CBT for insomnia - solve your sleep problems in a safe and natural way

Have your nights become a nuisance - tossing and turning with a good night’s sleep seemingly out of reach? Perhaps it might be a relief to learn that help is at hand; cognitive behavioural therapy can offer a safe, side-effect free alternative to medication to help you recapture your natural sleeping patterns.

Since, on average, we spend a third of our lives asleep, disrupted sleep can feel very troubling indeed. Insomnia affects an estimated 30-50% of people at some point in their lives, and 10% experience chronic insomnia (technically, sleep disturbance which lasts for longer than three weeks). In short, insomnia is a common problem - you are definitely not alone.

In this post, I’m going to take a look at how we approach insomnia in therapy using a CBT approach. Obviously this is only a snapshot of how we can use techniques from mindfulness, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as well as classic CBT methods to get back to bedtime bliss.

Typically, a series of sessions of CBT for insomnia will cover a range of approaches to help you achieve a realistic sleep goal. To start, you’d be building up an accurate picture of your sleep problem with your therapist. In CBT we look at four distinct areas - thoughts, emotions, behaviours and symptoms. We will be focusing on how all of these areas can be contributing to a difficulty in falling asleep or getting back to sleep when wakened.

How much sleep do you need?

Experts agree that on average an adult requires between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night. Sleep needs do change during the course of our lives, babies and toddlers sleep far more, for example. If you have a very physical job, you exercise a lot, or perhaps you have recently been poorly, then your needs may change. There’s no gold standard set amount, but the guideline of 7-9 hours holds true for most.

Insomnia is associated with an increased tendency to feel anxious or experience other mood difficulties. Here it can get a little chicken and egg, as sleep disruption can also be part of depression and anxiety, but whichever came first, we know that if we improve the quality of our sleep then we can see all-round benefits.

Benefits of a good night’s sleep

• Improves mood

• Helps with immune system function

• Regulates hormones - including keeping a healthy weight

• Helps with focus and productivity

• Improved energy

• Helps with rational thinking

• Increases our ability to deal with whatever life throws at us

• And last but not least: it’s actually quite nice, to be able to snuggle down at the end of a long day, and appreciate the cosy, safeness of your own comfortable bed

Tracking your sleep

The first steps in therapy for insomnia involve tracking your sleep - the number of hours, what you were doing before bedtime, any remedies you may have used, caffeine or alcohol consumption and so on. There are plenty of apps on the market for this, but we don’t have to get too snazzy… pen and paper will do and probably more easily shared with your therapist. This sleep diary from The Sleep Foundation is comprehensive and will help to establish your current pattern and is a way for you to monitor your progress if you choose to.

What’s sleep hygiene?

Of course, sometimes sleeplessness can be down to modifiable factors, which can be easily remedied, so the next steps in insomnia treatment would be to take a look at your ‘sleep hygiene’. Contrary to how it sounds, this doesn’t mean keeping your sheets clean - although downy duvets and laundry-fresh sheets might assist! Sleep hygiene means taking a look at your bedtime routine, sleeping arrangements and bedroom environment. You can then take practically address areas which are in your control.

When we talk about sleep hygiene, we are ensuring we have some healthy habits in place. eg.

• Reducing alcohol at bedtime (can lead to night wakening)

• Reducing caffeine consumption

• Ensuring your room is a comfortable for sleep: temperature, light levels, comfort, noise

• Reducing over-stimulating activity at bedtime: playing video games, using phone in bed, reading news, going on social media etc

• Eating too late in the evening

• Introducing an effortless healthy wind-down routine

By setting up sleep-welcoming habits, we begin to set the body up for relaxation and sleep. If these simple strategies are still not bringing the progress you would like, then it’s time to move on to look at how your thinking and the very quest itself to get a good night’s sleep can make it increasingly out of reach.

Your sleep beliefs

While a period of interrupted sleep (due to a specific trigger, perhaps illness, a difficult period at work, a loss, relationship problems, having a new baby) might trigger an episode of sleepless nights, when this persists, it can be because our own thoughts about our lack of sleep can keep us locked into sleepless nights of tossing and turning. Paradoxically, the harder we try to get to sleep and the more we might be telling ourselves that we HAVE TO get to sleep, the more we might be getting ourselves stirred up, so preventing sleep from happening when we want it to.

