Mark Bertin's Blog, page 8
September 17, 2015
Mindful Parenting for ADHD
Your child has ADHD. He impulsively acts out; he struggles in school; he seemingly won't settle down for even one second after you walk in the door to let you catch your breath. A visceral hook grabs hold, and you do the same old thing you've always done: you yell, you retreat, you set another rule, or you bend one. Then you mentally berate yourself for not staying calm or your child for not doing as he was told.
Challenging as it is, we are all capable of being mindful, such as staying fully aware of something unpleasant and pausing before responding. Your impulsive child is going to be impulsive today, even while you work on a longer-term plan for change. Avoiding the reality that you'd like something to be different without being proactive about it won't change anything. But while you sort through the next best action to take (or perhaps decide not to say or do anything for a moment), your child will benefit when you drop the often unconscious assumption that life can be any different that it is right now. Your impulsive child is going to be impulsive today, even while you work on a longer-term plan for change.
ADHD is far more than a disorder of attention. It influences social skills, communication, morning routines, bedtime, technology use, eating habits, homework, and anything requiring coordination, planning, or foresight. In addition, your child's ADHD affects others around him, especially family members.
In fact, ADHD often creates unproductive patterns in parents' lives. When parents become overly stressed or overwhelmed, that affects their children. None of us are at our best when tapped out. And because ADHD itself increases family stress, it makes it harder for you to manage your child's ADHD, which then amplifies stress further. Incorporating mindfulness into your life can break this draining cycle.
Mindfulness and Your Family
The practice of mindfulness provides tools for cultivating focus, resilience, and well-being--both yours and your child's. They take advantage of the brain's innate capacity to rewire itself, an ability we all maintain at any age. In ways that support the rest of ADHD care, you can build skills such as these for yourself and your children:
Attention and awareness (vs. distractibility and operating on autopilot)
Responsiveness (vs. reactivity)
Intentional, creative problem solving (vs. reliance on entrenched habits)
Open-minded discernment (vs. reflexive judgment)
Compassion for yourself and others (vs. criticism and impatience)
A centuries-old practice accessible to anyone, mindfulness aims to build various traits that make the ups and downs of life easier to handle. Clinical research has confirmed its benefits, explaining why it's an exponentially growing part of Western psychology and medicine. With mindfulness, you develop an increased capability to balance seeing things as they are with doing everything possible to change what you can, making everyday living more manageable.
Seeing ADHD as it is and realizing its broad and often insidious effects enhances planning and successful outcomes by any measure. As both a parent and a pediatrician specializing in child development and ADHD, I remain awed by the consistency with which mindfulness supports families. Time after time, no matter the cultural background or family dynamic, parents learning mindfulness report concrete changes that make their child's ADHD far easier to overcome.
Parenting books and psychologists often ask parents to do things like stay calm when angry, or approach old problems from entirely new perspectives. Yet all of us have beliefs and assumptions developed over a lifetime, and these habits die hard. As you'll see, practicing mindfulness makes change of this kind easier.
Here is a large part of why practicing mindfulness profoundly change your family life: addressing ADHD requires perseverance, flexibility, responsiveness, and an ability to find moments of joy and success during challenging times. All of that is much harder to sustain when you're mentally swamped by anger, fear, or exhaustion. By practicing mindfulness, you'll be promoting your own resilience and well-being not only for your own sake, but because your child will benefit.
- Adapted from "Mindful Parenting for ADHD," released September 2015 by New Harbinger
Challenging as it is, we are all capable of being mindful, such as staying fully aware of something unpleasant and pausing before responding. Your impulsive child is going to be impulsive today, even while you work on a longer-term plan for change. Avoiding the reality that you'd like something to be different without being proactive about it won't change anything. But while you sort through the next best action to take (or perhaps decide not to say or do anything for a moment), your child will benefit when you drop the often unconscious assumption that life can be any different that it is right now. Your impulsive child is going to be impulsive today, even while you work on a longer-term plan for change.
ADHD is far more than a disorder of attention. It influences social skills, communication, morning routines, bedtime, technology use, eating habits, homework, and anything requiring coordination, planning, or foresight. In addition, your child's ADHD affects others around him, especially family members.
In fact, ADHD often creates unproductive patterns in parents' lives. When parents become overly stressed or overwhelmed, that affects their children. None of us are at our best when tapped out. And because ADHD itself increases family stress, it makes it harder for you to manage your child's ADHD, which then amplifies stress further. Incorporating mindfulness into your life can break this draining cycle.
Mindfulness and Your Family
The practice of mindfulness provides tools for cultivating focus, resilience, and well-being--both yours and your child's. They take advantage of the brain's innate capacity to rewire itself, an ability we all maintain at any age. In ways that support the rest of ADHD care, you can build skills such as these for yourself and your children:
Attention and awareness (vs. distractibility and operating on autopilot)
Responsiveness (vs. reactivity)
Intentional, creative problem solving (vs. reliance on entrenched habits)
Open-minded discernment (vs. reflexive judgment)
Compassion for yourself and others (vs. criticism and impatience)
A centuries-old practice accessible to anyone, mindfulness aims to build various traits that make the ups and downs of life easier to handle. Clinical research has confirmed its benefits, explaining why it's an exponentially growing part of Western psychology and medicine. With mindfulness, you develop an increased capability to balance seeing things as they are with doing everything possible to change what you can, making everyday living more manageable.
Seeing ADHD as it is and realizing its broad and often insidious effects enhances planning and successful outcomes by any measure. As both a parent and a pediatrician specializing in child development and ADHD, I remain awed by the consistency with which mindfulness supports families. Time after time, no matter the cultural background or family dynamic, parents learning mindfulness report concrete changes that make their child's ADHD far easier to overcome.
Parenting books and psychologists often ask parents to do things like stay calm when angry, or approach old problems from entirely new perspectives. Yet all of us have beliefs and assumptions developed over a lifetime, and these habits die hard. As you'll see, practicing mindfulness makes change of this kind easier.
