Chapter 8

Using Mindfulness in Your Daily Life

In This Chapter

Integrating mindfulness at work

Turning travelling time into mindfulness time

Exploring mindfulness at home

Mindfulness is portable: you can be mindful anywhere and everywhere, not only on the meditation cushion or yoga mat. You can engage in a mindful state of mind while giving a presentation, feeding the cat, or hugging a friend. By cultivating a mindful awareness, you deepen your day-to-day experiences and break free from habitual mental and emotional patterns. You notice that beautiful flower on the side of the road, you become aware and release your tense shoulders when thinking about work, and you give space for your creative solutions to life’s challenges. All the small changes you make add up. Your stress levels go down, your depression or anxiety becomes a bit more manageable, and you begin to be more focused. You need to put in some effort to achieve this, but a totally different effort to the kind you’re probably used to; you’re then bound to change in a positive way. This chapter offers some of the infinite ways of engaging this ancient art of mindfulness in your daily life.

Using Mindfulness at Work

Work. A four-letter word with lots of negative connotations. Many people dislike work because of the high levels of stress they need to tolerate. A high level of stress isn’t a pleasant or healthy experience, so welcome any way of managing that stress with open arms.

In many countries, managing the level of stress that employees face, and taking active steps to reduce stress, is a legal obligation. If you think that you’re suffering from work-related stress, you need to consider talking to your manager or other appropriate person about the situation. Poor management standards are linked to unacceptably high levels of stress, and changes need to be made to ensure that stress is kept at reasonable levels, according to the Health and Safety Executive in the UK.

So how can mindfulness help with work?

• Mindfulness is proven to lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression.
• Mindfulness leads to a greater ability to focus, even when under pressure, which then results in higher productivity and efficiency and more creativity.
• Mindfulness improves the quality of relationships, including those at work.

Mindfulness isn’t simply a tool or technique to lower stress levels. Mindfulness is a way of being. Stress reduction is the tip of the iceberg. One business organisation I trained aptly said: ‘Mindfulness goes to the heart of what good business is about – deepening relationships, communicating responsibly, and making mindful decisions based on the present facts, not the limits of the past.’ When employees understand that giving mindful attention to their work actually improves the power of their brain to focus, their work becomes more meaningful and inspiring.

Beginning the day mindfully

Watching the 100-metre race in the Olympics, you see the athletes jump up and down for a few minutes before the start, but when they prepare themselves in the blocks, they become totally still. They focus their whole being completely, listening for the gunfire to signify the start. They begin in stillness. Be inspired by the athletes: begin your day with an inner stillness, so you can perform at your very best.

Start the day with some mindfulness meditation. You can do a full formal meditation such as a body scan or a sitting meditation (both these meditations are in Chapter 6), or perhaps some yoga or stretching in a slow and mindful way. Alternatively, simply sit up and feel the gentle ebb and flow of your own breath, or listen to the sounds of the birds as they wake up and chirp in the morning. Other alternatives include waking up early and eating your breakfast mindfully (see the mindful eating exercise in Chapter 6), or perhaps tuning in to your sense of smell, sight, and touch fully as you have your morning bath or shower; see what effect that has. That’s better than just worrying about your day.

Dropping in with mini meditations

When you arrive at work, you can easily be swept away by it all and forget to be mindful of what you’re doing. The telephone rings, you get email after email, and you’re called into endless meetings. Whatever your work involves, your attention is sure to be sucked up.

This habitual loss of attention and going from activity to activity without really thinking about what you’re doing is called automatic pilot mode. You simply need to change to mindful awareness mode. The most effective way of doing this is by one- to three-minute mini meditations, by feeling the sensation of your own breath as it enters and leaves your body. (Head to Chapter 5 for more about changing from automatic pilot.)

The breathing space meditation (a type of mini meditation) consists of three stages. In the first stage you become aware of your thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations. In the second stage you become aware of your own breathing. And in the third and final stage you expand your awareness to the breath and the body as a whole. For lots more on how to do the breathing space meditation, check out Chapter 7.

When you’re at work, give a mini meditation a go:

• When? You can do a mini meditation at set times or between activities. So when you’ve finished a certain task or job, you take time to practise a mini meditation before heading to the next task. In this way you increase the likelihood of being calm and centred, rather than flustered, by the time you get to the end of the day or working week. If you don’t like the rigidity of planning your mini meditations ahead of time, just practise them whenever the thought crosses your mind and you feel you need to go into mindfulness mode.

