5 Integrative Techniques for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

Life is full of experiences that provoke stressful thoughts and feelings. Sometimes it can be hard to resist dwelling on these feelings as we go about our day. We can get stuck on auto-pilot, giving little attention to our bodies or physical environment as we walk through our lives, busy in thought or distracted by technology.

Chronic stress often goes unchecked and has detrimental effects on many aspects of our health. Many chronic health conditions can be attributed to stress. Stress has the ability to bring on or worsen the symptoms of other disease, but it can also manifest its own physical symptoms. Stress can produce headaches, skin conditions, high blood pressure, heart problems, asthma, anxiety, depression, and more.

If we want to maintain long-lasting health and well-being, it is clear that stress management needs to be a priority in our hectic lives. Even a slight decrease may prove to be extremely beneficial in the long run. While there are many ways to combat stress and its adverse effects, integrative healthcare focuses on finding all-encompassing, holistic, and personalized solutions, by promoting the incorporation mindfulness practices in each person’s daily routine.

During an event or situation that is perceived stressful by the body, a lot of unfavorable physiological processes take place, ranging from increased stress hormone production to heightened immune system response. By utilizing these self-defense mechanisms, the body attempts to adapt to the change and protect itself from harm. These defense mechanisms work well in the short-term, but over time can be quite damaging to the body. High blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, headaches, gastrointestinal problems, depression and anxiety, obesity, allergies, asthma, and a vast array of other chronic diseases may follow the prolonged exposure to stress. This is why chronic stress is currently considered to be the most deadly factor in disease development today.

Mindfulness meditation can be used as a treatment for many chronic illnesses that relate to stress in both our bodies and mind. Mindfulness meditation focuses on being alive in the moment so that there is less room to worry about the past or the future. It helps you feel more connected to your body and lessens the stress in your mind. Cultivating an awareness of the present moment and environment is an essential integrative medicine technique for reducing stress and anxiety.

Recent research has shown that practicing mindfulness daily can help change our brains and improve our well-being. Mindfulness is about being aware of your body, surrounding environment, and your inner thought-processes. It can help you manage life’s challenges with a calm and clear-headed approach. Future fears and negative past experiences can cloud your mind and distract you from the simplicity of the present. Although we have many positive thoughts and experiences to focus on, throughout our lives we can also gather negative or unhelpful thought patterns which can limit how we experience the world.

Once you become more present, you get to learn the habits of your mind. We can get so caught up in our individual thoughts and feelings that we hardly notice our own mental patterns and reactions. That’s why mindfulness meditation increases understanding in ourselves and compassion for others.

What Is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a psychological state that encourages the individual to fully embrace the sensation of each moment by focusing on what actually is happening in the present. Mindfulness focuses on letting go of negative emotions about the past or anxious thoughts about the future, and realizing that none of these can be altered by worrying. The practice of remaining in a calm emotional state allows a lot of unnecessary stress-related damage to be avoided. This frees the mind and the body from the long-term harmful effects of stress.

How To Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness meditation, in the strictest of forms, is simple: sit, relax, and pay attention to your body, breath, and environment. When your mind wanders, return to how you feel in the present. Part of mindfulness meditation is noticing how your mind wanders. Don’t try to alter, get rid of particular thoughts, or stop thinking altogether! Just simply observe them as they come up. If you get stuck on a thought, return back to your breath or immediate environment. Feel your breath as it runs through your nose, fills your chest, and releases.

Being present for what is taking place at the moment is an acquired skill. The benefits are incredibly rewarding. The most important task to master is to focus on the self, rather than outside factors that cannot be changed, thereby eliminating a significant percentage of daily anxieties, and giving back the power to each individual to accept their journey. This allows you to begin a self-transformation from within, as opposed to depending on circumstances and automatic physiological and emotional responses.

Integrative medicine offers several ways to introduce mindfulness-based stress reduction into your life. You can practice it formally through mindfulness meditation, or find activities in your daily routine that allow you to focus on what you’re experiencing in the present moment. When you think of meditation, you probably imagine sitting alone in a quiet room, exploring your thoughts, but mindfulness can be practiced anywhere. Here are a few methods of incorporating mindfulness meditation in your daily routine:

Nutrition Counseling

Practicing mindfulness is vital when it comes to consuming a nutritionally dense diet. By remaining peacefully observant and in the moment, you can discover various triggers that lead to emotional eating or overindulgence in empty calories. You can also learn to enjoy a largely plant-based diet that promotes physical well-being and proper nourishment. A healthy diet will prepare the body to fight off the harmful effects of emotional or environmental stress more successfully. Being mindful also helps you tune into the body's actual nutritional needs, and to honor this connection by following this internal guidance system, rather than allowing emotions, anxieties, or external circumstances to elicit poor dietary choices.