Here is a large part of why practicing mindfulness profoundly change your family life: addressing ADHD requires perseverance, flexibility, responsiveness, and an ability to find moments of joy and success during challenging times. All of that is much harder to sustain when you're mentally swamped by anger, fear, or exhaustion. By practicing mindfulness, you'll be promoting your own resilience and well-being not only for your own sake, but because your child will benefit.
- Adapted from "Mindful Parenting for ADHD," released September 2015 by New Harbinger
Mindful Parenting for ADHD
Here is a large part of why practicing mindfulness profoundly change your family life: addressing ADHD requires perseverance, flexibility, responsiveness, and an ability to find moments of joy and success during challenging times.
September 16, 2015
Mindful Parenting for ADHD
Addressing ADHD requires perseverance, flexibility, responsiveness, and an ability to find moments of joy and success during challenging times. All of that is much harder to sustain when you’re mentally swamped by anger, fear, or exhaustion. With mindfulness, you promote your own resilience and well-being not only for your own sake, but because your child will benefit.
September 9, 2015
Mindfulness: The Antidote for Perfectionism
The concept of "mindfulness" often brings to mind images of relaxation, stillness, or acting in some idealistic, staid way. There's an assumption that it means being always calm, serene and in control. Because of this, it is occasionally portrayed as a set up for personal failure. Life's hard enough without aiming for being mindful all the time. Yet, that perspective misses the point of the practice. Mindfulness is not a drive for perfection. In fact, it's quite the opposite.
Being mindful starts in part with accepting the fact that we cannot ever be fully mindful in the first place. Our brains aren't wired that way. And life itself is unendingly uncertain and unpredictable. Imperfection is the norm. It's how we live with these facts that influences our moment-to-moment well-being.
So sure, one aspect of mindfulness is aiming to be more focused with our attention. That's because otherwise most of us spend a lot of our time doing one thing and thinking about another. We're not aware in any useful way about what we're doing, saying or thinking. Not only do we miss out, but we fail to notice the assumptions and choices we're making all through the day.
But even practicing mindfulness, we cannot pay attention for long. Over and over, we get distracted by our own mind. When we notice ourselves lost in our thoughts yet again, we bring ourselves back -- until the next time. The practice has distinct benefits -- otherwise it would be pretty silly to bother -- but there's no particular end point.
In fact, rather than getting caught up in being solemn and serious about the practice, it's fairly useful to bring along a sense of humor. Our minds often do what they want without us, an odd state in which we live. So we're spending an awful lot of effort aiming for something not fully attainable. We're trying for more attentive and less reactive and driven by habit -- and then become caught up in it all once again.
With too much perfectionism, we make ourselves feel worse.
Mindfulness, however, also does not mean I'm perfect just the way I am. It's not that life's all good. Those clichés don't mean much -- we all could use some improvement, and sometimes life isn't particularly good. Instead, when we recognize that we're lost, once again, in feeling we "should" be perfect, we practice letting that thought go, and get back to doing our best without extra layers of self-judgment.
And that's where mindfulness becomes useful. Surfing the never-ending waves in real life, we aim to improve while not judging ourselves for needing it. We can readjust and try again both in mindfulness practice and in the rest of life. After all, what can any of us do except pay attention to making skillful choices, work diligently at what it seems we can influence, and try to be at ease with all the rest?
The Opposite of Perfect
There's no question mindfulness can be a muddled concept. For one thing, the word itself doesn't mean a whole lot. It's meant to capture a way of living. One basic concept sounds something like this: We have a whole lot easier time managing everyday life when we are aware of what we're doing instead of getting by on autopilot. Without effort and attention, most of our lives follow the same old mental ruts, for better or worse, day after day.
One of the first things most people notice when they start paying more attention is that their mind has a mind of its own. It creates ideas constantly -- some useful, some random, and many habitual. On autopilot, we keep on living the same way, whether or not it's to our benefit. We accept our assumptions, ways of doing things, and other thoughts as fixed and factual. But, as the saying goes, there's no point believing everything we think.
One common mental pattern is called "the inner critic." Like the two old guys in the balcony of the Muppet show, it's an unrelenting internal heckler. It insults and judges, mostly without reason - you're not good enough, you should have done x or y but definitely not z again. It's not about improvement, making amends, or fixing what needs fixing -- we want to build those traits. The inner critic is mindless self-judgment that undermines well-being and affects our interactions with the world.
When we take that critical voice at face value, it fuels perfectionism -- I blew it, I should be better at this parenting thing, I shouldn't be so (fill in your own habitual blank). Even if there is some reality to the thought -- maybe we would benefit if we were a little less reactive or hit the gym more - the incessant negativity isn't helpful. We can aim for change without constantly deriding ourselves along the way.
Most of us spend a lot of energy trying to convince ourselves this judgmental voice is wrong, but it's not a logical thought to start. It's not even-handedly grading our performance. We can't with logic alone solve the problem of why we're down on ourselves or why we're better than we believe. Ruminating about our own worth, skills, or prospects can't much influence an inherently irrational voice.
When we recognize the inner critic as nothing more than an entrenched mental habit, we shift our relationship with it. Instead of trying to pacify the voice of judgment, we name it and create some distance. Thanks anyway. That's judgment, and now I'm coming back - not wrestling with you today. Instead of believing the nagging, perfectionistic voice, we pause, glance towards the balcony, and come back to real life once again.
Perfectly Imperfect
Stuff happens, not all of it great. We mess up, and so do the people around us. As Jon Kabat-Zinn, the father of mindfulness in the West, suggests in his classic book, ease means finding comfort in the midst of the full catastrophe of life.
A formal mindfulness practice is an acknowledgement that if we aim to build certain traits, we access them more readily in daily life. If you want to be more aware, responsive, emotionally balanced, compassionate or anything else, it takes effort. It doesn't require being perfect -when you see that voice taking over, it's an opportunity to move past its influence.
We all benefit when we take a few moments to focus our attention (without expecting stillness). Or settle our busy minds (without expecting stress to go away completely). Or build awareness of the assumptions and habits that drive us (without blaming ourselves for those tendencies in the first place).
Or develop more compassion in our lives (even though some people absolutely, totally annoy us).