  Additionally, you can use the meditation to cope with a difficult situation, such as your boss irritating you. One way of coping with the wash of emotion that arises in such situations is to do a three-minute coping (breathing space) meditation (described in full in Chapter 7).

• How? Use any posture you like, as long as your spine is relaxed and upright. The simplest form of mini meditation is to feel your breathing. If you find that feeling the breath is too difficult, you can say to yourself ‘in’ as you breathe in, and ‘out’ as you breathe out. Alternatively, count each out-breath to yourself, going from one to ten. As always, when your mind drifts off, simply guide the attention gently and kindly back, even congratulating yourself for noticing that your mind had wandered off the breath.
• Where? You can do a mini meditation anywhere you feel comfortable. Usually, meditating is easier with your eyes closed, but that’s not so easy at work! You can keep your eyes open and softly gaze at something while you focus your attention inwards. If you work outside, try going for a slow walk for a few minutes, feeling your breathing and noticing the sensations of your feet as they gently make contact with the earth.

You may dearly want to try out the mini meditation at work, but you simply keep forgetting. Well, why not make an appointment with yourself? Perhaps set a reminder to pop up on your computer, or a screen saver with a subtle reminder for yourself. One of my corporate clients popped a card on her desk with a picture of a beautiful flower. Each time she saw the picture, she took three conscious breaths. This helped to calm her and had a transformative effect on the day. Or, try a sticky note or a gentle alarm on your mobile phone – be creative in thinking of ways to remind yourself to be mindful.

Going from reacting to responding

A reaction is your almost automatic thought, reply, and behaviour following some sort of stimulus, such as your boss criticising you. A response to a situation is a more considered, balanced choice, often creative in reply to the criticism, and leads to solving your problems rather than compounding them.

You don’t have to react when someone interrupts you in a meeting, takes away your project, or sends a rude email. Instead, having a balanced, considered response is most helpful for both you and your relationship with colleagues.

For example, say you hand in a piece of work to your manager, and she doesn’t even say thank you. Later on you ask what she thinks of your work, and she says it’s okay, but nothing special. You spent lots of time and effort to do a superb report, and you feel hurt and annoyed. You react by either automatically thinking negative thoughts about your manager and avoiding eye contact with her for the rest of the week, or you lash out with an outburst of accusations and feel extremely tense and frustrated for hours afterwards. Here’s how you can turn this into a mindful response.

Begin to feel the sensations of your breath. Notice whether you’re breathing in a shallow or rapid way because of your frustration, but try not to judge yourself. Say to yourself, ‘in … out’ as you breathe in and out. Expand your awareness to a sense of your body as a whole. Become mindful of the processes taking place inside you. Feel the burning anger rising from the pit of your stomach up through your chest and throat, or your racing heart and dry mouth when you’re nervous. Honour the feeling instead of criticising or blocking the emotion. Notice what happens if you don’t react as you normally do or feel like doing. Imagine your breath soothing the feeling. Bring kindness and curiosity to your emotions. This isn’t an easy time for you – acknowledging that is an act of self-compassion.

You may discover that the very act of being aware of your reaction changes the flavour of the sensation altogether. Your relationship to the reaction changes an outburst, for example, to a more considered response. Your tone of voice may subtly change from aggressive and demanding to being calmer and inquisitive. The point is not to try and change anything, but just to sit back and watch what’s going on for a few moments.

To help you to bring a sense of curiosity when you’re about to react to a situation at work, try asking yourself the following questions slowly, one at a time, and giving yourself time for reflection:

• What feeling am I experiencing at the moment, here at work? How familiar is this feeling? Where do I feel the feeling in my body?
• What thoughts are passing through my mind at the moment? How judgemental are my thoughts? How understanding are my thoughts? How are my thoughts affecting my actions at work?
• How does my body feel at the moment? How tired do I feel at work? What effect has the recent level of work had on my body? How much discomfort can I feel at the moment in my body, and where is the source of it?
• Can I acknowledge my experiences here at work, just as they are? Am I able to respect my own rights as well as responsibilities in the actions I choose? What would be a wise way of responding right now, instead of my usual reaction? If I do react, can I acknowledge that I’m not perfect and make my next decision a more mindful response?

