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Join trauma therapist Lindsay Faas for this dive into the myths and truths about mindfulness. Hokey voodoo hippy junk or legitimate scientific brain booster?? Skeptics welcome!! Let's sort out how mindfulness can benefit those on the front lines.
Created for First Responders and Front Line Workers to tackle the challenges of working on the front lines. Dig into topics on burnout, workplace dynamics, managing mental health, balancing family life...and so much more. Created and hosted by Lindsay Faas, clinical counsellor and trauma therapist. View the show notes, and access bonus resources at https://my.thrive-life.ca/behind-the-line.
Hey there and welcome back to Behind the Line.
I’m your host, Lindsay Faas. I am a clinical counsellor who specializes in trauma therapy, and after years of working with First Responders and front line workers, I have become a wellness advocate and educator on a mission to support First Responders and Front Line Worker wellness. Behind the Line is a place for us to talk about the real life behind the scenes challenges facing you on the front lines. I created this podcast with the hope of bringing easy access to skills for wellness – allowing you to find greater sustainability, both on the job and off. Because let’s face it, the work you do is hard, and it changes you. You sacrifice a lot to do the work you do, and you deserve to have a great life.
Before we jump into todays topic, I want to super quickly put out an ask. As you might know, this podcast is relatively new and we are working tirelessly on finding ways to connect this resource to those who need it most. There are a ton of ways that we are working to get this podcast into the hands of First Responders & Front Line Workers, but the very best way for others to discover this resource is to learn about it from you. So if you have been enjoying these episodes and finding the tools we talk about helpful in shaping your wellness and sustainability, I am going to ask that you share it with those you know. Tell your co-workers about it, email the link to those you care about, post to it in social media and in online groups that connect around your profession, or even encourage your workplace or union to link to it in their regular staff newsletters as part of their wellness promotion package. I am on a mission to help those who do so much for our communities, and I hope you will come alongside me on this mission.
Ok, with that out of the way, today I want to tackle a concept that is often a bit misunderstood. Let me open this by saying that some of my favourite clients are the ones who come in as skeptics. I have literally had clients sit in the chair across from me and say something to the effect of, “I’m here because I have to be and I don’t think for a second that you have anything to offer me.” And in that moment, joy washes over me – game on. Those who know me well know that I love to debate, to consider ideas and find ways to make complex science clear, and I love to win… So when someone comes in to see me and takes the skeptic stance to counselling and wellness tools, it’s like an invitation to show them there is just so very much that can be offered if they’re willing to join me in it. And you know what? They almost always do. As soon as someone is given the space to be a skeptic and be met with fact-based, scientific information presented in an understandable and personally meaningful way, they are all in. Every. Single. Time.
To some extent, this is likely what has kept those of you who are repeat listeners coming back episode after episode (aside from my mom and dad who listen because they love me!). Part of what likely draws you back time and time again is knowing that we’re not just talking about how hard things are, nor are we talking about how happy you should pretend to be and ways to stay positive and ignore all the junk – instead, what we talk about here is what is hard, and how to help the hard by growing skills that are grounded in science. Week to week I try to break these pieces down in ways that are applicable and practical – I don’t want any of it to seem like fluff that doesn’t apply, or so conceptual you can’t make use of it. If it’s going to help it has to be useful, like actually useful.
With all of that said, today we’re going to talk about mindfulness. Now, I gave you all of that set up to today’s topic because I often feel like mindfulness gets a bad rap. Or, at least, a lack-luster one. When my skeptic clients come in, among the things I will often hear from them is something like, “and don’t even think about telling me to breath or meditate, I’ve been breathing from birth and I don’t do that voodoo meditation crap!” I can’t even tell you how many times that conversation has happened in my office. For those outside of the wellness circles, I’ve learned that mindfulness is viewed as some kind of hippy-dippy thing associated with patchouli, hemp and dreadlocks. And I get it – certainly there have been some ways that mindfulness as a concept and set of strategies has come from and been linked to new-age-ish pieces that can be blown off as silly, fluffy or “just not for me”.
Meanwhile, at it’s core, mindfulness is extraordinarily scientific and fully founded in the best brain science we have at our disposal. This is the part where my skeptic clients raise an eyebrow. Don’t believe me? Let me prove it.
Let’s start by unpacking what exactly mindfulness is. When we use the term mindfulness, we’re referring to a group of skills or practices that support our brain and body in being connected to the present moment, in space and time. Now that might sound silly, of course you are always in the present space and time…but are you, really? How often are you spaced out and numb, or perseverating about something that has happened in the past, or ruminating on something you are anticipating in the future? How many times have you gone through an intersection and had that terrible doubt creep in that questions whether you’re sure the light was green? Or how often do you find yourself mindlessly scrolling through your social media without really attending to what you are seeing? Or how often do your kids have to say “mom” or “dad” before they snap you back to reality and you answer them?