The truth is, sleep will happen whatever we do or don’t do, but in insomnia it ends up happening at the wrong time, perhaps in short snatched bursts. We might find ourselves catching up one night after a sleepless night, or in naps, or at weekends. Just as we can’t force ourselves to stay awake, we can’t truly prevent sleep. Our body has inbuilt sleep regulation - if we’re in a sleep deficit, then we will fall asleep, even if that is during the day when we need to be awake. This isn’t ideal, as not only could it be outright dangerous if we are driving or operating machinery, but it may not suit you to be dozing off at random moments!

Don’t try too hard

Once we find ourselves in a cycle of overnight sleeplessness, we can get into a cycle of behaviours and thought patterns which become fixated on the idea of getting a good night’s sleep. In the case of sleep, there’s a paradox here. The more we try to get to sleep, the more this escapes us. This is called the Law of Reversed Effort. Have you ever tried to stop yourself from laughing where silence was required? Remember when you learnt to swim, how hard you tried and how now, well, really it’s effortless… There are many activities where trying harder does not work, and so it is with sleep. Because sleep comes naturally, we don’t need to be taught how or to strive to do so, it’s more about letting go of everything. It’s all the things we do in our minds and the physical actions we might carry out which keep our body alert, and in a state which isn’t conducive to sleep.

Sleep beliefs

Working out your beliefs about your sleep and challenging these during your waking hours can be helpful and supportive. As can educating yourself about sleep itself. The more you understand about sleep is that you’ll see that it is a natural process, which in reality needs no effort. It is often our thinking about the lack of sleep which keeps insomnia going. Common beliefs might be:

I won’t be able to cope or function without sleep

I have to fall asleep now, I can’t stand not being able to sleep (while watching the clock)

I can’t bear it when I haven’t had a good night’s sleep

I have to ensure my mind is empty before I go to bed, or I won’t fall asleep

I have to have silence to sleep, I can’t bear not having silence

I must have a perfect night’s sleep

If you’re an insomniac, do any of these resonate with you? There are others, but those are some of the typical themes I come across among my clients. These beliefs about your sleep can be addressed and helpful beliefs can be developed which are more conducive to helping your body to wind down for the evening.

A modern CBT approach for insomnia is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) which takes a mindful approach towards the thoughts, rather than getting into a bedtime battle. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a third wave CBT approach which uses, among other things, mindful awareness to accept thoughts rather than try to wrestle and wrangle with them at the very time we could be drifting off to dreamland. ACT techniques are particularly helpful at bedtime when we don’t want to be getting into increasing mind activity by trying to rationalise thoughts away. Being able to disengage with worry thoughts and let them go, while focusing on the present moment can help. Mindfulness training to accept and allow thoughts, feelings, external distractions to come and go can be of benefit. Imagine your thoughts as clouds in the sky which drift in and out, or as leaves on a stream which bob off into the distance. There’s no need to get into the river with the thoughts, you can learn to allow them to float away without attending to them.

Sleep behaviours to tackle

Aside from the basics of sleep hygiene, unhelpful habitual sleep patterns can be addressed.

There are two tried and tested methods of breaking the sleep pattern called Stimulus Control Therapy and Sleep Restriction Therapy which may be of help. Stimulus Control is for those who may have conditioned themselves to associate their bedtime as something negative. Sleep restriction Therapy aims to improve the ratio of sleep to time spent in bed (sleep efficiency), by restricting your sleep to begin with. It’s not quite as brutal as it sounds, and can get you quickly back on track if you are feeling highly motivated.

Any activities you undertake with the sole purpose of getting to sleep may keep the focus too much on the lack of sleep and give you extra pressure. It’s as if sleep becomes some kind of performance for which you must be ready. Reducing the amount of props or aids to sleep may also take the pressure off.

Helpful behaviours at bedtime might include relaxation techniques, a mindful body scan or simple mindfulness of breath. The key to success here is not to carry them out with an explicit goal, but to practise just accepting and being curious about what you find and what happens, rather than having an expectation that these must work for you. These exercises can be helpful to switch off and to engage the parasympathetic nervous system (our relaxation response) but their effectiveness may be affected by worry about your lack of sleep and focusing on striving for sleep.

Managing general anxiety or stress

Often being able to explore your everyday stressors can go hand-in-hand with insomnia. If you’re at the end of your tether and stressed to the max at the end of the day, it’s no wonder that you’ll find it harder to drift off to sleep. As CBT is a therapy which helps you to help yourself, many of the approaches we use to manage your insomnia can be cross-pollinated into everyday life.