Perhaps you’ll go back to your manager and calmly explain why you feel frustrated. You may become angry too, if you feel this is necessary, but without feeling out of control. Perhaps you’ll choose not to say anything today, but wait for things to settle before discussing the next step. The idea is for you to be more creative in your response to this frustration rather than reacting in your usual way, if your usual way is unhelpful and leads to further problems.

The benefits of a considered, balanced response as opposed to an automatic reaction include:

• Lower blood pressure. (High blood pressure is a cause of heart disease.)
• Lower levels of stress hormones in your blood stream, leading to a healthier immune system.
• Improved relationships, because you’re less likely to break down communication between colleagues if you’re in a calmer state of mind.
• A greater feeling of being in control, because you’re able to choose how you respond to others rather than automatically reacting involuntarily.

You don’t sweep your frustration or anger under the carpet. Mindfulness isn’t about blocking emotions. You do the opposite: you allow yourself to mindfully feel and sooth the emotions with as much friendliness and kindness as you can muster. Even forcing a smile can help. Mindfulness is the only way I know of effectively overcoming destructive emotions. Expressing out-of-control anger leads to more anger: you just get better at it. Supressing anger leads to outbursts at some other time. Mindfulness is the path to easing your frustration.

Solving problems creatively

Your ideas need room. You need space for new perceptions and novel ways of meeting challenges, in the same way that plants need space to grow, or they begin to wither. For your ideas, the space can be in the form of a walk outside, a three-minute mini meditation, or a cup of tea. Working harder is often not the best solution: working smarter is.

If your job involves dealing with issues and problems, whether that involves people or not, you can train yourself to see the problems differently. By seeing the problems as challenges, you’re already changing how you meet this issue. A challenge is something you rise to – something energising and fulfilling. A problem is something that has to be dealt with – something draining, an irritation.

To meet your challenges in a creative way, find some space and time for yourself. Write down exactly what the challenge is; when you’re sure what your challenge is, you find it much easier to solve. Try to see the challenge from a different person’s perspective. Talk to other people and ask how they’d deal with the issue. Become mindful of your immediate reactive way of dealing with this challenge, and question the validity of it.

Practising mindful working

Mindful working is simply being mindful of whatever you do when you work. Here are some examples of ways of being mindful at work:

• When typing, notice the sense of touch between your fingers and the keyboard. Notice how quickly your mind converts a thought into an action on keys. Are you striking the keys too hard? Are your shoulders tense; is your face screwing up unnecessarily? How’s your posture?
• Before writing or checking an email, take a breath. Is this really important to do right now? Reflect for a few moments on the key message you need to get across, and remember it’s a human being receiving this message – not just a computer. After sending the message, take time to feel your breath and, if you can, enjoy it.
• When the telephone rings, let the sound of the ring be a reminder for you to be mindful. Let the telephone ring a few times before answering. Use this time to notice your breath and posture. When you pick it up, speak and listen with mindfulness. Notice both the tone of your own voice and the other person’s. If you want to, experiment by gently smiling as you speak and listen, and become aware of the effect that has.
• No matter what your work involves, do it with awareness. Awareness helps your actions become clear and efficient. Connect your senses with whatever you’re doing. Whenever you notice your mind drifting out of the present moment, just gently bring it back.
• Make use of the mini meditations to keep you aware and awake at work. The meditations are like lampposts, lighting wherever you go and making things clear.

Trying single-tasking: Discovering the multi-tasking myth

Everyone does it nowadays: texting as we walk, or checking emails as we speak on the phone. People multi-task to be efficient, but most of the time it actually makes you less efficient. And from a mindfulness perspective, your attention becomes hazy rather than centred.

Many studies by top universities show that multi-tasking leads to inefficiency and unnecessary stress. Some reasons to avoid multi-tasking and to mindfully focus on just one task at a time instead are that doing so will help you to:

• Live in the moment: In one hilarious study, researchers asked people who walked across a park whether they noticed a clown on a unicycle. People who were glued to their phones didn’t notice it! Others did.
• Be efficient: By switching between two tasks, you take longer. It’s quicker to finish one task and then the other. Switching attention takes up time and energy and reduces your capacity to focus. Some experts found a 40 per cent reduction in productivity due to multi-tasking.
• Improve relationships: A study at the University of Essex found that just by having a phone nearby while having a person-to-person conversation had a negative impact. Give your partner your full attention as much as possible. Most people don’t realise how much of a positive effect simply giving your partner your mindful awareness has.
• De-stress: A study by the University of California found that when office workers were constantly checking email as they were working, their heart rates were elevated compared with those of people focusing on just one task.
• Get creative: By multi-tasking, you over-challenge your memory resources. There’s no space for creativity. A study in Chicago in 2010 found that multi-taskers struggled to find creative solutions to problems they were given.

