Mindfulness is a difficult concept to convey -- it’s perhaps easier to demonstrate -- but those who practise it describe it as “restful alertness”, the focusing of the mind fully on the moment, deliberately avoiding not just distractions but any tendency to judgment. It also involves meditation.
Jan Grigg, a 46-year-old biology teacher in Moray, has practised yoga and meditation for 10 years and has found mindfulness techniques so helpful in her work as a teacher that she is passing them on to her pupils. “I start my first lesson with a new class with five minutes’ meditation. It’s not compulsory and anyone who does not want to take part has my permission to regard it as a five-minute skive. I repeat it only if the children ask for it but they always do and now my classes get upset if we can’t fit it in,” she says.
The point is that after five minutes of freeing their minds there is less conflict and more concentration.
It all sounds a little too good to be true, and Grigg admits there can be a bit of giggling during the first meditation. The only rule is that no pupil must distract anyone else.
She finds older pupils particularly receptive, because they have experienced exam anxiety and welcome a way to deal with it. “My Higher class asked me to put my guide through meditation on to the school website so they could download it to use before exams. One very bright boy who was initially scathing about it is now really engaged with focusing his mind. It has also helped a 12-year-old who suffered such extreme anxiety that she was refusing to go to school. She learned to control her anxiety by focusing on her breathing.”
The technique could be a great boon to teachers themselves, according to Grigg, who sees the introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence leading to stress-related absence which won’t be covered by supply teachers -- resulting in further stress. The positive reaction to a taster session she ran for colleagues has resulted in Moray Council setting up an eight-week course for teachers and health professionals.
Now postgraduate students at Aberdeen University, including teachers, doctors, nurses and sports coaches, are carrying out an academic study of mindfulness in order to use it in their professional lives. Aberdeen is offering an MSc in the subject, the first of its kind in Scotland. In the Aberdeen MSc, unlike the two courses exploring the subject in England and Wales, meditation and psychology meet. Although it sounds like a nebulous concept, the point of the course is to give students a new tool to help children learn, patients respond to treatment and managers devleop skills.
So what exactly is mindfulness? Grigg defines it as self-development from looking at your own mind patterns and thought patterns, adding: “We don’t always like what we see when we look closely at ourselves but you only develop compassion by looking at your own suffering and developing compassion for yourself.”
There are different branches of mindfulness practice. One, involving cognitive behaviour, is used specifically to overcome depression, but that is not what’s taught on the Aberdeen course. Unlike the other two courses at British universities, it focuses on mindfulness as a way of establishing compassion.
Norton Bertram-Smith, a personal trainer and counsellor, is taking the course partly for his own further development and partly so he can use the technique in the leadership programmes he runs. These are mostly for business people and the main goal is improving working relationships. As former managing director of Aberdeen Airport, he uses his own experience of high-level management to empathise consciously with managers. “There is plenty of evidence that the practice of mindfulness results in calmer, more effective leaders. Sometimes a breathing exercise allows someone to stand back and reflect on attitudes. When you slow down, you appreciate what is going on, both in yourself and others, and make much better choices.”
He says it is very useful from a coaching perspective because you need to place yourself totally in the present, with no assumptions. “It is about developing a faculty for being open and present and not allowing your mind to wander.”
“The meditation techniques have evolved from Buddhism and the course is run in conjuction with the Samye Ling Buddhist centre in Dumfriesshire, but the students are of all faiths and none, and there is no religious aspect to the course,” says the programme director, Graeme Nixon.
Choden, a former Buddhist monk who is attached to Samye Ling in a lay capacity as organiser of non-Buddhist courses and retreats on Holy Island, says that the latest research in psychology shows that the brain responds to three main triggers: threat, the drive to get what we want and the soothing mechanism which brings the mind back into balance when the threat is lifted or the desire met. Amid the stresses of the modern world, however, he believes, we have lost the ability to release this soothing mechanism and are eternally caught between threat and desire.
The technique of learning self- compassion to overcome the destructive force of self-criticism and self-hatred builds on the work of psychologist Paul Gilbert of the mental health research unit at Derby University, who will lead workshops with the MSc students.
Being based in Amsterdam is no bar to Annick Nevejan taking the course by distance learning. A former theatre director, she provides the most dramatic description of mindfulness. “The process is a bit like taming a wild horse. It requires time and patience. You have to get to know this wild creature before you can put a saddle on it and ride away. It takes time but it is very rewarding because you learn slowly that you can get more of a grip on yourself and that difficulties are part of being human.”
She is a trainer in personal development and runs a course for lecturers in primary education at the University of Applied Sciences in Amsterdam, designed to give them techniques for dealing with stress.
As to its chief benefit, Nevejan says: “It allows us to keep a kind of basic sanity, decide what we think is important and find a way of keeping our senses active.”
Open your mind
What is mindfulness?
The practice of restful alertness: practitioners train to be fully present with whatever they are doing while they are doing it. They pay attention to what is happening in the present moment, within their minds and externally. This type of awareness is called “bare attention” because we directly observe what is going on without judgment or distortion. Mindfulness is like a mirror -- it reflects clearly what is happening without adding anything to it.
What are the aims of the MSc in mindfulness?
Increase inner calm and mental capacity, improve concentration and clarity of thinking, diminish low mood and anxiety, reduce stress and enhance wellbeing, improve interpersonal skills.
Are there any physical benefits from practising mindfulness?
Studies of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) have shown it can help seriously ill people cope with their condition, improve the psychological state of medical students under stress and shorten the length of treatment required by some psoriasis patients.