Sleeping beauty. Sounder sleep could be just a few steps away with CBT for insomnia.

As I hope you can see from this introduction to treating insomnia with CBT, we have lots of options to get you back to sounder, more refreshing sleep. If I can be of support, please reach out.

Ali Binns is a CBT therapist in Bath specialising in anxiety problems. Feel free to get in touch using the contact form on the main menu if you’d like support and help in working through your particular problems.

Mindfulness exercise: 5 senses fruit meditation

Mindfulness awareness has a multitude of benefits, not least becoming aware of our mind's tricky tendencies to time travel to unhelpful destinations. Practising simple mindfulness techniques helps to develop our focus of attention, realise that we have control over where we place our attention and to become more adept at noticing what is helpful or not to us in any given moment.  We can learn to notice when we have zoned out and gone into autopilot where we might easily find ourselves worrying about things that haven't happened yet, or ruminating over things which already have. 

Busy minds need a bit of TLC and you can consider a mindfulness exercise just the kind of care your mind needs. Even if you consider yourself time-poor, you can easily slot mindfulness into your day effortlessly by using snack time as a few minutes where you can practise paying attention and bringing yourself fully into contact with the present moment.

Mindful eating exercise

Here we are going to practise paying attention mindfully with a small orange, satsuma or other piece of fruit. We will use all five senses to observe and take in every aspect of the fruit. The key to this exercise is in setting an intention to bring your awareness fully to the fruit as if it were the first time you had ever seen such an object. No matter how many times you try this exercise, set an intention to be curious and open attitude about what this moment has to offer. I might be asking you a couple of seemingly funny questions which might make you laugh or wonder why, but be assured there's a reason for it which I hope will become clearer to you by the end... Just go with the process of paying attention and see what happens.

Here are the simple steps. Take a read through a couple of times before trying this on your own. I've based the instructions on using a satsuma as the focus, so please adapt as you like.

First take your piece of fruit and weigh it up in your hands. Get a sense of the texture of the skin, the temperature, the weight, how it feels in the palm of your hand, how it feels as you run your fingertips across its surface. What do you notice here? Spend a few moments doing this.

Next we are going to use our sense of smell to breathe in the scent of the satsuma. What do you notice here? Try to stay with just sensing the fruit, perhaps notice if your mind begins to make associations. It may well do, our mind likes to join the dots!

Your mind will likely wander or begin thinking about things as you move through this exercise, so just notice make a note of these thoughts, and come back to paying full attention using your five senses.

Next take a good look at the fruit. Noticing its visual qualities - colour, shape, any irregularities, the stalk, surface texture. Just take it in - looking for details. Keep an eye out for any tendency to make comparisons or judge the fruit! You'd be surprised how often our mind rushes to judgements. 

You could try next bringing the satsuma up to your ear and listening to the sound it makes when you squeeze it or tap it. What sound does a satsuma make? (I'll bet you never wondered that before!)

Next take a few moments to peel your fruit. Noticing how this feels as you carry out this simple everyday task. Bring your awareness to your sense of smell and touch as you go... What is here for you as you do this?

Take your time next to undo a segment from the whole and review the segment using as many of your senses as you wish.

When you are ready, take a piece of satsuma and place it on your lips noticing the sensations of touch before placing it in your mouth. Pay attention to the possibility of an instinctive reaction to bite straightaway and instead linger a moment or two on what you notice. Bite when you are ready but slow this action down so you can pay attention to the process of what happens, noticing sensations and flavour.

Bring the practise to a close when you are ready, extending it for as long as you would like.

When you are finished, it's good to reflect on your findings of mindful eating... what did you notice? Was anything surprising? Where did your mind go? How satisfying was it to eat the orange in this way? What do you miss when you eat on autopilot? How might applying some of your findings help you with any problems you are experiencing?

I hope you've found something helpful in this exercise. As I mentioned, you can try this with any snack or drink and just apply the same principles.

If you'd like to try this exercise with chocolate, there's a similar exercise here: Mindfulness of Chocolate.

Ali Binns is a CBT therapist based in Bath. She uses mindfulness based techniques to support her clients therapeutically. Find out more about how she works by clicking on the links at the top of the website.