Finishing by letting go

You may find letting go of your work at the end of the day very difficult. Perhaps you come home and all you can think about is work. You may spend the evening talking angrily about colleagues and bosses, or actually doing more work to try to catch up with what you should’ve finished during the day. This impacts on the quality and quantity of your sleep, lowering your energy levels for the next day. This unfortunate negative cycle can spin out of control.

You need to draw a line between work and home, especially if your stress levels are on the increase. Meditating as soon as you get home, or on your way home (see the following section), provides an empowering way of achieving this. You’re saying ‘enough’. You’re taking a stand against the tidal wave of demands on your limited time and energy. You’re doing something uplifting for your health and wellbeing, and ultimately for all those around you too. And you’re letting go.

To let go at the end of the day most successfully, choose one of the formal mindfulness meditation practices in Chapter 6. Or take up a sport or hobby in which you’re absorbed by gentle, focused attention – an activity that enables the energy of your body and mind to settle, and the mindfulness to indirectly calm you.

Using Mindfulness on the Move

I always find it amusing to see people from abroad on the Underground transport system in London, looking at the trains with awe and taking plenty of photos. Other commuters look up, almost in disgust, before burying their heads back in a book or newspaper or checking their phones. When people are on holiday they live in the moment, and the present moment is always exciting. The new environment is a change from their routine. Travelling is another opportunity to bring mindfulness to the moment.

Walking mindfully

Take a moment to consider this question: what do you find miraculous? Perhaps you find the vastness of space amazing; perhaps you find your favourite book or band a wonder. What about walking? Walking is a miracle too. Scientists have managed to design computers powerful enough to make the Internet work and for man to land on the moon, but no robot in the world can walk anywhere nearly as smoothly as a human being. If you’re able to walk, you’re lucky indeed. To contemplate the miracle called walking is the beginning of walking meditation.

Normally, in the formal walking meditation (as described in Chapter 6), you aren’t trying to get anywhere. You simply walk back and forth slowly, being mindful of each step you take, with gratitude. However, when walking to work or wherever you’re going, you have a goal. You’re trying to get somewhere. This creates a challenge, because your mind becomes drawn into thinking about when you’re going to arrive, what you’re going to do when you get there, and whether you’re on time. In other words, you’re not in the moment. The focus on the goal puts you out of the present moment.

Practise letting the destination go. Be in the moment as you walk. Feel the breeze and enjoy your steps if you can. If you can’t enjoy the walk, just feel the sensations in your feet – that’s mindfulness. Keep bringing your mind back into the moment, again and again, and, hey presto, you’re meditating as you walk.

Driving mindfully

If everyone did mindful driving, the world would be a safer and happier place. Don’t worry: it doesn’t involve closing your eyes or going into a trance! Try this driving meditation, and feel free to be creative and adapt it as you like. Remember, don’t read this book while you’re driving: that would be dangerous.

1. Set your intention by deciding to drive mindfully. Commit to driving with care and attention. Set your attitude to be patient and kind to others on the road. Leave in plenty of time to get to where you’re going, so you can let go of overly focusing on your destination.
2. Sit in the driver’s seat and practise a minute or so of mindful breathing. Feel your natural breath as it is, and come into the present moment.
3. Start your car. Get a sense of the weight and size of the car – a machine with tremendous power, whatever its size, and with the potential to do much damage if you drive irresponsibly, or to be tremendously helpful if you drive with mindful awareness and intelligence. Begin making your way to your destination.
4. Be alert. Don’t switch on the radio or CD player. Instead, let your awareness be wide and perceptive. Be aware of what other vehicles and people are doing all around you. Let your awareness be gentle, rather than forcing and straining it.
5. See how smoothly you can drive. Brake gradually and accelerate without excessive revving. This type of driving is less stressful and more fuel efficient.
6. Every now and then, briefly check in with your body. Notice any tension and let it go if you can, or become aware and accept it if you can’t. You don’t need to struggle or fight with the tension.
7. Show a healthy courtesy to your fellow drivers. Driving is all about trusting and co-operating with others.
8. Stay within the speed limit. If you can, drive more slowly than you normally do. You’ll soon grow to enjoy that pace, and may be safer.
9. Take advantage of red traffic lights and traffic jams. This is traffic meditation! These are opportunities to breathe. Look out of the window and notice the sky, the trees, and other people. Let this be a time of rest for you, rather than a time to become anxious and frustrated. Remember that stress isn’t caused by the situation but by the attitude you bring to the circumstance. Bring a mindful attitude, just as an experiment, and see what happens. You discover a different way of living altogether.