There's no perfect. If you're practicing mindfulness and judging yourself -- notice that habit. If you have a false perception that you can ever be perfect, you'll end up even more stressed. Be aware of that idealistic picture, and then let it go. You're flawed and so is everyone else, but when you aim for improvement, everyone benefits. Mindfulness isn't perfectionism -- it's the antidote for perfectionism instead.
Being mindful starts in part with accepting the fact that we cannot ever be fully mindful in the first place. Our brains aren't wired that way. And life itself is unendingly uncertain and unpredictable. Imperfection is the norm. It's how we live with these facts that influences our moment-to-moment well-being.
So sure, one aspect of mindfulness is aiming to be more focused with our attention. That's because otherwise most of us spend a lot of our time doing one thing and thinking about another. We're not aware in any useful way about what we're doing, saying or thinking. Not only do we miss out, but we fail to notice the assumptions and choices we're making all through the day.
But even practicing mindfulness, we cannot pay attention for long. Over and over, we get distracted by our own mind. When we notice ourselves lost in our thoughts yet again, we bring ourselves back -- until the next time. The practice has distinct benefits -- otherwise it would be pretty silly to bother -- but there's no particular end point.
In fact, rather than getting caught up in being solemn and serious about the practice, it's fairly useful to bring along a sense of humor. Our minds often do what they want without us, an odd state in which we live. So we're spending an awful lot of effort aiming for something not fully attainable. We're trying for more attentive and less reactive and driven by habit -- and then become caught up in it all once again.
With too much perfectionism, we make ourselves feel worse.
Mindfulness, however, also does not mean I'm perfect just the way I am. It's not that life's all good. Those clichés don't mean much -- we all could use some improvement, and sometimes life isn't particularly good. Instead, when we recognize that we're lost, once again, in feeling we "should" be perfect, we practice letting that thought go, and get back to doing our best without extra layers of self-judgment.
And that's where mindfulness becomes useful. Surfing the never-ending waves in real life, we aim to improve while not judging ourselves for needing it. We can readjust and try again both in mindfulness practice and in the rest of life. After all, what can any of us do except pay attention to making skillful choices, work diligently at what it seems we can influence, and try to be at ease with all the rest?
The Opposite of Perfect
There's no question mindfulness can be a muddled concept. For one thing, the word itself doesn't mean a whole lot. It's meant to capture a way of living. One basic concept sounds something like this: We have a whole lot easier time managing everyday life when we are aware of what we're doing instead of getting by on autopilot. Without effort and attention, most of our lives follow the same old mental ruts, for better or worse, day after day.
One of the first things most people notice when they start paying more attention is that their mind has a mind of its own. It creates ideas constantly -- some useful, some random, and many habitual. On autopilot, we keep on living the same way, whether or not it's to our benefit. We accept our assumptions, ways of doing things, and other thoughts as fixed and factual. But, as the saying goes, there's no point believing everything we think.
One common mental pattern is called "the inner critic." Like the two old guys in the balcony of the Muppet show, it's an unrelenting internal heckler. It insults and judges, mostly without reason - you're not good enough, you should have done x or y but definitely not z again. It's not about improvement, making amends, or fixing what needs fixing -- we want to build those traits. The inner critic is mindless self-judgment that undermines well-being and affects our interactions with the world.
When we take that critical voice at face value, it fuels perfectionism -- I blew it, I should be better at this parenting thing, I shouldn't be so (fill in your own habitual blank). Even if there is some reality to the thought -- maybe we would benefit if we were a little less reactive or hit the gym more - the incessant negativity isn't helpful. We can aim for change without constantly deriding ourselves along the way.
Most of us spend a lot of energy trying to convince ourselves this judgmental voice is wrong, but it's not a logical thought to start. It's not even-handedly grading our performance. We can't with logic alone solve the problem of why we're down on ourselves or why we're better than we believe. Ruminating about our own worth, skills, or prospects can't much influence an inherently irrational voice.
When we recognize the inner critic as nothing more than an entrenched mental habit, we shift our relationship with it. Instead of trying to pacify the voice of judgment, we name it and create some distance. Thanks anyway. That's judgment, and now I'm coming back - not wrestling with you today. Instead of believing the nagging, perfectionistic voice, we pause, glance towards the balcony, and come back to real life once again.
Perfectly Imperfect
Stuff happens, not all of it great. We mess up, and so do the people around us. As Jon Kabat-Zinn, the father of mindfulness in the West, suggests in his classic book, ease means finding comfort in the midst of the full catastrophe of life.
A formal mindfulness practice is an acknowledgement that if we aim to build certain traits, we access them more readily in daily life. If you want to be more aware, responsive, emotionally balanced, compassionate or anything else, it takes effort. It doesn't require being perfect -when you see that voice taking over, it's an opportunity to move past its influence.
We all benefit when we take a few moments to focus our attention (without expecting stillness). Or settle our busy minds (without expecting stress to go away completely). Or build awareness of the assumptions and habits that drive us (without blaming ourselves for those tendencies in the first place).
Or develop more compassion in our lives (even though some people absolutely, totally annoy us).
There's no perfect. If you're practicing mindfulness and judging yourself -- notice that habit. If you have a false perception that you can ever be perfect, you'll end up even more stressed. Be aware of that idealistic picture, and then let it go. You're flawed and so is everyone else, but when you aim for improvement, everyone benefits. Mindfulness isn't perfectionism -- it's the antidote for perfectionism instead.
Mindfulness: The Antidote for Perfectionism
Being mindful starts in part with accepting the fact that we cannot ever be fully mindful in the first place. Our brains aren't wired that way. And life itself is unendingly uncertain and unpredictable. Imperfection is the norm. It's how we live with these facts that influences our moment-to-moment well-being.
July 14, 2015
Feed the Right Wolf
A boy and his grandfather are hanging out. The boy says to his grandfather, How is it you never seem to get upset? Don't you ever feel angry?