Unhelpful thinking styles: Compare and despair

Here's an art form which is unique to human beings: the art of comparison. In fact, it's so prevalent that it has its own heading under the list of unhelpful thinking styles in cognitive behavioural therapy: Compare and Despair.

The danger of Compare and Despair thinking is pervasive. Like a weed, it can quickly become rooted, and a feature which any one of us can do without. Compare and Despair thinking can contribute to anxiety, depression, shame, envy, leading to self criticism, lack of self worth and it rapidly undermines any confidence.

In the evolutionary context of survival, having a cognitive ability to compare our abilities with others', or to suss out whether or not we might be acceptable to another social group, makes a lot of sense, especially if the results of our decision are bound up with live or die scenarios. However, in the present day, this hangover from the past can tip from helpful to survival to unhelpful to daily life. This inherited tendency to judge ourselves in comparison to others would definitely have helped us to succeed in competing for resources such as food or shelter, but in our everyday lives, this ability can cause more problems than it solves. First of all, and perhaps most important, is to recognise that you are not to blame if you have a tendency to think this way - it's how your brain was made. 

When we look around us in this information-saturated age, there are plenty of opportunities for us to compare ourselves to others. We might compare looks, status, partners, children intelligence, individual character traits (how funny or articulate someone else is), possessions, emotions... in fact, it's humanly possible to compare just about anything that something else has with what you have.

How to overcome comparisons

No-one would say it is easy to overcome... as with any thinking style, this can be ingrained. Awareness and catching ourselves in the act of comparing and despairing is our first step. You could begin to write down or capture these thoughts before deciding how you treat them.

Unhelpfully, comparing ourselves to others can can go hand in hand with the unhelpful thinking style of filtering, or, tending to paying attention to what fits our worst fears about ourselves... For example, if we believe we are boring then we have a radar seeking out information to confirm this. This is what Christine Padesky calls 'prejudice against the self' - our brains are wired this way too. Just another of the faults our human brain has to contend with! This means that we pay more attention to what we see as our own weaknesses, than paying attention to everything else about us, and compare and rate ourselves negatively.

Take a more balanced view

If we know that we do have a knack of disqualifying the positives about ourselves, or discounting any praise received, we can choose to make a conscious, yet uncomfortable, attempt to let it in! It is okay (though admittedly not very British!) to take on board compliments and acknowledge the positives about yourself, but take them on board you must. It's just that you may have become accomplished at focusing on the ways in which you think you don't make the grade. You can begin to consider a more balanced view about yourself. 

Learn to let go of unhelpful thoughts

It's very likely that in my attempt to persuade you to think about some of your positive qualities, your mind is already coming up with excuses that some of those good things that you have thought of 'don't count', 'they only said that to be kind', 'they didn't mean it', 'they wanted something'...  Notice that this your mind still trying to defend its own prejudice against itself. These are simply thoughts, and not facts. You can learn to let these go. A simple mindfulness practice can help to learn to just watch you thoughts without getting caught up in them. Try this Beginners Mindfulness Practice. With practice, mindfulness can help you to turn your attention to what is helpful for you.

Build self compassion

Perhaps a better answer yet is to learn to be kind and compassionate to yourself. Yes, there may be things that others have that you would like to have, or you would like to be, but none of these are indicators of your worth as a human being. You are uniquely valuable as you are. What they have and you don't is no indicator of your worth.

There is a Zen saying that, “A flower does not think of competing to the flower next to it. It just blooms.” If we learn to accept ourselves for who we are, each of us our own unique, imperfect (yes, because everyone is!) and wonderful version of a human being, and if we can learn to treat ourselves with self compassion... then maybe just then, we can be like the flower, allowing our own selves to shine regardless of how we think we stand in relation to others. 

If you would like to find out more about other unhelpful thinking styles, please take a wander through the following articles:

Unhelpful thinking styles: Catastrophising

Unhelpful thinking styles: filtering and emotional reasoning

Unhelpful thinking styles: jumping to conclusions

Unhelpful thinking style: Labelling

Ali Binns works as a CBT therapist in Bath. She helps clients to overcome their problems using a range of cognitive behavioural strategies. 

Mindfulness: 5 ways to destress at Christmas

Christmas carries with it a lot of expectations. It's a time of year when the pressure to have the perfect holiday with family or friends can take its toll. Perhaps you are overloaded with tasks, or perhaps, for you, it's the opposite, you feel alone and as if everyone else is having the time of their lives. Wherever you are in the run-up to the big day, it's probably a good enough guess to say that it's not always the most relaxing time of year. Fortunately we can unwrap a few CBT and mindfulness cues to help us stay calm and prevent us from going off like a Christmas cracker!