The truth is, we spend a lot of our time not really connected to the present space and time because we are too busy thinking about the past, the future or numbing out from all of it.
Remember last week’s episode when we talked about hope and the concept of strengthening the parts of our brain that engage hope? If you didn’t get a chance to listen to episode 6, I’d encourage you to check it out. In a lot of ways what we’re talking about today is on a similar track. As we’ve discussed before, your brain is naturally wired to identify negative experiences as highly valuable. You brain values these experiences because it believes it needs to keep these close in an effort to enhance your survival. If I can recall every seemingly-minute detail of a negative experience, my brain believes it will be more prepared to handle a similar situation more effectively down the road. This is effectively how our brain learns from experiences. And again, as we’ve talked about before, the work you do sets you up to experience more than your fair share of negative experiences – experiences that provoke your stress and survival systems repeatedly and train your brain to strengthen regions, connections and neural structures that support this capacity to use negative experiences to theoretically keep you safer. I say theoretically because there is a tipping point. There is a point at which you over-train the part of your brain that is managing your safety and stress systems for survival purposes, and this part of your brain becomes the default operating system even when it’s not appropriate, useful or can actually get in the way and create different dangers. Much like varying occupations put us at risk for different types of physical occupational injuries, such as back injuries, concussions, or other medical concerns by overusing or staining a given muscle group or physical system – the demands and stress exposure involved in First Response and Front Line Work is likely to result in overuse of stress response systems, typically to the detriment of systems which would normally work to counterbalance and support these systems.
Let me give a few examples of what happens when we over-train the stress response part of the brain. People who have worked in front line work for awhile and have faced prolonged and repeated stress-responses will start to notice that they have difficulty relaxing in spaces where nothing particularly stressful is happening. Our bodies remain in a guarded mode regardless of what is going on around us. It feels hard to settle. We may show some signs of anxiety such as anticipating something bad happening to someone we care about, or feeling a strong need to check locks on doors and windows or to clean/wash more often or in more detailed ways than we may have in the past. Sleep often becomes more difficult, as sleep requires some sense of safety as our brain recognizes this time to be our most vulnerable. What is interesting is that the brain becomes so highly vigilant, scanning for threat and constantly risk assessing, that it exhausts itself and will then create a counter-balance in the form of numbing. This can evolve into clinical concerns including dissociative disorders. The brain works so hard to hone it’s risk management skills, just to tune out and be less capable of being meaningfully engaged or responsive if something bad were to actually happen. It’s a catch 22.
This is where mindfulness comes into play. As I mentioned a bit earlier, mindfulness is a group of skills or practices that support our brain and body in being connected to the present moment, in space and time. Practicing mindfulness skills allows the brain to strengthen regions, connections and structures that act as a supportive counterbalance to your stress response systems. Your stress response systems are grounded in learning from what has happened in the past and planning and anticipating the applications to possible future unknowns that could happen. Mindfulness focuses on what is happening, what is now. Every moment that you spend practicing mindfulness skills helps to strengthen your brains ability to hold the tension between past, present and future and to engage in your life not only from your stress response centre but from parts of you that also have the ability to recognize and genuinely experience joy, peace, connection…and yes, even hope.
An article from UC Berkley says, “According to neuroscience research, mindfulness practices dampen activity in our amygdala and increase the connections between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. Both of these parts of the brain help us to be less reactive to stressors and to recover better from stress when we experience it.” Now to clarify, for those who don’t study brain science, your amygdala is a neural structure that is known to be highly involved in stress and trauma, so dampening activity in the amygdala is a good thing for those who have high levels of amygdala activity. Your prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain responsible for your high level thinking and functioning including strong decision making – we call it executive functioning. Something that helps connect your amygdala with your executive functioning is really important so your stress responses are less likely to operate in isolation and are more able to recruit your high level thinking in times of need, as well as to support regulating your stress centre by engaging a part of your brain that can know that danger has passed and can help calm after a stressful incident. What this article is saying is that practicing mindfulness creates, strengthens and enhances connections within your brain that meaningfully impact how stress is experienced, felt and stored within the brain and body. It’s a total game changer. This article also identifies that research has shown repeatedly that these effects don’t just last for the period of time that you are doing a mindfulness skill – but the changes to the brain that practicing these skills create are sustained over time. Essentially, if you work out these parts of your brain, just like when you work out certain muscle groups, the strength of connective tissue you create doesn’t just disappear the minute you stop doing the bicep curl, or even if you skip your workout for days, weeks or months. The results endure, and are further strengthened with ongoing training.
Have I convinced you yet?? Look, mindfulness is a tool – like many other tools we have in our arsenal. It isn’t a magic bullet that solves all the problems all the time, but incorporating these skills into your daily life certainly can’t hurt and are shown time and time again by research to help us regulate stress more effectively, reduce stress-related physical concerns, promote improved sleep, and even enhance our relationships and connections to others.
