Mindfulness is experiencing life by turning attention and awareness to the present moment without judgment… which may sound easy, yet it’s quite challenging.
Despite its Buddhist origins, mindfulness is now trendy in the Western world and practiced by millions of people in Yoga classes, therapy sessions or at home using one of many Apps or YouTube videos.
What does mindfulness have anything to do with PT? Well there are 3 basic components to mindfulness…
- i) Acceptance ii) Compassion iii) Detachment
These 3 concepts have been shown to be beneficial for patients recovering from cancer to low back pain, from insomnia to general anxiety disorders.
So why doesn’t everyone practice mindfulness then? A common reason given is… time.
Well thanks to this review paper, time should no longer be a factor as there is evidence that even brief meditations can impact numerous health-related outcomes; sessions as brief as 5 minutes.
You may recommend your patients to try my 10-minute meditation with focus on pain or try this humorous 3-minute meditation… WARNING; there is profanity in the 3-minute one and the frequent use of the F word.