Think of each of these are your very own mindfulness Christmas gifts to yourself and use them as reminders to tune in and watch your thoughts and how these relate to how you might be feeling over the Christmas period:

1. Christmas music

It's everywhere. Love it or loathe it, if you leave your home, you will hear it. You can use festive music as a reminder to check in with your thoughts, noticing what's going through your mind, noticing how you feel (your emotions and your body), before shifting your focus for a few minutes to focusing on your breathing, just noticing your breath going in and out. It's like a mini-timeout and can help to soothe stress, giving you a little space before choosing to move on to something new or continue what you are doing with fresh eyes.

2. Christmas wrapping

A necessary chore which can feel overwhelming when there's so much else to do, with a little mindful attention  wrapping gifts can become a way to bring you back to why you are wrapping these gifts, these tokens of love and appreciation for those people you truly value having in your life. You might even feel inspired to be more creative once you get focused in this way. To get mindful as you wrap up the presents, you can focus on the sounds of the paper as you unroll it, you can listen to the paper as you slice it with your scissors, feel the texture, notice the springiness of the ribbon as it curls, and notice the colours and shapes as you fold stick and pile the presents. If your mind wanders to other chores taking you away from your task, try to repeatedly bring your focus to the task at hand, tuning into what you can see, hear, feel and perhaps touch. No tasting though for now - the chocolates you bought were meant as a gift!

3. Mulled wine or mince pies

Food and drink are big features of the Christmas season, offering ample opportunities to be mindful. You can find out more on how to savour and notice the tastes, smells and sounds of Christmas food and drink here in this guided Christmas mindfulness exercise.

4. Christmas candle

Gifting yourself a Christmas candle can be a special way to mark the countdown to Christmas, filling your home with wonderful aromas. Lighting a candle can be symbolic of many things, celebration or a time for reflection, or even just a general sense of cosiness in your home. It also can mark the start or end of a mindfulness practice, when you might choose to set a small intention for yourself for your meditation or for the rest of your day. You can, if you choose not to close your eyes, use the candle as your mindfulness focus, and use it to gaze on the flickering flame, noticing the warmth coming from it, noticing the scent as it lingers in the air. Is there anything else that you notice?

5. Christmas compassion

Go easy on yourself and others. Maybe this is a difficult time of year for you - absent friends, stress, workloads. See if you can notice what it is like to experiment with being forgiving of yourself and others, or your own mistakes. Practise being aware of any tendency for too-high standards or expectations of a perfect day. Notice and be mindful of the times when you are demanding a lot of yourself and be flexible in your approach. Compassion could be the best Christmas gift you can offer yourself and others. If you find self compassion difficult, you can begin with a guided breathing exercise such as Soothing Rhythm breathing. Just a simple act of taking time to breathe can be the beginnings of self compassion.

I hope these five festive mindfulness reminders give you some inspiration to stay present over Christmas. As you practise being mindful, I'd like to encourage you to ask the following... What do you notice when you really pay attention? What do you miss when you don't?

Ali Binns is a CBT therapist in Bath. She supports clients with their emotional wellbeing, using a cognitive behavioural therapy approach combined with mindfulness techniques to support the process. 

Breathing exercise: Soothing rhythm breathing

Using our breath can be a helpful way of settling our mind and body when we are experiencing negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, depression or general stress. It can help to create a more secure and grounded feeling and reduce the impact of the body’s natural fight or flight reflex. By deliberately using our breath, we are helping our mind to receive the message that we are safe.

Soothing rhythm breathing is a breathing exercise designed to soothe body and mind. There are other breathing exercises where you can just allow the breath to be as it is, but this technique is about discovering a breathing rhythm that is supportive and calming for you. The counting element can help to focus your mind on your breath.

The rate and rhythm of breath which you find soothing may vary from the count here, so please feel free to adjust your counting if need be. Your natural soothing rhythm may even vary from day to day, so initially it is worth taking a little time to find your rhythm before settling into a pattern which feels soothing and natural for you. There’s no rush to find the right pace; just keep your in and out breaths of equal length, with a brief pause between each.

You can experiment with the sequence below until you find the rate which feels most beneficial for you. There’s absolutely no pressure to do this right or get it right first time, just set aside a few minutes a day to practice and you will soon get the hang of it.