His grandfather replies, I sometimes feel there are two wolves inside me, each of whom fights to tell me what to do. Whenever something angers me, one of the wolves is full of fire, and wants to attack and act nasty. The other is calmer, thinks clearly, and makes better choices. But they're both always there.
And the boy asks, But if they are always fighting, how do you know which wolf is going to win?
The grandfather answers, The wolf who wins is the one I choose to feed.
Feeding Our Personal Wolves
Human nature hasn't changed much since this Native American fable was created long ago. We all have impulses and habits, some for the better and some for the worse - our inner wolves. What has changed is that in this modern information era we are uniquely barraged with information and imagery, much of it disturbing and upsetting, that over and over again feeds a particularly angry wolf.
Fifteen minutes in the barber chair today, and the television news shows me a shooting and tornados and an accident at a local nuclear plant. I want to take action and make a statement when there is something to be done, and I hope others watching do the same - in many ways our world depends on it. But it's an awful lot to take in all at once.
After a perfectly normal day, with all its ups and downs, what fills your mind at night when you try to fall asleep? Our brains are hardwired to notice potential hazards, a vital bias when in actual danger. The flip side is that when we're not under acute threat, upsetting things often grab our attention more than positive. Our mind craves relaxation and happiness (or sleep), but lighter moments often pass
without holding our attention.
The news media seemingly thrives on this all too human tendency. It appears intent not only on informing but on riveting our attention in place, presumably to increase ratings or revenue. Graphic headlines and shocking stories fill our daily experience. Yet this isn't entirely the media's fault, since we're the ones choosing to watch that coverage in the first place. Who hasn't compulsively watched repetitive, grueling coverage of a tragedy?
So what can be done? For starters, we can decide to feed the healthier wolf in ourselves more often. For me, in part that means reading the Sports and Arts sections first most mornings, because later I'll listen to National Public Radio in the car, and at the office read news on the Internet. There's an expansive middle ground to explore between 'well informed' and 'force feeding an angry wolf until it consumes everything around it.'
When we attend to feeding a healthier wolf for at least a period of time daily, we loosen the grip of negativity. Some people sustain a daily gratitude or compassion practice as a reminder to focus on positive experiences in life, and in the world around us. Doing altruistic things may also improve our own state of mind. Another way of finding this less-charged space is through the practice of mindfulness. For our ongoing inner wrestling matches, setting aside these moments builds an advantage for the clear-sighted wolves in our lives.
Attending to the Wolf Pack
The news nowadays can feel pretty overwhelming, dominated by violence, moral failure and looming environmental collapse. But just as an individual might attend to wolves who represent their best nature, the same might apply for a society. Media has the potential not only to report for us but to influence our culture as a whole, which I imagine is why many go into the field in the first place.
Knowing in real time about every awful event everywhere around the globe can be catalyst for powerful, valuable actions - or overwhelm us and seed violence. Behaviors that might never have been contemplated before are now scarily available for consideration in moments of individual crisis. Remaining aware that actions (even putting together a newscast) have consequences is a huge step towards feeding a more useful wolf.
Censorship cannot be the answer, because freedom of speech is core to our safety. Yet disturbing imagery apparently sells, so we keep seeing more of it. Did the Sandy Hook recommendations about gun control and school safety get as much coverage as the event itself? More media attention on issues such as how to report about violence without dwelling on it, or how to de-stigmatize mental health difficulties while breaking down barriers to care would probably benefit us all. Society-level mindfulness like this would mean nurturing healthy wolves on a different scale.
Not all Wolves are Scary
Amazingly, apart from a small minority, nearly all the billions of people on this planet choose to exist peacefully together. They're even intentionally helpful to each other. If not that, at least they leave each other alone. On any given day, almost everyone on this planet, thankfully, behaves well.
This is not meant to be naïve. There is plenty to address emphatically around specific individuals or groups who put others in danger, and plenty to change about how we collectively live. Yet most people are remarkably skillful at managing anger and frustration and following the rules of society, right down to the Miracle of Rush Hour when thousands of drivers hit their breaks in sync, stop at red lights, and stay on the correct side of a swath of yellow paint on the road.
There's no benefit in denying reality. There is great benefit in actions that prevent future disasters, or ameliorate suffering around the globe. But as individuals, as a society, and even as a responsible news media, we can pause and reassess what information we choose to emphasize in this modern, electronically connected world. For our own well-being and that of our world around us, we can select the wolves we want to nurture, not the ones fed for us.
Raising a Healthy Wolf
A core message within mindfulness practice is the often challenging reminder that throughout the world everyone is driven by similar desires. Each person may picture it differently, but wants relief from suffering, or to find happiness. Those with whom we disagree, and even those who behave in frightening ways, seek their own image of peace, however twisted it may appear. We can fully defend ourselves while still acknowledging that basic reality - and perhaps note that in taking steps to eliminate their suffering we protect ourselves.
Yet mindfulness itself isn't the point exactly. Acting with intention and awareness is the larger concept - and any of us can do that at any time. In a busy, distracting world where any disturbing event anywhere races towards us in a moment, we can proactively care for ourselves. Maybe set aside an urge to stare at repetitive news coverage, take note of whatever has happened with compassion, and then allow our mind to settle before resolving on a next step forward.
As Grandfather suggests in the folk tale, remain aware and feed the wolf of your choosing. Emphasize what is going well without candy-coating the rest. Take action when you can, while firmly making choices about where to give attention in life -- and in your mind. Who knows, if enough of us focus on the healthier wolves more of the time, maybe we can even influence the tone and content of tomorrow's headlines.
His grandfather replies, I sometimes feel there are two wolves inside me, each of whom fights to tell me what to do. Whenever something angers me, one of the wolves is full of fire, and wants to attack and act nasty. The other is calmer, thinks clearly, and makes better choices. But they're both always there.
And the boy asks, But if they are always fighting, how do you know which wolf is going to win?
The grandfather answers, The wolf who wins is the one I choose to feed.
Feeding Our Personal Wolves
Human nature hasn't changed much since this Native American fable was created long ago. We all have impulses and habits, some for the better and some for the worse - our inner wolves. What has changed is that in this modern information era we are uniquely barraged with information and imagery, much of it disturbing and upsetting, that over and over again feeds a particularly angry wolf.