Travelling mindfully on public transport

If you travel on a bus, train, or plane, you’re not in active control of the transport itself, and so can sit back and be mindful. Most people plug themselves into headphones or read, but meditation is another option. Why not exercise your mind while travelling? If commuting is part of your daily routine, you can listen to a guided meditation or just practise by yourself. If you think you’ll go deeply into meditation, ensure that you don’t miss your stop by setting the alarm on your watch or phone.

The disadvantage of meditating in this way is the distractions. You may find yourself being distracted by sudden braking or the person who keeps snoring right next to you. I suggest that you practise your core meditation in a relatively quiet and relaxed environment, such as your bedroom, and use your meditation while travelling as a secondary meditation. Ultimately there are no distractions in mindfulness: whatever you experience can be the object of your mindful attention.

Here are some specific mindfulness experiments to try out while on the move:

1. See whether you can be mindful of your breath from one station to the next, just for fun. Whether you manage or not isn’t the issue: this is just an experiment to see what happens. Do you become more mindful or less? What happens if you put more or less effort into trying to be mindful?
2. Hear the various announcements and other distractions as sounds to be mindful of. Let the distractions be part of your meditative experience. Listen to the pitch, tone, and volume of the sound, rather than thinking about the sound. Listen as you’d listen to a piece of music.
3. See whether you can tolerate and even welcome unpleasant events. For example, if two people are talking loudly to each other, or someone is listening to noisy music, notice your reaction. What particular thought is stirring up emotion in you? Where can you feel the emotion? What happens when you imagine your breath going into and out of that part of your body?
4. Allow your mindful awareness to spill into your walk to wherever you’re going. As you walk, feel your feet making contact with the ground. Notice how the rate of your breathing changes as you walk. Allow your body to get into the rhythm of the walk, and enjoy the contact of the surrounding air with your skin as you move.

Using Mindfulness in the Home

Not only is doing mindfulness meditation and exercise at home convenient, but it also helps you to enjoy your everyday activities as well. Then, rather than seeing chores as a burden, you may begin to see them as opportunities to enjoy the present moment as it is.

Waking up mindfully

When you wake up, breathe three mindful breaths. Feel the whole of each in-breath and the whole of each out-breath. Try adding a smile to the equation if you like. Think of three things you’re grateful for – a loved one, your home, your body, your next meal – anything. Then slowly get up. Enjoy a good stretch. Cats are masters of stretching – imagine you’re a cat and feel your muscles elongate having been confined to the warmth of your bed all night. If you want to, do some mindful yoga or tai chi.

Then, if you can, do some formal mindful meditation. You can do five minutes of mindful breathing, a 20-minute sitting meditation, or a body scan meditation – choose what feels right for you.

Doing everyday tasks with awareness

The word ‘chore’ makes routine housework unpleasant before you’ve even started. Give your chores a different name to help spice them up, such as dirt-bursting, vacuum-dancing, mopping ‘n’ bopping, or home sparkling!

The great thing about everyday jobs, including eating, is that they’re slow, repetitive physical tasks, which makes them ideal for mindfulness. You’re more easily able to be mindful of the task as you do it. Here are a couple of examples to get you started.

Washing dishes

Recently, one of my clients who works from home found mindful dishwashing a transformative experience. She realised that she used to wash dishes to have a break from work, but when washing up she was still thinking about the work. By connecting with the process of dishwashing, she felt calmer and relaxed, renewed and ready to do a bit more creative work.