As with other mindfulness based practices, if you find your mind wandering off onto other concerns, that’s okay, just bring your attention back to your counting and your breath.

Instructions

• First sit in a way that you feel supported, yet alert, in an upright posture with feet flat on the floor, and head facing forward.
• To begin with, slowly take a steady and long in-breath for a count of four.
• Pause there for a moment…
• Then gradually release the breath for a count of four, keeping it steady, long and slow.
• Repeat this count for three minutes.

As with any breathing exercise, these are best practised in a quiet relatively calm environment to begin with, and as you become used to doing them, you will be able to use them while going about your day when you feel the need to give yourself some time to reset.

If you would like to try a different mindful breathing technique, you can go here to find a Beginners Mindfulness of Breath exercise.

Ali Binns is a CBT therapist in Bath. She regularly teaches clients to use these simple breathing techniques as part of their general care plans. These exercises help clients to work with their emotions in a more helpful way. 

Mindful creativity

Mindful crafting and creativity can be fulfilling ways of building mindful activity into our lives. Whether you paint, stitch, sew, make, bake, decorate, or however you ‘do’ your creativity, it goes without saying that creativity can tick all three wellness boxes of achievement, connection and enjoyment. And, if you can add mindfulness do your crafting, you can increase the wellbeing benefits of creativity by using this time to stay present and train your mindfulness muscle.

Mindfulness is choosing to be in the present moment and adopting a compassionate non-judgemental stance towards your experience.

It’s well known that mindfulness can help us to develop greater resilience to life’s ups and downs, lead to greater calm and increase our awareness of our thoughts. As a CBT therapist in Bath, I regularly help clients to understand the idea that our thoughts impact on our feelings. If we can be aware of our own thought patterns, we are then better able to choose which thoughts are helpful to us, and which stand in the way of us leading the life we want to.

Mindful creativity

We’ve all seen those mindful colouring-in books by now, but it occurred to me that many people use these without really knowing how to colour or craft with mindful attention. So… a blog post is born. There’s no use turning to your colouring book or picking up some knitting needles and hoping your troubles will disappear, grumbling inwardly at the day’s stresses - your creative efforts will only suffer. Neither does it help you to settle down for a creative half hour and spend that time judging the fruits of your endeavours – perhaps you begin to compare it to other people’s work, or tell yourself that you can’t draw, or just aren't any good at being creative. These kinds of thoughts simply spoil your creativity, takes away the fun and leaves you feeling sorry for yourself. The answer is mindful creativity or mindful crafting.

To craft or create mindfully there are a few simple steps to get more from your creative pastimes.

The art of mindfulness

The first tip is to remember the main principle of mindfulness which is to pay attention on purpose. To pay attention, you can practise noticing when your mind wanders off to anything other than your chosen task. If you’re sketching and thinking about your shopping list or picking the kids up from school, then you’re not giving your task your full attention. This is to be expected, this is what minds do! The aim of mindful crafting is to notice each time your mind gets lost in its own thoughts. When you have dedicated time to your creativity, how does it help you now to be planning your weekly shop? There’s time for that later. Each time you notice your mind taking a walk, just thank your mind for its attention to the future or the past, and bring it back to the detail of now. Each time you do this, you can congratulate yourself, for this is the art of mindfulness.

It’s not always easy, because our minds are used to running on autopilot. What can help is to focus your attention on your creativity by using your senses. Sight can pull you into colours, shades and tones. Hearing can tune you into your activity by listening carefully to sounds you may never have before associated with your work. Touch can keep you in contact with your craft as you notice the weight of materials or tools, the texture of any fabrics, or the feel of any accessories you use. Smell and taste are also useful senses to tune in to, particularly if your creativity is in the kitchen.

An important aspect of mindfulness is a non-judgemental attitude. Mindfulness expert Shamash Alidina calls this 'kindfulness.' What this means is, as much as you can, notice and refrain from judging your work in any way, and let yourself be gentle and encouraging with your efforts. After all, what do you get when you begin to judge your own creativity? What impact does this have on your mood or your results? Notice any tendencies to judge or be down on yourself, and let this go. As before, use your senses to re-engage with your task.

I hope this helps to give you a start on mindful crafting or creativity. Spend your time truly engaged with your creativity and notice the results. If you can immerse yourself in crafting in this way, then you can begin to experience the state they call flow, when time flows effortlessly and you feel calm and engaged, giving you your best results. Happy creating!

