All or nothing thinking is the result of a stressed mind on autopilot. Instead of thinking about given situations and making choices in how we respond, the unattended mind with see things as everything or nothing, black - or white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been getting some questions in my inbox about “how to relax your mind” so I thought I’d write about one very simple way I learned that helps the mind relax by first using three senses (sight, sound and touch) to occupy it and then gradually tuning out until just one point of focus is left and a sense of relaxation is naturally experienced.

When Meditation Can Feel Nasty

One of the challenges in relaxing the mind is that it's practically impossible to think of nothing. Our thoughts come and go constantly and if we are feeling anxious when we try to relax or meditate sometimes our attention is tuned in to that anxiety. We can even feel worse as the distractions we use to keep unwanted thoughts at bay fade away and we are left facing our fears without diversion.

When you're living with chronic illness you can't multitask, in fact sometimes you can't even complete the simplest task like getting washed and dressed without breaking things down into tiny bite sized chunks.

You might think that getting dressed is one task. Not so for those struggling with illness. The challenge of illness breaks down getting dressed into a series of small triumphs, one sock at a time.

With such a reduced capacity for activity, moment by moment awareness facilitates the understanding of accomplishment. No matter how small the achievement, a sense of inner acknowledgement can be the difference between getting by with grace and sinking into the realms of hopelessness.

Lowering the Bar

All living creatures experience pleasure as a result of completing simple tasks. And that pleasure and sense of completion is what motivates them to do more. If illness means your ability to complete tasks is reduced, it would be an act of self-kindness to lower your expectations accordingly.

When Dr Oz presented his anti-ageing shows on Oprah he emphatically stated that stress is the number one contributing factor in ageing.

Stress happens when we have too much incoming information. In response, we get overwhelmed as our body starts pumping adrenaline and our brain feels set to blow a fuse. One of the problems with overload in our busy lives is that we book isolated breaks here and there, like a two week holiday in the summer, and think that it will help us rest and get back on track. In reality, our bodies and minds need a mini break every day.

The simplest way to get that break is to use the body's natural built-in antidote to stress - meditation. Dr Oz told his audience "Meditation is essential. It allows you to focus on reality and knock off the small stuff that can literally strip decades off your life."

Developing a daily meditation practice, even if it's just for 10 minutes a day, is a powerful aid in stress reduction because it stops stress building to the point where it can cause harm.

If you find the idea of learning meditation daunting Dr Oz recommends trying a meditative activity like Qigong. Breathing with awareness is another easy way to tap into the benefits of meditation without having to learn something that seems unfamiliar or hard to attain, such as sitting in silence and trying to blank your mind for long periods of time.