Fifteen minutes in the barber chair today, and the television news shows me a shooting and tornados and an accident at a local nuclear plant. I want to take action and make a statement when there is something to be done, and I hope others watching do the same - in many ways our world depends on it. But it's an awful lot to take in all at once.
After a perfectly normal day, with all its ups and downs, what fills your mind at night when you try to fall asleep? Our brains are hardwired to notice potential hazards, a vital bias when in actual danger. The flip side is that when we're not under acute threat, upsetting things often grab our attention more than positive. Our mind craves relaxation and happiness (or sleep), but lighter moments often pass
without holding our attention.
The news media seemingly thrives on this all too human tendency. It appears intent not only on informing but on riveting our attention in place, presumably to increase ratings or revenue. Graphic headlines and shocking stories fill our daily experience. Yet this isn't entirely the media's fault, since we're the ones choosing to watch that coverage in the first place. Who hasn't compulsively watched repetitive, grueling coverage of a tragedy?
So what can be done? For starters, we can decide to feed the healthier wolf in ourselves more often. For me, in part that means reading the Sports and Arts sections first most mornings, because later I'll listen to National Public Radio in the car, and at the office read news on the Internet. There's an expansive middle ground to explore between 'well informed' and 'force feeding an angry wolf until it consumes everything around it.'
When we attend to feeding a healthier wolf for at least a period of time daily, we loosen the grip of negativity. Some people sustain a daily gratitude or compassion practice as a reminder to focus on positive experiences in life, and in the world around us. Doing altruistic things may also improve our own state of mind. Another way of finding this less-charged space is through the practice of mindfulness. For our ongoing inner wrestling matches, setting aside these moments builds an advantage for the clear-sighted wolves in our lives.
Attending to the Wolf Pack
The news nowadays can feel pretty overwhelming, dominated by violence, moral failure and looming environmental collapse. But just as an individual might attend to wolves who represent their best nature, the same might apply for a society. Media has the potential not only to report for us but to influence our culture as a whole, which I imagine is why many go into the field in the first place.
Knowing in real time about every awful event everywhere around the globe can be catalyst for powerful, valuable actions - or overwhelm us and seed violence. Behaviors that might never have been contemplated before are now scarily available for consideration in moments of individual crisis. Remaining aware that actions (even putting together a newscast) have consequences is a huge step towards feeding a more useful wolf.
Censorship cannot be the answer, because freedom of speech is core to our safety. Yet disturbing imagery apparently sells, so we keep seeing more of it. Did the Sandy Hook recommendations about gun control and school safety get as much coverage as the event itself? More media attention on issues such as how to report about violence without dwelling on it, or how to de-stigmatize mental health difficulties while breaking down barriers to care would probably benefit us all. Society-level mindfulness like this would mean nurturing healthy wolves on a different scale.
Not all Wolves are Scary
Amazingly, apart from a small minority, nearly all the billions of people on this planet choose to exist peacefully together. They're even intentionally helpful to each other. If not that, at least they leave each other alone. On any given day, almost everyone on this planet, thankfully, behaves well.
This is not meant to be naïve. There is plenty to address emphatically around specific individuals or groups who put others in danger, and plenty to change about how we collectively live. Yet most people are remarkably skillful at managing anger and frustration and following the rules of society, right down to the Miracle of Rush Hour when thousands of drivers hit their breaks in sync, stop at red lights, and stay on the correct side of a swath of yellow paint on the road.
There's no benefit in denying reality. There is great benefit in actions that prevent future disasters, or ameliorate suffering around the globe. But as individuals, as a society, and even as a responsible news media, we can pause and reassess what information we choose to emphasize in this modern, electronically connected world. For our own well-being and that of our world around us, we can select the wolves we want to nurture, not the ones fed for us.
Raising a Healthy Wolf
A core message within mindfulness practice is the often challenging reminder that throughout the world everyone is driven by similar desires. Each person may picture it differently, but wants relief from suffering, or to find happiness. Those with whom we disagree, and even those who behave in frightening ways, seek their own image of peace, however twisted it may appear. We can fully defend ourselves while still acknowledging that basic reality - and perhaps note that in taking steps to eliminate their suffering we protect ourselves.
Yet mindfulness itself isn't the point exactly. Acting with intention and awareness is the larger concept - and any of us can do that at any time. In a busy, distracting world where any disturbing event anywhere races towards us in a moment, we can proactively care for ourselves. Maybe set aside an urge to stare at repetitive news coverage, take note of whatever has happened with compassion, and then allow our mind to settle before resolving on a next step forward.
As Grandfather suggests in the folk tale, remain aware and feed the wolf of your choosing. Emphasize what is going well without candy-coating the rest. Take action when you can, while firmly making choices about where to give attention in life -- and in your mind. Who knows, if enough of us focus on the healthier wolves more of the time, maybe we can even influence the tone and content of tomorrow's headlines.
Feed the Right Wolf
Take action when you can, while firmly making choices about where to give attention in life -- and in your mind. Who knows, if enough of us focus on the healthier wolves more of the time, maybe we can even influence the tone and content of tomorrow's headlines.
July 2, 2015
Mindfulness and the Average Smartphone: Technology for Calm Instead of Chaos
The modern, technology driven world often seems to make people feel distracted and stressed. In my field, child development research bluntly shows under-monitored technology influences children for the worse. But technology is simply a tool, and how it impacts our lives depends entirely on how we use it.
As with any part of our life, we can aim for awareness and clarity in choosing how to live with modern technology -- in other words, we can be mindful. Mindfulness means aiming to live life more often in real time, as it is, with emotional openness, mental clarity, and resolve. Its practice reinforces traits that make managing life easier.