Take a spring mindfulness walk

Mindful walking is an ideal way to practise your mindfulness. Now's the chance to make the most of longer days and head outdoors for a welcome boost of sunshine and fresh air. Here are five tips to make your walk more mindful, increasing feelings of relaxation and ease. Bringing mindful awareness to the everyday is something everyone can achieve and helps us to train our minds to become aware of our inner stories - the more we can familiarise ourselves with our mind's activities, the better we are able to step aside from unhelpful patterns of thinking. Here's how to take a mindful walk.

To begin

Choose your route - in a park, out in the country or even round your back garden. You can choose to be mindful for your whole walk or just set aside 10 minutes to immerse yourself in mindfulness.

You can follow these steps in any order you choose, as you go about your walk, but just remember, if your mind wanders off on its own individual walk, take it gently by the hand, and bring it back to the present one. Your mind will almost certainly be tempted to go its own way, thinking about the future or the past, but a mindful walk is one where you try as best as you can to immerse your body and mind in your surroundings. Each time your mind wanders, just bring it back to your chosen focus of attention, whether it be sights, sounds, sensations or smell. If you can, make a point of noticing where your mind wandered (perhaps it got caught up planning, thinking, judging, remembering, anywhere but on the walk!), and remember to thank yourself for remembering to be mindful.

Sights

Bring your awareness to the sights of spring around you. What can you see? Explore the colours, shapes, and contrasts? Perhaps you can spot unfolding leaves, blossom, dew, shoots breaking the earth... notice and be curious about whatever you might find. Perhaps you can get up close to particular objects and examine them as if you had never seen them before. Stay focused for a time on what you can see.

Sounds

When you're ready, tune in using your ears! What can you pick up on when you truly pay attention? See if you can listen in to nature. What the loudest sound, or the quietest, and everything in between? Can you even notice the silence between the sounds? Pay attention to the qualities of the sounds  - can you pick out  soft, sharp, staccato or secret sounds? What sounds are there to be found in nature? What's there for you?

Touch

You might like to bring your awareness to any sensations you can feel in or on your body. Can you feel a breeze? What's the temperature like? Can you feel the ground beneath your shoes? How does the ground feel? Just notice how it feels to be here, right now. 

You might also like to stop and touch blossom, or leaves. Explore the sensations of touch. How does the flower feel, how does it move as you touch it?

Smell 

Take a few moments to check in on the smells in nature. What can you smell in the air? Fragrance or freshness, remainders of rain, damp forest bark? Gather up the smells and truly be in this place as you walk.

Reflections

When your mindfulness walk is complete, take a few minutes to reflect on what you noticed during your walk? How was it to truly pay attention using your senses in this way? What can you learn from this? How could this knowledge be applied as you go about your day? Perhaps you can think of other activities you could try using this mindful awareness.

It's that simple. I hope you enjoy your mindful walking!

Mindfulness for beginners: breathing exercise

Thinking is great, except when it's not! Our brains are wonderful things - our thinking brains enable us to plan, speak, connect, problem-solve, create, invent and imagine. Unfortunately our minds have a natural tendency to seek out the negative. Many of the thoughts that stick around are the ones that can lead to worry and rumination. These thoughts can seem to pop up out of nowhere.

If you've ever suffered from stress, anxiety or depression, you'll know the sort of thoughts. The ones that hang about and really get to you. Nobody's immune. Research suggests that we have between 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day and around three-quarters of these are negative. You can thank your brain for that too. In evolutionary terms, this tendency to seek out threatening messages was useful for survival. Operating on a better-safe-than-sorry policy, our ancient ancestors who survived were the ones who could best negatively predict that a long curving object on the jungle floor was a snake and so stayed safe. The understanding being that positively presuming the said object was a stick would have been a risk to our survival as a species.

We're all living with the legacy of these tricky brains which are hardwired to seek out threats in our environment. Once we're suffering from anxiety or stress, and our fight or flight reflex has kicked in, our minds begin to race in an attempt to quickly evaluate threats, negative thoughts increase and we can soon get caught up in spirals of negative thinking. Fortunately, we can learn to manage the rise of negative thoughts, simply by paying attention to them with mindfulness exercises. The simplest technique is mindfulness of breath.