Have a go:

1. Be aware of the situation. Take a moment to look at the dishes. How dirty are they? Notice the stains. See how the dishes are placed. What colour are they? Now move into your body. How does your physical body feel at the moment? Become aware of any emotions you feel – are you annoyed or irritated? Consider what sort of thoughts are running through your mind; perhaps, ‘When I finish this, then I can relax,’ or ‘This is stupid.’
2. Begin cleaning, slowly to begin with. Feel the warmth of the water. Notice the bubbles forming and the rainbow reflections in the light. Put slightly less effort into the scrubbing than you may normally, and let the washing-up liquid do the work of cleaning. When the dish looks completely clean, wash the bubbles off and see how clean the plate looks. Allow yourself to see how you’ve transformed a grimy, mucky plate into a spotless, sparkling one. Now let it go. Place the dish on the side to dry. Be childlike in your sense of wonder as you wash.
3. Try to wash each dish as if for the first time. Keep letting go of the idea of finishing the job or of the other things you could be doing.
4. When you’ve finished, look at what you’ve done. Look at the dishes and how they’ve been transformed through your mindful awareness and gentle activity. Congratulate yourself on having taken the time to wash the dishes in a mindful way, thereby training your mind at the same time.

All meditation is like mindfully washing dishes. In meditation you’re gently cleaning your mind. Each time your attention wanders into other thoughts and ideas, you become aware of the fact and gently step back. Each step you take back from your unruly thoughts is a cleansing process.

Vacuuming

Using the vacuum cleaner, another common activity in many people’s lives, is usually done while your mind is thinking about other things – which isn’t actually experiencing the process of vacuuming. Try these steps to experience mindfulness while vacuuming:

1. Begin by noticing the area you want to clean. What does it look like and how dirty is the floor? Notice any objects that may obstruct your vacuuming. Become mindful of your own physical body, your emotions, and thoughts running through your mind.
2. Tidy up the area so you can use the vacuum cleaner in one go, without stopping, if you can. This ensures you have time to get into the rhythm of the activity without stopping and starting, helping you to focus.
3. Switch the vacuum cleaner on. Notice the quality of the sound and feel the vibrations in your arm. Begin moving the vacuum cleaner, getting into a calm rhythm if possible, and continue to focus your mindful attention on your senses. Stay in the moment if you can, and when your mind takes your attention away, acknowledge that and come back into the here and now.
4. When you’ve finished, switch off and observe how you feel. How was the process different to how you normally vacuum the floor? Look at what you’ve done and be proud of your achievement.

Eating mindfully

Regular, daily mindfulness practice is a key aspect of mindful eating. This acts as a foundation from which you can build a mindful-eating lifestyle. The discipline of mindfulness makes you aware of your emotions and thoughts. You begin to notice the kinds of situations, thoughts, and emotions that lead you to eating particular foods.

Here’s how to eat a meal mindfully:

1. Remove distractions. Turn off the television, radio, and all other electronics. Put aside any newspapers, magazines, and books. All you need is you and your meal.
2. Carry out three minutes of mindful breathing. Sit with your back upright but not stiff, and feel the sensations of your breathing. Alternatively, try the three-minute breathing space detailed in Chapter 7.
3. Become aware of your food. Notice the range of colours on the plate. Inhale the smell. Remember how fortunate you are to have a meal today and be grateful for what you have.
4. Observe your body. Are you salivating? Do you feel hungry? Are you aware of any other emotions? What thoughts are going through your head right now? Can you see them as just thoughts rather than facts?
5. Now slowly place a morsel of food into your mouth. Be mindful of the taste, smell, and texture of the food as you chew. Put your cutlery down as you chew. Don’t eat the next mouthful until you’ve fully chewed this one. At what point do you swallow? Have you chewed the food fully?
6. When you’re ready, take the next mouthful in the same way. As you continue to eat mindfully, be aware of your stomach and the feeling of being full. As soon as you feel you’ve had enough to eat, stop. Because you’ve been eating slowly, you may find that you feel full up sooner than usual.
7. If you feel full but still have the desire to eat more, try doing another three minutes of mindful breathing. Remember that the thought ‘I need to eat’ is just a thought. You don’t have to obey the thought and eat if that’s not the best thing for you.

Try eating in this way once a day for a week or two, and become mindful of the effect it has.

Second hunger: Overcoming problem eating

When you eat, you need to:

• Eat the right amount of food, neither too much nor too little, to maintain a healthy weight.
• Eat the right types of food for you to meet your daily nutritional needs.

However, you may not eat just to meet those needs. In reality you may eat to:

• Avoid feeling bored
• Cope with a sense of anger
• Fill a feeling of emptiness within you
• Satisfy a desire for some taste in particular (such as sweet or fatty food)
• Help you cope with high levels of stress

This ‘comfort’ eating, or emotional eating as it’s sometimes called, tends to operate on an unconscious level, driving your cravings for food.