Ok, so when we talk about mindfulness as a group of skills and practices what does that entail? Well, it can actually be a lot of things and I’m going to encourage you to get a bit scrappy and creative. For now we’re going to talk about three major groups of mindfulness skills.
The first is likely the one most typically affiliated with mindfulness – meditation. Now for those who get a bit squeamish about the idea of meditating, I’m going to ask you to get curious about what that’s about for you. For the skeptics I have worked with who tend to show some apprehension when we talk about the idea of meditation it is usually connected to either a belief that meditation is an explicitly Buddhist spiritual practice and therefore off limits to those who are committed to another type of religious or spiritual belief system, or they have a belief that meditation is slow, boring and that they can’t be successful at it. I’m here to tell you that both of these are grounded in myth. While meditation as we see it in media is often depicted with various bhuddist facets, almost every religion and spiritual belief system has a version of meditation that encourages quiet contemplation, reflection and stillness. There is nothing specifically or explicitly religious about meditation and anyone can do it without offending their belief system. You can also adapt your meditation practice to engage with or enhance your own belief system if this would be helpful for you. Now, for those who fear sitting quietly alone with themselves trying to empty their mind, I am here to tell you that there are a lot of ways to do meditation and you are not expected to jump from running a mile a minute to delving into the deep quiet spaces of your mind. Meditation takes practice, and you can start in ways that are guided. Literally, you can look up guided meditation and find all kinds of audio tracks that will walk you through a meditation practice. Hunt a bit and find a few you like that range in duration, and try to do these a few days out of the week. The point of meditation is to grow in your ability to slow down, be in the present moment and exist rather than fight with the past or the future.
The second group of skills I’m going to classify as movement-based mindfulness. These skills are about being connected to your body and the moment while you engage your body. Activities like yoga can be really helpful as they are constructed with mindfulness as a core facet of the practice – noticing how poses feel, points of resistance, and breath patterns are all a part of being in your body right now. For the longest time I hated yoga – I hated that it was slow and I got bored easily – but I have found an app I have truly fallen in love with that has made me look forward to my yoga workout nights and I’ll link to it in the show notes for anyone else who might be interested. Movement-based mindfulness is not just about yoga though – it can really be almost anything. Taking a walk and noticing or being intentional about your breathing can count, as an example, breathe in for 3 steps, hold for one, breathe out for 3 steps, hold for one. As you walk, noticing when your mind drifts to thoughts that are past or future and gently encouraging your mind back to the present by noticing things around you like the trees swaying in the wind, the sound of traffic, and so on.
The third group of skills I am going to classify as cognitive directing which means how we direct our thoughts. Now thoughts are just thoughts, but as we’ve identified they have power in strengthening parts of our brain that are intended to work for us but when over-trained can actually start to work against us. This group of skills is really just about being conscientious about how we direct our thoughts and we can literally do these activities anywhere at any time. This is where I want you to get scrappy and creative – and I would love to hear from you on social media or you can email me, about what you do with this and how you incorporate it. This category of skills involves describing every day moments in detail, really being in them. It can be something as monotonous as brushing your teeth – but instead of doing it mindlessly while watching a video or thinking of what might happen today, focus in on how the toothpaste really smells and tastes, which part of your tongue notices the flavour, notice the pattern you make when you brush – break it down into tiny parts and make your mind consciously aware of the steps it’s taking. I know it sounds silly, but honestly, bicep curls look silly and we do them to strengthen, so you can do this too. At work, describe something you’re doing in detail in your mind – each moment you do this you are giving your brain a workout and it counts for more than you might think. You can also describe things around you in detail, using all 5 senses. Your senses are designed to be in the present moment, so use them to help anchor you to the here and now.
Remember that while some of these skills might seem small or silly, they add up and research has shown that they make a significant difference if we keep it up. But that becomes the trick, is remembering to do these things in your everyday life. My suggestion is to create some prompts for yourself. Start by incorporating a couple of short guided meditations into your week, like you would other parts of your routine, and once this feels like a habit, start putting small prompts like a post it note or a reminder on your phone to work at gradually incorporating some of the other tools into your day. Make a lunchtime ritual where you notice the flavours of your lunch instead of inhaling it, or a commute ritual to notice your surroundings and describe what you pass… There are a zillion ways to do this, all you have to do is start. New York Times bestselling author and world-renowned mindfulness and meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg said, “Mindfulness isn’t difficult, we just need to remember to do it.”
Next week we are going to continue talking about mindfulness. With this primer under our belts we’re going to spend next time talking about specific mindfulness skills. I am going to give you some of my favourite tools, so I hope you’ll join me next time. For today, I am going to drop a couple links in the show notes so check those out to start working at creating or refining your own mindfulness practice. And as always, thank so much for choosing to spend your time here with me – if you are finding this resource helpful I hope you’ll share it far and wide and encourage others in your life to listen. I am grateful for all of you who are with me on my mission to transform wellness for those on the front lines.
Until next time, stay safe.