Regular Physical Activity

Physical activity promotes the production of stress-relieving hormones, which greatly improve emotional well-being and evoke a positive mental connection to exercise. Being in-motion throughout the day is a major component of mindfulness-based stress reduction. An integrative physician can help you select the right type of activity that fits your physical condition, offers the greatest amount of stress relief, and promotes your overall health. A few examples include:

1. Yoga:  Yoga combines the effect of exercise, breathing, mindfulness, and meditation all in one. To practice mindfulness while doing yoga, start by focusing on how your body feels as you stretch into each pose. Notice the movement in your breath and use it as an anchor when you become distracted. Pay attention to the sensations in your body, without judgment or expectations, but be aware of how you react. Do certain poses make you feel bored or frustrated? Notice when you feel more challenged or relaxed, but stay connected with your body and breathing.

   Yoga is a great way to destress, while improving your strength and flexibility. Yoga increases circulation, improves your cardio and circulatory health, and helps you maintain better balance (physically and mentally). It also helps reduce blood pressure, chronic pain, and insomnia. Another benefit of yoga is that almost every yoga pose can be modified to account for the needs and abilities of each individual person.

2. Walking/Running

   The positive effects of mindfulness don’t have to be achieved through meditation. There are many ways that you can integrate mindfulness into your everyday routine. Walking is a great meditative technique if you can learn to be mindful. Whether you’re reflecting on recent memories or planning ahead, it can be very easy to slip into autopilot while walking. Though our legs are moving in one direction, the mind is often thinking about something else altogether. However, we shouldn’t be so busy that we forget to experience life as it is. If you have a busy life, walking is the perfect form of mindfulness meditation because you can do it anywhere at anytime.

   To practice mindful walking, you don’t have to change anything about the way you walk except for the direction your mind goes. Notice how your body feels: become aware of your posture and pay attention to how your feet touch the ground, notice the rhythm in your steps. Now take notice of each sense, one by one. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you feel in your body? What thoughts are coming to mind? Pay attention to your present environment, occasionally returning to how your body feels.
   

   Notice how your mind wants to tell a story for each of your senses, or how everything you experience reminds you of somewhere, something, or someone. However, don’t focus on a feeling for too long, otherwise you will start to miss what’s around you. You don’t need to actually think about what you’re seeing; acknowledging it is enough. Be open to the world. When you notice your mind starting to wander off, return to your body. You can use your breath as a reminder.

   Along with the benefits of mindfulness practice, walking increases the production of serotonin and dopamine — the happy hormones — in our bodies. It also helps decrease the amount of cortisol in your body, a stress hormone. Getting out of the house and into the sun will also help you get enough vitamin D, which improves calcium absorption, bone health, and boosts your immune system.

   If you’re feeling up for it, running is also a great way to combine exercise and mindfulness.

3. Gardening

   Gardening is stimulating to the mind in many ways and forces you to practice being present in the moment. Gardening is a great way to practice mindfulness because it engages all of the senses — smell, sight, sound, touch, and the special reward at the end: taste. Feel the soil in your hands and the sun on your skin. Look at each plant, follow the bees as they hop from flower to flower. Take a few moments to breathe deeply and take in all the smells. Listen to the birds, the buzzing, and steps of people walking by. Pay attention to the needs of various plants, and be keen to special details that will help your garden flourish.

   Gardening has become known by doctors, psychologists, and researchers alike to have powerful effects on the body and mind. Along with the benefits that come with low impact exercise, gardening mindfully can help you reduce blood pressure, improve sleep, and keep your mind sharp.

Getting Enough Sleep and Rest

Chronic stress usually goes hand-in-hand with prolonged sleep deprivation. It is crucial to improve the quality and quantity of rest, relaxation, and sleep you receive on a daily basis. The body finds balance by restoring its optimal night-time hormone production, and is no longer in a state of extreme exhaustion. Healthy energy levels are restored and ensure better mental and emotional well-being, further reducing the ongoing harmful effects of stress.

