed xanax which kept me functional but did not fix the problem. I struggled to sleep at night and had difficulty managing stress all day long. I was a nervous wreck. The doctor’s solution was an anti-psychotic but I instead chose to start this program. After 4 weeks i was off the xanax and my mood improved significantly. After 2 months i was feeling very good but one night I experienced the beginnings of a panic attack for no apparent reason other than letting my mind run away. I immediately started a meditation and within seconds completely diffused what was going to be a runaway train. What was most surprising was how good i felt after the attack was arrested. I was concerned it was going to come back and it did not. I assume this is because I had learned to treat anxiety symptoms as “fake news”. I learned to listen to my body and not to my brain which is the whole basis of the program and it absolutely works.
In addition, i found the guided audio superb. Mark Williams voice and guidance truly relax you. They tend to relax you so much that i sometimes found it difficult to stay awake. Don’t read that as “boring” but rather it will take you from a state of anxious to calm and relaxed. I wish i could meet this guy to shake his hand and say thank you.
Have been reading mindful-oriented books these past six month to help de-stress, make habit changes and live more in the present. I first checked this book out from our local library to see if I would like it and would want to own it. I do like it – very much so.
The exercises are easy-to-do and logical, with a general lacing of common-sense. I find the exercises provoke contemplation and personal evaluation – easy to get lost in thinking.
Also, one might think they could easily read the book quickly due to easy visual layout of the book and how the text is written. However, I challenge you to NOT be “caught” in what the authors are presenting in the hopes you become more mindful and present.
Finally, I have yet to use the book as a straight-forward “8 week plan”. So far, I’ve just opened the book and thought about what was the page(s). Often, I have to leave it for a few days or week or to and practice.
“Mindfulness” has helped me and I’m only beginning to do the “plan”. I highly recommend investing in the book for your personal library.
i took a free 8 week mindfulness course at my university where this book was used. i was coming off of prozac a few weeks before i started this program (i was on prozac for 2 years for anxiety & depression) and needless to say, i was a mess. i feel so doomed and sad; dreadful, is the only way to describe it. but this book, along with the group, changed my life. you have to practice EVERY DAY, but you will notice a difference after the first week. meditation changes your brain in so many ways, you’ll never go back to the way you were.
it’s been a month or two now after the 8 week program and i still meditate every day. i can’t live without it, and i am still prozac free!
don’t let the amount of “time” you need to meditate for intimidate you. just sit down, and do it. whether it’s 3 minutes or 55 minutes each day, just do it, don’t judge yourself or say “i need to meditate 10,000 hours before i’m not anxious or depressed”. no- that is just your worried thoughts getting in the way.
i’m currently looking for the “next step” in this journey (book-wise), but i continue daily with my meditations and mindfulness. it’s called a “practice” for a reason! stick with it. don’t judge yourself. give it everything, as if your life depended on it, because it will change you.
Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World is an excellent exploration of the practice of Mindfulness meditation, an ancient technique designed to enable one to take a mental step back, as it were and see their stream of thoughts as a series of events that arise, linger momentarily and then fade away.
The key benefit of this practice is that one learns, over time, that the mind has the capability to actually distance itself from these thoughts and regard them impartially. This can give a person the ability to take perspective and choose their response to these thoughts, whether that response be simple curiosity, acknowledgement or to simply let them fade away.
The book explains how evolution designed our mind to be a problem solver, for situations such as where is the next food source, is there a predator nearby, where is there water, etc. However, in many situations this very problem solving mode can become the problem, as it tries to solve “problems” with no apparent logical solution, such as “Why am I feeling so low on such a beautiful day?” or ‘Why am I so tense?”. In these cases problem solving mode and lead to a downward spiral of brooding and even depression.
Mindfulness practice steps back from problem solving mode, allows one to impartially observe the mental events taking place, and
gain perspective on them, thus halting the brooding cycle.
I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to become more calm and more insightful about life and themselves. Remember, however, Mindfulness takes commitment and practice, as does any useful skill.