Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

by J. Mark G. Williams

When there is something to be scared or stressed about—whether real or imagined—our ancient “fight-or-flight” reactions kick in as they should. But then something else happens: the mind begins to trawl through memories to try and find something that will explain why we are feeling like this. So if we feel stressed or in danger, our minds dig up memories of when we felt threatened in the past, and then create scenarios of what might happen in the future if we cannot explain what is going on now. The result is that the brain’s alarm signals start to be triggered not only by the current scare, but by past threats and future worries. This happens in an instant, before we’re even aware of it. New evidence from brain scans confirms this: people who spend their days rushing around mindlessly, who find it difficult to stay present and get so focused on goals that they lose touch with the outside world, have an amygdala (the primeval part