Neuroplasticity: Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy

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In my previous article Neuroplasticity: Cognitive Behavior Therapy I went into how CBT believes that one’s thoughts, not the external elements, affect the way one feels. The goal of CBT for anxiety disorder patients is to determine their negative thinking patterns and correct them. We also covered the treatment techniques and interventions. Today I will go into Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). This is a relatively new type of psychotherapy and can sometimes be confused with CBT.

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“To be in harmony with the wholeness of things
is not to have anxiety over imperfections.”
-Dogen Zenji

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Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, according to Good Therapy (https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/mindfulness-based-cognitive-therapy), “combines cognitive behavioral techniques with mindfulness strategies in order to help individuals better understand and manage their thoughts and emotions in order to achieve relief from feelings of distress.” It was initially developed for recurrent depression but they found that it was also beneficial for clients who have a wide range of mental health concerns.

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What Is Mindfulness?

According to Harley Therapy (https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/cbt-mbct-difference.htm), Mindfulness “is a mental state and therapeutic technique attained by purposefully focusing your awareness on the present moment, while calmly and without judgement acknowledging your feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations.” Mindfulness is an ancient concept practiced by the Buddhist and other Eastern spiritual philosophies. Their belief is that “a calm awareness of one’s body, feelings and mind is an important part of the road to self-actualization.

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“Be mindful. Be grateful. Be positive. Be true. Be kind.”
-Roy T. Bennett

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The Harley Therapy article went on to say that Dr. Jon Kat-Zinn took this concept and developed a psychological tool in 1970s to treat clients who had anxiety, stress and chronic pain. Today mindfulness has been recognized by many renowned physicians, scientists and psychologists.

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How Does MBCT Work?

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_cognitive_therapy) states that “The MBCT program is a group intervention that lasts 2 hours, and one day-long class after the fifth week. However, much of the practice is done outside of classes, where the participant uses guided meditations and attempts to cultivate mindfulness in their daily lives.” MBCT focuses on teaching the client how to pay attention or concentrate with purpose, in each moment and without judgment. By doing this, MBCT feels the client will soon recognize that holding onto their feelings is ineffective and not good for their mental health.

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“Every human being has the freedom
to change at any instant.”
-Viktor Frankl

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Throughout the program, the client learns “mind management skills which facilitate heightened metacognitive awareness (awareness of one’s thinking and the strategies one is using), acceptance of negative thought patterns and an ability to respond in skillful ways. During MBCT patients learn to decenter their negative thoughts and feelings, allowing the mind to move from an automatic thought pattern to conscious emotional processing."

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According to Good Therapy (https://www.goodtherapy.org) “MBCT helps participants learn how to recognize their sense of being and see themselves as separate from their thoughts and mood. This disconnect can allow people to become liberated from thought patterns in which the same negative messages may be replayed over and over. After developing an awareness of the separation between thoughts, emotions, and the self, people in treatment may find that while the self and the emotions may exist simultaneously, they do not have to exist within the same dimension. This insight can contribute to healing by helping individuals learn to interject positive thoughts into negative moods in order to disarm those negative moods.”

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“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life,
live in the moment, live in the breath.”
-Amit Ray

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Popular MBCT Exercises and Techniques

As stated above MBCT is a group-based therapy program that is an 8 week course to assist clients in coping with both mental and physical symptoms. The groups meet once a week for 2 hours and the participants must complete homework outside of class for 6 days a week. Homework includes practicing mediation, doing an audio-guided mindfulness exercises and some techniques one of which is a three-minute breathing space exercise. The following exercises and techniques are from the Positive Psychology Program (https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/mbct-mindfulness-based-cognitive-therapy):

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“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness.
If you are attentive, you will see it.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh

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Three-Minute Breathing Space

A quick exercise that is undertaken in three steps:

• The first minute is spent on answering the question, “how am I doing right now?” while focusing on the feelings, thoughts and sensations that arise and trying to give these words and phrases.

• The second minute is spent on keeping awareness on the breath.

• The last minute is used for an expansion of attention from solely focusing on the breath, to feeling physical sensations and how they affect the rest of the body.

