From the Counsellors
Mindfulness and the power of thoughts
Our brains are thought-making machines. They produce hundreds of thoughts every day which help us to understand the world around us. How often do you notice the thoughts that pop into your brain in response to situations? For many of us the answer is not often.
Mindfulness is a skill that helps us to become more aware of what is happening in the present moment. Through using regular mindfulness we are able to reduce the amount of time we spend worrying about things that have happened in the past or things that might happen in the future. It is a skill that becomes more and more powerful the more we practice it, enabling us to decide which thoughts we would like to guide our response to any given situation.
Want to give mindfulness a go? There are various apps such as Smiling Mind and Breathe which can guide these sessions. We recommend daily mindfulness practice for just a few minutes each day.
Practising mindfulness has the potential to deliver the following benefits:
- Minimise symptoms of anxiety and stress.
- Minimise anxiety symptoms occurring in the future.
- Build emotional resilience.
- Empower children to self-manage their anxiety. Teach children to ‘self-calm’.
- Improve sleeping patterns.
- Improve concentration, attention and memory.
- Reduce reactivity and increase emotional intelligence.
- Increase joyful experiences
Mindfulness is the first step and by developing an awareness of our thinking, we can then begin to identify which of our thoughts are helpful and which of our thoughts are unhelpful.
In Dr Russ Harris’ book, The Happiness Trap, he provides us with a variety of ideas to reduce stress or worry. Here’s a trick you can try – practice it at home and see if it works for you!
- Identify an unhelpful or unpleasant thought that you would like to reduce the impact of. The thought might be something about you (e.g. 'I am not good enough', or 'I’m stupid'), about a relationship (e.g. 'She doesn’t like me', or 'What they did isn’t fair'), or about a situation (e.g. 'I will fail', or 'I can’t do this'). When you have identified the thought, focus on the thought for 10 seconds, believe it and notice how it makes you feel.
- Next we want to defuse from this thought. The goal of this is not to get rid of the unhelpful thought, but to be able to see the thought in a way that reduces the negative impact that it has on us. To do this, choose a character with a silly voice from your favourite animated TV show or movie (such as a Minion, Homer Simpsons, SpongeBob SquarePants, Donkey from Shrek, etc.). Bring the unhelpful thought to mind again, but have your character voice the thought instead this time, as if they are saying it to you. What do you notice as you do this?
- Go back to saying the thought again as you said it the first time. Notice what happens.
- Now pick another character and hear the thought in this voice. Again, just notice what happens.
Often what we will notice is that the thought is difficult to take seriously when we use the silly voice of a character. This helps us to lessen the impact of the unhelpful or unpleasant thought on our emotions and our actions. There are many different ways you can practice defusion and it can be very powerful when you find a strategy that works for you.
These strategies will help you to promote happy thoughts in your brain and reduce the impact of the unhelpful ones.
Happy spring from the Counsellors!
Gai Bath (Kinder–Year 6) and
Jane Sutcliffe (Year 7–12)
SMC Counsellors