In spite of how it often feels, technology at its best aims for a similar end. Used wisely, it can make life simpler and easier to manage. So here are some ways to cultivate awareness and clarity through technology:
• Practice Mindfulness. Any new habit requires consistent, sustained effort before becoming a routine, including getting started with mindfulness; technology can support the process. Multiple apps provide guided mindfulness instruction, and most also include a prompt for daily practices. Better-known apps include Headspace, Calm, Smiling Mind, Stop, Breathe & Think, and the Insight Meditation Timer, with many others available (apologies to those I've forgotten). The Mindfulness Bell chimes randomly at times during the day as a reminder to pause and settle for a moment -- or use your phone ringing itself, pausing before responding to the call.
• Support Healthy Habits. There are more healthy living apps than can be easily summarized, so the links that follow connect to best-of articles. Your phone can monitor your daily exercise, and can offer new fitness programs. Nutrition from recipes to food diaries and calorie counters are available. Or use your phone to monitor how much and what quality sleep you're getting.
• Change Tech Habits. Perhaps the most fundamental starting point for changing any habit is recognizing it exists in the first place. To that end, Checky, Quality Time and Moment provide to you a daily summary of your own smart phone use. On the computer, RescueTime does a similar job. Don't forget, open-ended down time (sometimes called 'boredom') is often where creativity arises.
• Stay on Task. Hopefully, when we need to be productive we are able to resist checking news, messages or playing games, but if not there are ways to keep ourselves on task. For example, Freedom and Anti-social are programs that lock out the distractions.
• Practice Gratitude. In the classic novel White Noise an ill-defined crisis lurks in the background undermining everyone's well-being, a feeling similar to what many people experience in our media-driven world. To counter that trend, the app Happier promotes a daily gratitude practice, which research shows increases happiness. And websites such as 100 Lives and PositiveNews focus on better (but no less real) news as a way to sustain some mental balance.
• Create mindful contact reminders. For common contacts whose calls and messages cause you stress, set their image to something peaceful. Remind yourself, with a picture or words, to pause and settle before answering. Of course, pick something that if accidently seen by someone else will not anger them or get you fired.
• Be Proactive About Notifications. There's no need to permit default settings on phones and computers to rattle our minds all day long. Shut off notifications and alarms that aren't vital; we don't need to know immediately about every email, social media posting, game update, or news event. Check in with programs only when you have time for them. This also helps you attend to the reminders you actually want to see.
Instead of remaining on autopilot and letting technology happen to you, approach it with awareness and openness to change. In the end, technology is a product meant to grab our attention and hold it whether or not that's in our best interest. It can provide organization, efficiency, and entertainment, but it can also distract, disorganize, and disorient. Pause, check in with yourself, and then resolve both to keep technology in its place and to make skillful use of it throughout your life.
Since there are plenty more applications and uses that I probably have missed, please continue the discussion and suggestions in the comments below...
As with any part of our life, we can aim for awareness and clarity in choosing how to live with modern technology -- in other words, we can be mindful. Mindfulness means aiming to live life more often in real time, as it is, with emotional openness, mental clarity, and resolve. Its practice reinforces traits that make managing life easier.
In spite of how it often feels, technology at its best aims for a similar end. Used wisely, it can make life simpler and easier to manage. So here are some ways to cultivate awareness and clarity through technology:
• Practice Mindfulness. Any new habit requires consistent, sustained effort before becoming a routine, including getting started with mindfulness; technology can support the process. Multiple apps provide guided mindfulness instruction, and most also include a prompt for daily practices. Better-known apps include Headspace, Calm, Smiling Mind, Stop, Breathe & Think, and the Insight Meditation Timer, with many others available (apologies to those I've forgotten). The Mindfulness Bell chimes randomly at times during the day as a reminder to pause and settle for a moment -- or use your phone ringing itself, pausing before responding to the call.
• Support Healthy Habits. There are more healthy living apps than can be easily summarized, so the links that follow connect to best-of articles. Your phone can monitor your daily exercise, and can offer new fitness programs. Nutrition from recipes to food diaries and calorie counters are available. Or use your phone to monitor how much and what quality sleep you're getting.
• Change Tech Habits. Perhaps the most fundamental starting point for changing any habit is recognizing it exists in the first place. To that end, Checky, Quality Time and Moment provide to you a daily summary of your own smart phone use. On the computer, RescueTime does a similar job. Don't forget, open-ended down time (sometimes called 'boredom') is often where creativity arises.
• Stay on Task. Hopefully, when we need to be productive we are able to resist checking news, messages or playing games, but if not there are ways to keep ourselves on task. For example, Freedom and Anti-social are programs that lock out the distractions.
• Practice Gratitude. In the classic novel White Noise an ill-defined crisis lurks in the background undermining everyone's well-being, a feeling similar to what many people experience in our media-driven world. To counter that trend, the app Happier promotes a daily gratitude practice, which research shows increases happiness. And websites such as 100 Lives and PositiveNews focus on better (but no less real) news as a way to sustain some mental balance.
• Create mindful contact reminders. For common contacts whose calls and messages cause you stress, set their image to something peaceful. Remind yourself, with a picture or words, to pause and settle before answering. Of course, pick something that if accidently seen by someone else will not anger them or get you fired.
• Be Proactive About Notifications. There's no need to permit default settings on phones and computers to rattle our minds all day long. Shut off notifications and alarms that aren't vital; we don't need to know immediately about every email, social media posting, game update, or news event. Check in with programs only when you have time for them. This also helps you attend to the reminders you actually want to see.
Instead of remaining on autopilot and letting technology happen to you, approach it with awareness and openness to change. In the end, technology is a product meant to grab our attention and hold it whether or not that's in our best interest. It can provide organization, efficiency, and entertainment, but it can also distract, disorganize, and disorient. Pause, check in with yourself, and then resolve both to keep technology in its place and to make skillful use of it throughout your life.
Since there are plenty more applications and uses that I probably have missed, please continue the discussion and suggestions in the comments below...
Mindfulness and the Average Smartphone: Technology for Calm Instead of Chaos
In spite of how it often feels, technology at its best aims for a similar end. Used wisely, it can make life simpler and easier to manage. So here are some ways to cultivate awareness and clarity through technology.
