Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
“Meditation Doesn’t Work for Me.”
By Lynne Gots, posted on August 22nd, 2015.
Learning to disentangle ourselves from distressing thoughts and observe our internal reactions before responding are skills worth cultivating. They can help us cope better with a wide variety of emotions—anxiety, depression, and anger, to name a few—without resorting to avoidance, withdrawal, distraction, or lashing out to deal with them.
Mindfulness, defined by Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) founder Jon Kabat-Zinn as “paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment to moment,” is a way to change the way we respond to our thoughts. A growing body of evidence from brain-imaging studies suggests that regular meditation practice—one important means of cultivating mindfulness—actually alters the brain structures involved in attention, concentration, and willpower, as well as the areas central to emotional reactions.
These findings have been compelling enough to convince me to develop a personal meditation practice (I’ve described my own experience with MBSR in previous posts) and also to add meditation to my cognitive-behavioral therapy repertoire.
It’s been a hard sell, and I understand why. I was a mindfulness skeptic myself. I’m not a fan of approaches smacking of New Age pop psychology, and the currently voguish “mindful revolution“, which has spawned to date 462 iPhone apps along with the titular Time cover story, carries with it that woo-woo whiff. But, as I said, the science backing it has sold me.
Not so for many of the people I think might benefit from practicing meditation. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard, “Meditation doesn’t work for me.” I’m always curious to understand what that means. If meditation were “working,” what would be happening?
The most common answers I get to my question are: “I can’t empty my mind,” or, “I’m always thinking,” or “I just can’t relax.”
I suspect the impossible goal of mind-emptying comes from all the yoga teachers who end their classes with Shavasana, inviting practitioners to let go of their thoughts and relax. While relaxation is indeed a major benefit of yoga, it’s not the goal of mindfulness meditation (although it sometimes can be a pleasant by-product). Perhaps, fittingly, Shavasana is also known as “corpse pose,” reminding us that as long as we’re living, breathing, sentient beings, our minds will always be busy thinking.
So if achieving a relaxed feeling and a blank mind aren’t the point of mindfulness meditation, why do it?
The major benefit of practicing mindfulness for emotional health is to learn to let experiences unfold without filtering them through the layers of thoughts, comparisons, judgments, interpretations, and memories often taking us away from the present and into a morass of negative mental activity. It’s not about stopping thoughts but about redirecting them, taking a more objective perspective, and focusing on what’s important in any given moment.
In short, meditation is weight-training for the brain. It strengthens the mental muscles for attention and concentration. And, as with lifting weights, results don’t happen overnight. You can’t expect to become a power lifter after one or two sessions in the gym. Yet many would-be meditators get discouraged and give up when they don’t see immediate changes.
And what if your mind keeps going a mile-a-minute and it wanders and you get lost in thought and your attention can’t stay on your breath (the most common focal point used in mindfulness meditation) for more than a second at a time before you start thinking again about that conversation you had with your boss or what you’re going to make for dinner tonight or how you’ll find the time to finish the project that’s due tomorrow or where you’re going to get the money for your daughter’s orthodontia or whether that weird mole on your arm is cancer or what a loser you are because you can’t even concentrate on your breath and meditate right?
Then I’d say you’ll get lots of practice refocusing, again and again and again, which will help build those mental muscles.
And I’d also say,”Congratulations!” Because you’re alive.
Tags: Jon Kabat-Zinn, meditation, mindfulness
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness |
Giving Yourself Permission to Relax
By Lynne Gots, posted on July 6th, 2015.
I just read an article on the popular home design website Houzz: “What You’re Reading this Summer–and Where.” Readers submitted their suggestions for books and their photos of favorite places to curl up with them–comfy chairs, plush sofas, porch gliders, and poolside chaises.
It got me thinking. I love nothing more than to lose myself in a long novel, and some of my favorite childhood memories involve trips to the musty library in the quaint Long Island town where we spent many summers. I’d collect a stack of books to last me a week and settle into an old wicker chair, legs dangling over the arm, to read until my mother insisted I go outside for some fresh air.