Emotional eating is like a second hunger, to satisfy the need for psychological wellbeing. Your emotions are eating rather than your stomach. You’re using the food to calm your mind. This can lead to an unhealthy eating cycle. You experience a negative emotion, so you eat food to cope with the emotion, which leads to a temporary feeling of satisfaction but, before long, the negative emotion returns.

Mindful eating offers a way of becoming more aware of the inner thoughts and emotions driving your tendency to eat. Through a mindful awareness you begin naturally to untangle this web and begin to discover how to eat in a healthy and conscious way, making the right choices for you.

Additionally, you may like to try these strategies:

• Hunger reality check. Before eating, notice whether your hunger is physical or emotional. If you’ve eaten recently and your tummy isn’t rumbling, perhaps you can wait a little longer and see whether the sensation passes.
• Keep a food diary. Simply writing down everything you eat for a few weeks is often an eye-opener. You may begin to see patterns emerging.
• Manage boredom. Rather than using boredom as a reason to eat, try doing an activity such as mindful walking, or call a friend and be really aware of your conversation.
• Avoid extreme dieting. By depriving yourself of certain foods, you may end up fuelling your desire for that food. Instead, treat yourself occasionally and eat the food mindfully. Actually tasting the treat makes it even tastier!

Living Mindfully in the Digital Age

I’ve got a smart phone, but it’s not very smart. My phone sends me text messages just when I’m writing a chapter for a new book. It rings when I’m driving. Its addictive nature beckons me to check Facebook when I’m supposed to be drifting off to sleep.

The digital age has brought huge benefits: from saving lives in emergencies, to sharing information with the world, the advantages are countless. But without mindfulness, living in the digital age can drive you crazy! If you don’t turn your phone or computer off from time to time, your attention can be completely hijacked by websites, incoming messages, social media, games and more. Gadgets are so compelling.

If you think that the digital age is getting too much, check out the suggestions in this section to get yourself back in control.

Assessing your level of addiction to technology

Nowadays, people seem to use their phones a lot. A recent survey of over a thousand managers found that:

• Seventy per cent check their phones within an hour of waking up.
• Fifty-six per cent check their phones within an hour of going to sleep.
• Fifty-one per cent check their phones continuously while on holiday.

Although psychologists hesitate to call excessive use of digital devices an addiction, many signs exist: a compulsion to check your phone, withdrawal symptoms when you don’t have access to your phone and the harmful effect of excessive phone use on the rest of your life.

Here’s a fun quiz I’ve developed to find out just how addicted you are to your phone:

1. You’re doing some work and a phone rings in another room. Do you:
   1. Take no notice: it must be someone else’s; your phone is normally off.
   2. Ignore it and check it later.
   3. Walk casually to pick it up.
   4. Run to pick up the phone, sometimes tripping over or stubbing your toe in the process, and screaming to anyone nearby to get out of the way.
2. You’re planning a holiday, but the hotel has no Wi-Fi and no phone signal. Will you go?
   1. Yes, why not?
   2. Oh, I’d love the chance to get a break from my devices. Heaven!
   3. Probably wouldn’t go there.
   4. No way! How can I have a vacation without my phone and/or laptop – that doesn’t make sense. I need a good phone signal and superfast Internet 24/7.
3. Where’s your phone right now?
   1. My what? Oh, phone … Err, no idea. I’m not sure if I have a phone actually.
   2. Somewhere around here.
   3. In this room.
   4. It’s right here – my beautiful, precious phone. Mmmm, I love it!
4. What do you use your phone for?
   1. Phone calls, of course. What else is it for?
   2. Calls and texts from time to time. Mainly emergencies.
   3. Call and texts. And picking up emails sometimes too. A few pictures.
   4. Everything. It’s my life! Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, email, texting, photos, video, playing games, fitness, Skype. Oh yes, and sometimes phone calls too!
5. Do you keep your phone nearby as you sleep?
   1. No way!
   2. Sometimes. Or just for my alarm clock. Don’t really check last thing at night or first thing in the morning.
   3. Quite often. Send the odd text and maybe have a peek at my messages first thing in the morning too.
   4. Every night. I sleep with my phone. It’s the last thing I look at before falling asleep and the first thing I see when I wake up. It’s my soul mate.

Add up your score: letter a is 1 point, b is 2 points, c is 3 points, and d is four points.