Try Mindfully Being In Nature

No matter how busy our lives get, for some reason we always crave going back into nature. Being surrounded by nature helps us become more mindful of the present environment because it’s full of things that heighten our senses and leaves little room for distraction.

In fact, Japan even made “forest bathing” a part of their national public health program in 1982 to encourage healthier living in the city. The essential oils found in trees, plants, and wood in forests don’t just make the air smell nicer, they contain elements that help strengthen our mind and body.

Forest bathing, the act of being around trees, has been proven to reduce the production of stress hormones, lower blood pressure, improve working memory, boost the immune system, and improve your overall wellbeing. Several studies have found that forest bathing can help reduce depression and increase your sense of vitality; in other words, spending time in nature makes you feel more alive. In general, spending time in nature has been associated with improved emotion and mood regulation. Even if you live in the city, finding greenery and getting exposure to trees can significantly reduce stress levels.  

Mindfulness Meditation Through Writing

Writing is a form of meditation we can all do and can work well for reflecting on our thoughts and inner monologue.

If you’re a writer, you’ve probably heard of this exercise. If you’re not a writer, you don’t have to be! This form of mindfulness meditation can be great for people who find it difficult to do traditional meditative practices.

To practice mindful meditation through writing, simply take a few breaths, set a timer for 10 minutes, and write freely without stopping to reflect, edit, or make it a cohesive piece. Just relax your mind and keep writing without pausing to think about it. When the timer goes off, take a few more breaths and then scan through what you’ve written. Look for parts that interest you for whatever reason. Reflect on how the exercise benefited you or gave you new insight. It’s important to set positive intentions and keep up with the practice. It will be good for you and your brain, but it will also be great writing practice!

Medications, Vitamins, and Supplements

Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are very common in overstressed, out-of-balance, and fatigued individuals, requiring prompt solutions by integrative physicians. Mindfulness-based stress reduction methods are incredibly useful for tuning into the body's nutritional needs. Your integrative physician can help you to understand how your body’s physical state and accompanying symptoms are directly tied to underlying nutritional deficits.  A personalized treatment plan will then be created that incorporates the supplements and/or pharmaceutical medications required to start the healing process.

Health Benefits of Mindfulness

What kind of results can be seen with mindfulness meditation? Research has shown that it can help lower stress and regulate emotion, while improving our memory and focus.

Mind-body practices such as mindfulness meditation can help enhance the mind’s positive impact on the body. Over the years, many studies have proven that meditation can alter the stress response in our brains. Recent research by Harvard found that brain structures change after only eight weeks of mindful meditation practice. Other research has proven that it can increase the amount of gray matter in our brains. One study in particular found that mindfulness meditation can provide significant improvement to our cognitive thinking skills after only 4 days of 20 minutes of training per day. In general, meditation helps to train you to experience thoughts that provoke anxiety and create a different reaction which is positive and less harming to your mind and body.

By measuring brain activity, structure, and stress hormones, research has shown that meditation can reduce both physiological and emotional stress. You don’t need to designate time to sit and meditate for 20 minutes a day either. You can turn any daily activity into a meditation practice, whether it’s washing the dishes, brushing your teeth, folding laundry, or cooking. Just remember to focus on being connected with yourself. If your thoughts begin to wonder, just take a minute to focus on your breath. Breathing exercises help control the body’s reaction to stress and, in turn, activate the body’s relaxation response.

The Importance of Working With an Integrative Physician

Since chronic stress is the culprit for such a vast array of physical diseases, it is imperative to request the help of a highly trained medical professional to reap all the benefits that mindfulness-based stress reduction has to offer. By synthesizing all the available data about your physical and emotional symptoms, mood, nutritional needs, lifestyle habits, environment, and your unique circumstances, your integrative physician can create a treatment plan that helps with optimal stress management.

AUTHOR

Dr. Payal Bhandari M.D. is one of U.S.'s top leading integrative functional medical physicians and the founder of SF Advanced Health. She combines the best in Eastern and Western Medicine to understand the root causes of diseases and provide patients with personalized treatment plans that quickly deliver effective results. Dr. Bhandari specializes in cell function to understand how the whole body works. Dr. Bhandari received her Bachelor of Arts degree in biology in 1997 and Doctor of Medicine degree in 2001 from West Virginia University. She the completed her Family Medicine residency in 2004 from the University of Massachusetts and joined a family medicine practice in 2005 which was eventually nationally recognized as San Francisco’s 1st patient-centered medical home. To learn more, go to www.sfadvancedhealth.com.