A Mindful Approach to 2016

Replace your New Year’s resolutions with mindfulness techniques that last a lifetime.

By Jill Case

Mindfulness: you’ve probably heard the term, but maybe you’re not so sure what it means. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis.” For more clarification, Austin Woman talked to jiovann Carrasco, the founder and clinical director of the austin Mindfulness Center.

Austin Woman: How do you define mindfulness?

Jiovann Carrasco: Mindfulness is approaching your present moment with openness, nonjudgment and a sense of curiosity. We’re usually in our heads most of the time, ruminating about the past or worrying about the future, and neither of these times actually exists except in the form of memories or anticipation. The only time that ever exists is the present moment, so mindfulness is a way of orienting to the present moment without needing anything to change and or needing to get somewhere else.

AW: How can mindfulness help people with stress?

JC: Worrying about what’s going to happen, when the next shoe is going to drop is very stressful. Living in your head is very stressful. Our minds love to problem solve, analyze and plan and have everything figured out, and the past and the future provide endless opportunities for these kinds of mental activities. After a while, it starts to take a toll. Mindfulness is a different kind of mental activity in the form of pure awareness or just being. The more your mind becomes acquainted with this open space of awareness, the easier it is to orient to it in stressful times or in crisis. If you can think of that mindful state as a kind of resource or as a capacity for you to be with painful thoughts or emotions and to be able to disconnect with the content of what’s causing that stress and to be able to rest in that open space of awareness, that in and of itself helps to reduce stress.

AW: Some studies show mindfulness can help with health concerns, such as heart issues, blood pressure, sleep problems, gastrointestinal problems. Is this true?

JC: All of those conditions that you mentioned are issues that are also affected by high levels of stress. For example, stress increases the risk of heart disease by 40 percent, so anything that’s going to help reduce stress is going to have a positive effect in these areas, and mindfulness just happens to be one of the most highly recommended health choices for reducing stress.

AW: Is there a mindful way to approach chronic pain?

JC: Jon Kabat-Zinn, who ran a chronic pain clinic at UMass, wrote the book Full Catastrophe Living, which specifically deals with how we judge our pain and how the relationship we create with that pain can be transformed into one of mindful acceptance. While it’s not a cure for chronic pain, it can highly reduce the additional pain that’s created from struggling with it. It changes your relationship to what’s there. It doesn’t do a lot of good to struggle with that pain because struggling with it only makes it worse, so it teaches a way of developing an openness and acceptance toward it. Acceptance doesn’t mean we want it—we’re not tricking ourselves into liking that pain—but it just becomes a part of our present-moment experience, so when we’re opening up to that and making space for it, we don’t have to deal with the pain that comes with the struggle.

AW: Other than stress, is there any way mindfulness helps with other mental-health issues, such as depression?

JC: If we think about mental illness in terms of psychological flexibility, mental-health issues like depression and anxiety, those are characterized by psychologically inflexible behavior, so what mindfulness does is create psychological flexibility. By noticing our thoughts and feelings and physical sensations without avoiding them, then we can skillfully choose more healthy ways of responding. As we avoid feelings of anxiety or fear, we have to be on guard, we have to be tense, we might have to limit the places that we go or the people that we talk to, so it has this limiting or restrictive effect on our lives, and that is what is not healthy. It’s not the feeling itself; it’s the behaviors that you do to cope with the fear, causing our behavioral repertoire to narrow. Mindfulness helps us loosen up and start to let go of old habits so we can stretch into more life-expanding ways. Mindfulness is not about thinking. Thinking is one way that our mind works. Most of the time, our mind is in thinking mode. Our brain is problem solving and planning and analyzing and figuring things out and rationalizing, so most of the time, that’s what our mind is doing. But there’s this whole other part of our mind that can just be aware of whatever is there without having to react to it. You can have anxiety and still do something that’s scary. If you’re controlled by anxiety, then that’s psychologically inflexible because you can’t behave outside of those feelings or thoughts. Mindfulness helps to open up opportunities to be able to do things that, even though you’re anxious, are important to you. It’s having that anxiety and doing it anyway.

AW: It’s really interesting that you say mindfulness is not about thinking because the word itself sounds like it’s about thinking, but actually, it’s the opposite.

JC: That’s because the thinking part of our mind is the only part that we’re really familiar with, and mindfulness develops that “observer self.” Until you practice it and get really acquainted with mindfulness, it seems like that’s all [the] mind does is think, so we’re always looking through our thoughts instead of looking at them. Mindfulness allows us to be able to look at our thoughts so that there’s a separation between our thoughts and us. That separation is what frees us up to move in valued directions, regardless of what thoughts or feelings may be coming up.

mindful eating

Austin Woman: what can you tell us about mindful eating?

Jiovann Carrasco: Healthy eating and mindful eating are not necessarily synonymous. They often go hand in hand, but you can eat a doughnut mindfully. it’s just about being fully present to the experience of eating. you could also include consumption, in general, so being mindful about your food choices and being mindful about what your body is eating and your body’s hunger cues. The reason it can be helpful for losing weight is that for many people, eating isn’t just about nourishment; it’s about seeking comfort or avoiding pain. Food can be used to cover up unpleasant emotions, so then it becomes more like a drug, and when we use food as drugs, we go for the hard stuff—cookies, chips, muffins, sodas. and since the purpose is to make the feel- ing go away, people eat until the pain is gone or alleviated, not necessarily until they are full, and so, this emotional eating, as it’s often called, leads to overeating because you’re not doing it to satisfy physical hunger; you’re doing it to satisfy emotional pain. and that takes longer, so people have a tendency to overeat.

So mindful eating requires that you be present with whatever unpleasant feelings that you might be having instead of covering them up with food, so when your body is actually hungry, you can listen to what it needs to sustain energy and vitality. you can be mindful about the foods you consume and be present with the whole experience of eating, including all five senses, savoring every bit of it, having a sense of gratitude for that sustenance. i wouldn’t say that it’s a weight-loss solution, but if you develop mindfulness, you can apply that to anything that you do: eating, driving a car, brushing your teeth, meditation. Mindfulness is a way of approaching whatever’s in your external and internal environment, so it’s just another way of approaching food.

Austin Woman: What advice do you have for Someone Who Wants to Try Mindfulness?

Jiovann Carrasco: People feel that they have to know a lot about it before they start doing it, but that’s not the case. i would recommend downloading a mindfulness app. Sit down and follow the instructions. one i like a lot is called Headspace. you don’t have to read tons of books on mindfulness before you try it. We also have guided meditations on our website that people can stream or download. We also offer classes throughout the year, as well as a half-day Mindfulness Bootcamp. you can find all that on our website, and if you subscribe to our newsletter, we’ll keep you posted. as an added bonus, you’ll get a Five-Day Mindfulness Challenge. in early 2016, we are launching Follow your Breath [mindful of body, relationships, emotions, attending to the present moment, thoughts, habits], a six-week online mindfulness course, and we will be doing a live version here in Austin.