I still get that same feeling of anticipation when I’m searching for new literary material, though these days I browse Amazon for titles to download rather than library stacks for volumes to check out. But when I considered the question posed by Houzz, I realized I no longer have a special spot where I go to read. In fact, as much as I enjoy the act of reading for pleasure (as opposed to reading for professional development, which I tend to do in my office), unless I’m sick or on vacation, I never sit down just to read.
Most of my recreational reading takes place in snippets. I always squeeze in a few pages at bedtime until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore but I consider that more a habit, like brushing my teeth, than an activity sui generis. Sometimes I prop my iPad on the bathroom counter to read while I’m drying my hair. If I’m not checking my phone for messages or making a move on WordsWithFriends, I may read while waiting for an appointment or eating lunch.
So why don’t I ever stretch out on the couch with the dogs curled up at my feet to spend a few hours with a good book? Because it would feel too self-indulgent. Pangs of guilt for not tackling my never-ending To Do List would tarnish the experience.
I know I’m not alone in feeling uneasy about taking the time to engage in an activity purely for enjoyment. I frequently tell others with over-developed senses of responsibility and excessive stress levels to unwind by doing something pleasurable and engaging. Perfectionists in particular have trouble allowing themselves, even when relaxing, to give their achievement-oriented behaviors a rest. (Think about the golf enthusiasts obsessively dedicated to improving their games, or the recreational runners always pushing themselves to shave a few seconds off their race times.)
Maybe it’s too much of a leap to expect a chronic striver to hop off the “Doing” treadmill from time to time and embrace the Zen of “Being.” But for those in need of a rationale for resting, it might help to know that even business consultants and productivity experts are touting the value of “strategic renewal” through relaxation. As Tony Schwarz of The Energy Project, a management consulting organization, says: “Downtime is productive time.”
So let’s put an end to feeling guilty about relaxing. As for me, I’m going to find a cozy place to read my book.
Tags: perfectionism, relaxation, summer reading
Posted in Acceptance and Mindfulness, Perfectionism |
Old advice about coping with OCD is new again
By Lynne Gots, posted on May 4th, 2015.
OCD is a formidable opponent. It’s the sharpest prosecutor, the meanest bully, the dirtiest thug. Arguing, appeasing, or getting into a fight with it won’t work. You’ll lose.
If you suffer from repugnant mental intrusions, you may believe your thoughts are the problem. You’ve probably spent hours, days, or, quite possibly, years trying to reason with them or push them away. One obsession may resolve only to have another one surface. It’s exhausting and demoralizing.
Surprising as it may seem, your thoughts are not the problem. Everyone has thoughts, even bad ones. In a seminal 1978 experiment, psychologists Stanley Rachman and Padmal de Silva found that nearly 90% of the “ordinary” people (that is, a non-clinical population) they sampled admitted to having had occasional thoughts about committing violent crimes, engaging in taboo sexual acts (with children, family members, or animals), blurting out obscenities or racial slurs in public, harming themselves or loved ones, or doing something inappropriate (such as laughing at a funeral). The main differences between these so-called “non-clinical” obsessions and the “clinical” ones of someone with OCD are the frequency of the thoughts, the distress they cause, and the efforts expended (ie, the compulsions) to get rid of them.
British writer David Adam has recently published an excellent memoir, interspersed with fascinating historical accounts of the disorder, about his struggles with OCD, The Man Who Couldn’t Stop: OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought.
Here is some cutting-edge advice in Adam’s book on how to cope with obsessional thoughts:
“Grit your teeth in the face of your thoughts and for God’s sake be more obstinate, head strong and wilful [sic] than the most stubborn peasant or shrew. Indeed, be harder than an anvil . . .If necessary speak coarsely and disrespectfully like this: Dear devil, if you can’t do better than that, kiss my toe.”
The statement embodies all we’ve learned from evidence-based treatment. It’s exactly the type of approach psychologist Reid Wilson advocates when he talks about “chasing the bogeyman” (I attended a workshop he gave on this treatment method just a few weeks ago).
An up-to-the-minute strategy for dealing with intrusive thoughts. From the 16th century, courtesy of the theologian–and OCD sufferer–Martin Luther.
Tags: David Adam, OCD, Rachman and de Silva, repugnant obsessions
Posted in Anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder |