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Body Scan

• The Body Scan exercise begins with the participants lying on their backs with their palms facing up and their feet falling slightly apart.

• The facilitator asks the participants to lie very still for the duration of the exercise, and move deliberately and with awareness if it becomes necessary to adjust their position.

• Participants begin by bringing awareness to the breath, noticing the rhythm, and the experience of breathing in and expelling out. The facilitator explains that participants should not try to change the way they are breathing, just hold gentle awareness on the breath.

• The facilitator guides attention to the body next: how it feels, the texture of clothing against the skin, the contours of the surface on which the body is resting, the temperature of the body and the environment.

• Participants are instructed to bring their awareness to the parts of the body that are tingling, sore, or feeling particularly heavy or light. The facilitator asks the participants to note any areas of their body where they don’t feel any sensations at all or, conversely, areas that are hypersensitive.

• After the Body Scan is complete, participants are instructed to bring awareness back to the room when they are ready. It is recommended that participants open their eyes slowly and move naturally to a comfortable sitting position.

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Mindfulness Activites

There are too many activities to cover everything but I will briefly list a few here:

Mindfulness Stretching activities include the following:

• Pandiculation: a fancy term for a fairly simple stretch. To try this stretch, put your palms on your shoulders (or as close to your shoulders as you can get), raise your elbows up to shoulder height, open your mouth, and let out a big, satisfying yawn.

• Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation: PNF is a set of guidelines rather than a specific technique. This type of stretching is based on four principles: 1. avoid pain in your stretches, 2. stretch slowly to avoid injury, 3. exercise caution when stretching, and make sure to stretch the correct muscle, and 4. stretch carefully to avoid affecting other muscles or joints

• Yoga Poses:1. Gomukhasan involves opening the chest through extension of the triceps and shoulders, 2. Side to side neck stretch, 3. Pigeon Pose with your hips to the floor and one leg in front of you, perpendicular to the mat, and the other leg straight out behind you, 4. The Scorpion lie flat with your arms straight out to the side. Next, lift your right foot as high as you can with the sole straight up to the ceiling. Finally, lift your right hip and reach your right foot over to the outside of your left leg, while keeping your chest and arms on the floor.

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“Mindfulness is a way of
befriending ourselves and our experience.”
-Jon Kabat-Zinn

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Daily Mindfulness - There are six daily tasks that you can apply mindfulness practice to:

• Mindful Showering - While showering, direct your attention to the temperature of the water as it hits your body, the feel of the spray, the smell of the shampoo, and the sensation of lathered soap against your skin.

• Mindfully Brushing Your Teeth - bring your awareness to the sensations evoked by the feel of the brush. Ask yourself how the bristles feel against your teeth, your gums, and your tongue. Focus on the taste of the toothpaste to keep yourself in the present moment.

• Mindful Eating - bring your awareness to what you are eating, the taste, texture, temperature, etc. Turn off any distractions, like the computer, TV, radio, and smartphone, and allowing all of your senses to focus on.

• Mindful Dishwashing - Watch as you scrape or sponge the dirty dishes. Notice the textures, sights, and sounds of washing dishes.

• Mindfully Making Your Bed - Move deliberately and with purpose. Pay attention to what you are seeing and doing. Notice the way the sheets slip across the bed and the way the pillows look underneath the cover. Feel the different textures of the bedding, and above all, try to immerse yourself in your current task, as mundane as it may seem.

• Mindful Exercising - mindful exercising is a great way to incorporate mindfulness into a healthy lifestyle. Turn off the TV and music and bid farewell to friends and family for a few moments. Focus your awareness on how your muscles feel, how you are moving, and the changing rate of your breath. Give yourself a full experience of exercising without the distractions from the pain or heavy breathing that we often find ourselves trapped with.

By practicing mindfulness in everyday activities will help one maintain a healthy sense of awareness and balance throughout the day.

