How Mindfulness Helps Me Cope With RA
Mindfulness has taught me to slow down and appreciate the small details around me as a source of joy. In my new column for HealthCentral I talk about how it helps me live with chronic pain and easy ways for you to try it:
“IT’S SNOWING AS I write this. Big fluffy flakes falling quietly, gradually covering every tree, the cars parked at the side of the street, and the slide on the playground below my window. I’m transfixed by the beauty of the first snow, being completely present in the moment and connecting to that special hush of gently falling flakes, allowing it to calm my heart and my mind as it quiets the city.
This is mindfulness—technically mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)—and it is an important part of my toolbox to cope with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and chronic pain. Before I learned mindfulness techniques, I would have only briefly noticed the Disney-level of prettiness outside my window and instead thought about the snow turning to slush, the cold, and what the increasing drifts outside my building meant for my plans to go grocery shopping. Instead, I had the gift of a moment of such, dare I say, bliss? I clicked the pause button on worrying and overthinking and afterwards, I felt better both physically and emotionally.
Mindfulness didn’t come easy at first; it was a slow process to learn how to get my mind to quiet down, but once I had some practice under my belt, a lightbulb turned on for me. It was like plugging into joy. Here’s a little more about how it works for me and why it might help you, too.
Mindfulness Eases Some of My Pain and Frustration
Many years ago, when I was recovering after a life-altering RA flare, I stumbled across an abridged audio edition of the book Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction. This book changed my life. It contained information about the origin and concept of MBSR, a secularized version of Buddhist practice originally developed for people with cancer, as well as several mindfulness-based guided meditations. I was struggling with intense pain and very quickly discovered that although this didn’t change as a result of mindfulness, my ability to cope with an extremely difficult situation improved by leaps and bounds.”
Read my column on how I use mindfulness to cope with RA.
Tag: chronic pain, coping tips, mindfulness, pain, rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatoid disease
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I have just ever been good at this. My teachers asked me to be in the moment, but my parents wanted me to be mindful of the consequences. I finally decided to ignore it all and instead chase girls. Meaning I was not in the moment or worried about the future. Life is a conundrum for certain.