How to reduce your level of worries in a few minutes

Exercise to reduce the level of worries in a few minutes through Mindfulness

The following exercise lasts about twenty minutes and has the effect of worry reduction, emotional relief and stress regulation.

It is based on the precepts of the Full attention (Mindfulness) although it has been adapted on psychological grounds from cognitive-behavioral orientation.

First of all, it is good to follow some previous instructions as preparations to increase the effectiveness of the activity:

1. Turn off or silence electronic devices.
2. Be in a place with sufficient privacy and without interruptions, well acclimatized.
3. Wear comfortable and loose clothing, without belts, earrings, pendants, etc..
4. Being seated in a chair towards the edge of it, without supporting the back on the backrest, well upright but not rigid, in a posture that we will call "dignified".
5. Feet (without shoes) flat on the floor or on a carpet, without crossing your legs.
6. Close the eyes.
7. Put your hands in your lap
8. Understand that all the sounds that come from the outside world do not have to be a source of "distraction": let's not fall into trying to silence the world around us in order to achieve tranquility; it is rather to silence our inner discourses.

Having prepared these details, the exercise consists of pay attention to breathing and, specifically to the part of the trunk that inflates and deflates when inhaling and exhaling. We will call this point point of attention.

On the other hand, we will try to maintain an attitude of "observers" of our mind, as if it were a screen that shows us the thoughts that occur as our attention deviates from the initial point of attention..

It is natural for them to occur thoughts and images that take us away from the point of attention. The idea is not to try to prevent this from happening, but to figure out when it happens and return to paying attention to the point of attention.

Every time our mind wanders, we will redirect it to the point of care as if we were the owners of a dog that tries to go towards what worries it the most.

It is very important not to get angry with the "dog", but to understand that it is natural for him to want to go where his concerns call him.

With the passage of time, throughout the twenty minutes, it is very likely that the mind stop proposing things and focus on that point until we return to a state of quite relaxation.

If this does not happen after twenty minutes, we should not be alarmed, but understand that somehow there is something that worries us a lot and detect it taking into account what type of thoughts our mind went to more frequently: this will give us an indication of what it is. what worries us the most.

Being more aware of this, we could assess whether that which concerns us is under our control or not: if we can do something about the object of our concerns, or if it is something with which we can do nothing.

If it were the former, then we could give ourselves another 20 'session to think what to do and how to do it. This will relieve us a lot since it will offer us a action plan.

If it were the latter, we could well dedicate another 20 'of session to think if it can at least depend on us to undertake some action to influence part of those concerns, if so, then we could obtain in this case action plan according to the part we can influence.

If, on the contrary, we realize that we are still very concerned about something that we cannot control or influence, then it is best to grant ourselves the possibility of doing a longer session, or of perform more 20 'sessions throughout the day.

We do not have to worry about the eventuality that, when conducting this session, the emotional charge is increased in some way. In fact, it may be more frequent than it seems: at the beginning the state of emotional activation increases but, for the same effect, the activation curve will reach a limit that, if we are able to be sufficiently patient and constant in practice, it will end up progressively reducing to very bearable or even zero levels.