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A Brief Story of Julie Myerson: how MBCT changed her life

Before ending this article I wanted to share this story of Julie Myerson that I found at The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jan/11/julie-myerson-mindfulness-based-cognitive-therapy) which is a story about a woman who lived a lifetime of anxiety and one day experienced a panic attack that changed her life forever until she found MBCT. I will do a summary of this story to share her experience with you.

Julie Myerson was always an anxious child experiencing one terror after another. Her fear was endless going from a fear that the house would burn down, to the fear of burglars breaking in, to a dress that she feared would suffocate her. Eventually her fears spread to a fear of darkness, water, wolves, ghosts, illness, poison, & death. Later her fear was to sit on toilets, a fear of being accidentally locked inside a building. She would jump at the slightest sound, bite her nails, lie awake in bed. I think you get the picture that Julie Myerson was a very anxiety prone child.

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“Nothing endures but change.”
-Heraclitus

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Julie grew up and managed to graduate from college, worked in a theatre, falling in and out of love, having her babies and even achieved her dream of becoming a published writer. Then after writing her third novel, she woke up in the middle of the night gasping for air. She described the fear as inexplicable and intense. Over the course of a few months she had several episodes of tachycardia which eventually lead to the emergency room. She was released and got a clean bill of health.

Then in her late 40’s she went through tremendous stress with family issues and the press attacking her book. Everything was falling apart as she felt that she was a bad mother, a bad person, & a bad writer. She wrote that she literally fell apart. Then one day she drove off to go shopping and was only a few yards down the road when she was overwhelmed with panic. After that she had one attack after another. She couldn’t drive anymore and then she felt like she was losing her nerve for everything. She got claustrophobic, couldn’t take the bus, and everyday more and more triggers made her world smaller and smaller.

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She wrote that after all this she ended up in a MBCT group doing a body scan meditation & then doing a meditation while sitting in a chair for 40 minutes. She described the whole process very boring. After meditations the people in the group shared their experiences which made everything feel open, kind and accepting. She was sent home with daily homework that included progress sheets to fill out and various guided meditations on CDs. At first, meditating was hard and boring but she kept doing her homework because she wanted to get better.

Somehow, across the 6 weeks, something happened inside of her. She began to understand the value of the whole process. She found that being present was a very comfortable place without the dread. It was so peaceful and calm. Julie wrote that she developed a new relationship with her thoughts. The thoughts didn’t change but what changed was what she felt about them. They were simply thoughts. There was no judgement, nothing to act on. She was free from her chronic, debilitating anxiety. When the course was over she continued to meditate, every day, without fail.

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“When the resistance is gone,
the demons are gone.”
-Pema Chodron

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Julie Myerson went on to say that, “mindfulness is not about trying to change things, but accepting them as they are, non-judgmentally, with as much kindness and gentleness as possible.” In closing she said that she went back to everything that she stopped doing before. This story showed the journey that most panic attack sufferers go through. Fortunately for Julie Myerson, she found her salvation in MBCT.

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I apologize for this lengthy article but I felt it was important to share this story with everyone. Anxiety is something people need to understand. People really suffer and they need the support of everyone around them. Every day researchers are finding ways to help this horrible disorder. Even if you don’t suffer from anxiety be educated about it, as one day you may be able to help a person you know. It may be saving someone from a lifetime of misery.

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“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,
but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy”
-Thich Nhat Hanh

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I will continue to cover other interventions for anxiety. I hope you will continue to join me in my journey to explore the world of anxiety and what can help anxiety disorder sufferers to live a more fulfilled and happier life. Thank-you for reading my article on Neuroplasticity: Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy. If you would like to follow me, please check HERE.

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These are my previous article on Neuroplasticity & Anxiety if you are interested in reading it:

Neuroplasticity: Hope For People With Anxiety?
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@cabbagepatch/neuroplasticity-hope-for-people-with-anxiety

Neuroplasticity: How to deal with Anxiety Disorders Like Panic Attacks
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@cabbagepatch/neuroplasticity-how-to-deal-with-anxiety-disorders-like-panic-attacks

Neuroplasticity: Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@cabbagepatch/neuroplasticity-cognitive-behavior-therapy-cbt

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