May 21, 2015
Mindful Eating, ADHD and Nutrition
The words attention deficit are so strongly associated with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), many people overlook other far-reaching consequences of the disorder. Among them are poor eating habits, eating disorders, and a higher-than-average risk of becoming overweight as a result of having ADHD. For example, a recent study linked ADHD to binge eating. How these eating issues happen makes a lot of sense when you understand the impact of ADHD on life management as a whole.
Executive function includes cognitive abilities that act as the brain's manager. ADHD is essentially a consequence of poor executive function, not inattention or impulsiveness. That means it undermines skills such as time management, decision making, organization, and planning. For people with ADHD all these management-level mental abilities can be difficult.
The ADHD Executive Chef
While research shows eating issues are common around ADHD, if you are an adult with ADHD or have a child with it, all this might come as a surprise -- for good reason. "The relationship between ADHD and eating is vastly under-recognized even in the eating disorders and ADHD communities," says Roberto Olivardia, Ph.D., a leading expert on the topic.
Executive function supports everyday decision making around food. With ADHD, the inability to plan on its own may cause last minute, rushed dietary choices. It also leads to rushed reliance on fast food or quick snacks laden with fat, carbohydrates, or sugar. In addition, children and adults with ADHD frequently feel a need to eat right now when hungry, fed by their ADHD-related reactivity and impulsivity. And out of stress, boredom or overstimulation amplified by ADHD they often develop emotional overeating.
How people with ADHD eat also becomes problematic. The craving for stimulation inherit to the condition may lead to eating too quickly. Engaging in other activities while eating, such as watching television or driving, leads to missing body cues that signal satiety. This causes people to eat past the point of being full.
Not only is nutrition compromised for people with ADHD, the condition puts many of them at risk for an eating disorder. "Typically eating disorders with ADHD are the more impulsive types, such as binge eating disorder and bulimia," Dr. Olivardia says. "Since most people think of ADHD as impulsive in nature, those with compulsive eating disorders like anorexia are often under-diagnosed and missed. This restriction around food can be an attempt to quell the chaos that someone living with ADHD feels."
A Domino Effect
Even if someone with ADHD is not overweight, executive function may impact healthy eating. And poor eating habits do not only affect nutrition. Difficulty with planning, distractibility, and time management frequently have a domino effect.
For example, Dr. Olivardia tells the story of a patient who because of ADHD had intense trouble managing time. He'd usually skip breakfast to get to his job on time. He'd often forget (another ADHD symptom) to take lunch with him, and then get hyperfocused on work and skip eating during the day anyway. Each night he arrived home starving and ate an enormous, unhealthy volume of food.
"Although he kept a healthy weight, eating this way resulted in poor sleep," says Dr. Olivardia. "He felt bloated, gassy and had acid reflux. Sleeping badly resulted in less focus and concentration the next day, which lead to an over-reliance on caffeine, which led to appetite suppression and hyper focus, which triggered the pattern all over again. He did not feel healthy, even though his weight was fine."
Mindful Eating Habits
Mindfulness and eating are a natural fit. What other activity do we give as little attention to while we're doing it, while relying on habits to make choices, not always to our benefit? Healthy eating develops with moment-to-moment awareness, conscious decision making, and responsiveness (instead of reactivity) when under stress. Eating like this means nothing more artificial then aiming to pay attention to eating while eating -- much easier to say than to do.
With or without ADHD, in the moment most of us do not attend much to eating. We tear through a favorite food with little awareness at all. We make choices around food to eat or buy without much thought. And we frequently eat based on how we feel emotionally; comfort food is called comfort food for a reason. Even when overall we think about health and nutrition a lot, we all too often fall into autopilot.
Mindfulness is an effective and increasingly studied solution for resolving an array of eating issues from overeating to losing weight to eating disorders. Mindfulness leads to more intentional food choices and fewer unhealthy eating habits. Like anything, mindful eating gets easier and more instinctual with practice. Below are some ideas of how to get started -- choose from Menu A, Menu B, or fill free to mix and match:
Menu A: Mindful Eating
• Pay attention to what drives you to eat. Notice the influence of each of the five senses in decisions. For example, how often do you eat only because something looks good or smells good? Are you only eating because you're hungry?
• Notice habits when shopping or eating. Habitual behaviors are difficult, but not impossible, to change. Without self-judgment for whatever has happened before, pause before making choices. Make intentional decisions about what you buy and eat next.
• Pause often while eating. Put your utensil down between bites. Check in with your body cues before taking a second helping. Paying attention in this way makes it simpler to stop when full, not when your plate is clean.
• For any meal or snack (or even for the first few bites), aim to pay attention to each of your five senses. In an unforced way, as if savoring a spectacular meal, notice the sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste of your food. Turn off distractions, like the television or your phone. Gently refocus your attention whenever you become distracted. If you're having a meal with family or a friend, bring your full attention to that social experience too.
• Be patient with yourself. Avoid negative self-talk when you do not succeed in what you set out to do. Recognize any tendency to criticize yourself as a habitual, not so helpful voice. Give yourself credit for changes, however small, and return to your better intentions without expectations of perfection.
Menu B: Nutritional Guidelines for ADHD
Here are Dr. Olivardia's recommendations for people with ADHD for common nutritional issues:
• Eat breakfast. Like the patient Dr. Olivardia described, many people with ADHD skip breakfast due to oversleeping and rushing. Hours later, they end up painfully hungry and grab whatever is nearby. Value breakfast, set yourself reminders about it, and plan ahead.
• Get plenty of protein in your diet. Protein fuels your body for longer periods of time. There is even some suggestion that healthy, high-protein breakfasts help ease daytime ADHD symptoms. Avoid too much sugar and junk food, which tend to affect mood and exacerbate a cycle of increasing hunger over the day.
• Eat throughout the day. Many people skip meals due to hyperfocus and losing track of time. This sets their body up to hold onto fat and increases cravings for fat and sugar. Extreme hunger also leads to impulsive decision-making. Again, set alarms if needed, and during breaks consider a healthy snack.
• Work towards getting adequate sleep. Sleep deprivation lowers our body's ability to burn fat. It also exacerbates ADHD and stress, and undermines our ability to stick to plans.