This is an ideal mindfulness exercise for beginners as it's portable and do-able. All you need is a few moments and your breath - which you always carry with you! Mindful breathing helps you to distance yourself from the content of negative thoughts, as, over time, you come to notice and understand that thoughts are often nothing but thoughts, and certainly they're not always facts. Learning to notice and let go of unhelpful thoughts can be key to combating anxiety and depression.

Here's how to practise mindfulness of breath. (You may like to spend anything between 5 and 15 minutes for this exercise.)

Begin by finding a place to sit, and, close your eyes. Adopt an upright posture, alert yet relaxed to enable you to pay attention. The aim isn't specifically to relax (although this is often a welcome side effect).

Settle as you are, noticing your feet upon the floor, hands in your lap and any points your body makes contact with your seat. Bring your attention to your breath now. Simply follow the rise and fall of your breathing. There's no need to try to change your breath at all. Just allow it to be as it is, letting it do its own thing, accepting things just as they are. Notice and follow the breath in your abdomen. If you like, you can place your hand there to feel this gentle movement. 

Be curious about the sensations of your breath, in and out. Become aware of where else you notice the breath in your body. Perhaps you feel it in your chest, or the sensations of the breath entering your nose. Bring your attention to wherever you feel it most, and see what sensations you discover. 

If at any point during this exercise, your mind does wander, you might be relieved to know, this is completely normal. Simply make a note of where your mind has wandered and bring your focus back to your breathing. It can help to note with a simple word, such as 'thinking', 'feeling', 'planning', 'judging', 'remembering', what your mind was doing and return your focus to your breath. Every time you notice your mind has wandered know that this is part of the exercise - you've managed a moment of mindfulness. Treat your mind as if it were a bouncy puppy, who needs to be reminded to come back to heel, over and over again. There's no need to get cross with it, only gentle reminders are needed to begin to train your mind to stay present, instead of running back to the past or taking a wander into the future.

Continue paying attention to your breathing for your chosen time (some people find a timer helps). When you're ready to bring this exercise to a close, begin to notice the sounds around you, and the feeling of your feet on the floor, and your body in the chair. Slowly open your eyes, and take in the sights around you. Give yourself a couple of moments to take everything in, and move into the rest of your day.

Mindfulness of chocolate

Are you one of those people who tends to scoff a bar of chocolate and then wonder where it's gone? Or do you savour each piece, making it last, feeling satisfied and content, getting the most from every moment? If you're the latter, then congratulations, you're well on the way to mindful awareness.

If not, here's a taster of mindfulness you can try at home, or at your desk, any time you choose. This is one of my favourite exercises when I am introducing clients to the benefits of Mindfulness, because it's simple and begins the practice of focus and present moment awareness. During the exercise, just try as best as you can, to keep your focus on the chocolate... Here's how to experience a mindful moment and discover the benefits of being present.

You will need: Your choice of square of chocolate, chocolate button, Minstrel or Smartie (just one, yes!) If you don't like chocolate, simple, try substituting the chocolate with a small piece of dried fruit, or other small treat. 

Spend about 20-30 seconds on each step...

1. Unwrap the wrapper, listening to the sound of the paper and slowly remove your piece of chocolate.

2. Take the chocolate in your hand and use your eyes to take in every detail of that chocolate - shape, texture, colour, any patterns. What do you see? And use sense of touch to take in the weight, the temperature and the texture. What do you find?

3. Now move the chocolate to your nose and breathe in the scent of the chocolate. What are its qualities? How do you sense the smell of the chocolate?

4. Take the chocolate to your ear and, this might seem strange, but tap the chocolate and see what noise it makes... Again, what do you notice?

5. Bring the chocolate to your lips and rest it there for a moment. What do you notice happening? What do you want to do? Do you notice any thoughts?

6. Place the chocolate in your mouth and just rest it there. What happens now? Resist the urge to chew! 

7. After a short while, you can now bite into the chocolate. What do you notice? Flavour, taste, relief that you can now eat the chocolate?

8. Savour the chocolate for as long as you like and reflect on what you noticed during this exercise.

Many people say they didn't realise how much they miss when they ordinarily munch through their chocolate. If we can pay this much attention to a single piece of chocolate, think about how the magic of this mindfulness practice widens out into how much we miss in everyday life when we act on autopilot and tuck in to life, without really paying attention to what is going on around us and inside of us. Who knew there was so much to a piece of chocolate?