• 5–10 points: you’re not really addicted to your phone at all – you’re probably too busy meditating.
• 11–15 points: you like your phone, but not that much. You’re still in control and can live comfortably without it.
• 16–18 points: you’re pretty dependent on your phone for many things. You might like to take a little break from your phone from time to time.
• 19–20 points: you love your phone. Have you proposed? What if you lose your phone? Or it gets stolen? Make sure you have some moments in the day where you take a break from your device and do some mindful walking or stretching, or sit and meditate away from your phone. If you feel that your phone usage is out of control, try some of the tips in the section below to help you.

Using mindfulness to get back in control

If you’ve discovered that you’re using digital devices to the point that they’re having a negative impact on your work or social life, it’s time to get back in control.

You can manage overuse of digital devices in many ways. It’s not as hard as you may think. In fact, once you start using some of these strategies, you may find that you don’t even want to look at your mobile devices.

Here are some techniques that you can try:

• Engage in other activities. You can participate in a new hobby regularly, such as knitting, gardening or playing an instrument. By paying mindful attention to your hobby and keeping your phones and computers out of the way, you’ll develop greater mindfulness. And you can also get on with a few household chores – you’ll feel good once they’re done. Again, keep your devices switched off and try focusing on the chore – it can be soothing and enjoyable to polish the dining table or clear your desk with full attention and a little smile.
• Make good use of flight mode, or switch your phone off. When I have an important task to do, I try to remember to keep my phone off or simply in flight mode. That way, I can’t be disturbed. The iPhone even has a new mode called ‘do not disturb’. This prevents calls and alerts from coming through. So, from 9pm to 8am I set my phone to ‘do not disturb’ to automatically prevent any more calls or messages coming in.
• Set boundaries. Just before you go to bed, it’s important not to look at screens too much. Television, laptops and phones emit a light which signals to your body that it’s still daytime. Then you may have trouble falling asleep and may wake up tired. Also, you may not want to be disturbed at other specific times in the day. For example, when walking through the park keep your phone off and enjoy nature and the people around you. And obviously, when you’re with friends or family or eating a meal, switch your phone off or leave it out of the way. If distancing yourself from your phone sounds like a challenge, just try it once and see how that goes. Eventually, it can feel freeing to leave your gadgets behind.
• Switch off notifications. Does your computer beep each time an email comes through? Does your phone make a noise each time someone chats to you on social media or sends you a message? If so, you can end up with perpetual distraction. Every time you’re doing one task, you’re distracted by another. The more you keep switching your attention, the less your mindful awareness develops. Turn off as many notifications as you can. This way, you can focus on doing whatever you need to do with awareness.
• Be kind to yourself when you slip up. Ever had that feeling of frustration when you’ve spent the last hour or so just surfing the Internet rather than finishing your work? I have. But when you do eventually catch yourself doing this, don’t beat yourself up too much. It’s okay. Everyone has their downtime and gets distracted. Say to yourself, ‘It’s okay. Let me take a break from my computer and phone and have a little mindful walk. I’ll then come back with a smile and get on with my tasks. Everyone gets too caught up with the barrage of technology nowadays.’

Using technology to enhance mindful awareness

If you’re looking for a way to enhance your mindfulness, you may want to avoid technology altogether – and that’s understandable. Use of technology can distract your mind. But for you, using digital devices may be part of your everyday life. Switching them off for an extended period may seem impossible to achieve. In such a case, I encourage you to make good use of mindfulness apps, websites and more.

You can download and use apps for mobile devices like phones and tablets. Simply search for ‘mindfulness’ or ‘meditation’ in the app stores and you’ll find lots of resources – take your pick. New apps come out every week!

If you use social media a lot, following people or organisations that offer mindful images, tweets and more may help you. I offer this service to my followers on Twitter @shamashalidina and Facebook at www.facebook.com/shamashalidina. Free free to say hi to me! Mindful magazine also offers ‘mindful interrupters’ – reminders in your day to let go of mindlessness and bring a kindly awareness to the moment. You can find the mindful interrupters on Twitter: @MindInterrupter.

You can also use software to help you focus mindfully on your work. My favourite free software that helps me to focus and be productive on my computer is called Self Control. It’s available free for Apple Mac computers, and there are equivalent software products for Windows PCs.

For example, today I wanted to focus for a couple of hours on writing this article. So I switched on the Self Control program for an hour. Then I had a break and set it for another hour. I decide what I want to block for that hour. So for me, I block all my social media websites and my email. With those two areas blocked, I can mindfully focus on my writing.