• Most of all, get support. Share tips and strategies with an ADHD buddy or a professional familiar with the field who understands how establishing a pattern of healthy eating can be hard.
Executive function includes cognitive abilities that act as the brain's manager. ADHD is essentially a consequence of poor executive function, not inattention or impulsiveness. That means it undermines skills such as time management, decision making, organization, and planning. For people with ADHD all these management-level mental abilities can be difficult.
The ADHD Executive Chef
While research shows eating issues are common around ADHD, if you are an adult with ADHD or have a child with it, all this might come as a surprise -- for good reason. "The relationship between ADHD and eating is vastly under-recognized even in the eating disorders and ADHD communities," says Roberto Olivardia, Ph.D., a leading expert on the topic.
Executive function supports everyday decision making around food. With ADHD, the inability to plan on its own may cause last minute, rushed dietary choices. It also leads to rushed reliance on fast food or quick snacks laden with fat, carbohydrates, or sugar. In addition, children and adults with ADHD frequently feel a need to eat right now when hungry, fed by their ADHD-related reactivity and impulsivity. And out of stress, boredom or overstimulation amplified by ADHD they often develop emotional overeating.
How people with ADHD eat also becomes problematic. The craving for stimulation inherit to the condition may lead to eating too quickly. Engaging in other activities while eating, such as watching television or driving, leads to missing body cues that signal satiety. This causes people to eat past the point of being full.
Not only is nutrition compromised for people with ADHD, the condition puts many of them at risk for an eating disorder. "Typically eating disorders with ADHD are the more impulsive types, such as binge eating disorder and bulimia," Dr. Olivardia says. "Since most people think of ADHD as impulsive in nature, those with compulsive eating disorders like anorexia are often under-diagnosed and missed. This restriction around food can be an attempt to quell the chaos that someone living with ADHD feels."
A Domino Effect
Even if someone with ADHD is not overweight, executive function may impact healthy eating. And poor eating habits do not only affect nutrition. Difficulty with planning, distractibility, and time management frequently have a domino effect.
For example, Dr. Olivardia tells the story of a patient who because of ADHD had intense trouble managing time. He'd usually skip breakfast to get to his job on time. He'd often forget (another ADHD symptom) to take lunch with him, and then get hyperfocused on work and skip eating during the day anyway. Each night he arrived home starving and ate an enormous, unhealthy volume of food.
"Although he kept a healthy weight, eating this way resulted in poor sleep," says Dr. Olivardia. "He felt bloated, gassy and had acid reflux. Sleeping badly resulted in less focus and concentration the next day, which lead to an over-reliance on caffeine, which led to appetite suppression and hyper focus, which triggered the pattern all over again. He did not feel healthy, even though his weight was fine."
Mindful Eating Habits
Mindfulness and eating are a natural fit. What other activity do we give as little attention to while we're doing it, while relying on habits to make choices, not always to our benefit? Healthy eating develops with moment-to-moment awareness, conscious decision making, and responsiveness (instead of reactivity) when under stress. Eating like this means nothing more artificial then aiming to pay attention to eating while eating -- much easier to say than to do.
With or without ADHD, in the moment most of us do not attend much to eating. We tear through a favorite food with little awareness at all. We make choices around food to eat or buy without much thought. And we frequently eat based on how we feel emotionally; comfort food is called comfort food for a reason. Even when overall we think about health and nutrition a lot, we all too often fall into autopilot.
Mindfulness is an effective and increasingly studied solution for resolving an array of eating issues from overeating to losing weight to eating disorders. Mindfulness leads to more intentional food choices and fewer unhealthy eating habits. Like anything, mindful eating gets easier and more instinctual with practice. Below are some ideas of how to get started -- choose from Menu A, Menu B, or fill free to mix and match:
Menu A: Mindful Eating
• Pay attention to what drives you to eat. Notice the influence of each of the five senses in decisions. For example, how often do you eat only because something looks good or smells good? Are you only eating because you're hungry?
• Notice habits when shopping or eating. Habitual behaviors are difficult, but not impossible, to change. Without self-judgment for whatever has happened before, pause before making choices. Make intentional decisions about what you buy and eat next.
• Pause often while eating. Put your utensil down between bites. Check in with your body cues before taking a second helping. Paying attention in this way makes it simpler to stop when full, not when your plate is clean.
• For any meal or snack (or even for the first few bites), aim to pay attention to each of your five senses. In an unforced way, as if savoring a spectacular meal, notice the sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste of your food. Turn off distractions, like the television or your phone. Gently refocus your attention whenever you become distracted. If you're having a meal with family or a friend, bring your full attention to that social experience too.
• Be patient with yourself. Avoid negative self-talk when you do not succeed in what you set out to do. Recognize any tendency to criticize yourself as a habitual, not so helpful voice. Give yourself credit for changes, however small, and return to your better intentions without expectations of perfection.
Menu B: Nutritional Guidelines for ADHD
Here are Dr. Olivardia's recommendations for people with ADHD for common nutritional issues:
• Eat breakfast. Like the patient Dr. Olivardia described, many people with ADHD skip breakfast due to oversleeping and rushing. Hours later, they end up painfully hungry and grab whatever is nearby. Value breakfast, set yourself reminders about it, and plan ahead.
• Get plenty of protein in your diet. Protein fuels your body for longer periods of time. There is even some suggestion that healthy, high-protein breakfasts help ease daytime ADHD symptoms. Avoid too much sugar and junk food, which tend to affect mood and exacerbate a cycle of increasing hunger over the day.
• Eat throughout the day. Many people skip meals due to hyperfocus and losing track of time. This sets their body up to hold onto fat and increases cravings for fat and sugar. Extreme hunger also leads to impulsive decision-making. Again, set alarms if needed, and during breaks consider a healthy snack.
• Work towards getting adequate sleep. Sleep deprivation lowers our body's ability to burn fat. It also exacerbates ADHD and stress, and undermines our ability to stick to plans.
• Most of all, get support. Share tips and strategies with an ADHD buddy or a professional familiar with the field who understands how establishing a pattern of healthy eating can be hard.
