Mindfulness is a No-Brainer by Dr. Deb Hirschhorn

Dr. Deb Mindfulness is a No-Brainer

By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.

The biggest argument I get from people on the “homework” I give is the objection to sitting for ten minutes – ten minutes, my gosh, where will I get that amount of time from? – doing what is called “mindfulness.”

After all, there are things that must be done. And done fast. For work, for the family, for oneself. “As it is,” they tell me, “I wolf down lunch or I have to skip it completely, and I’m way behind on sleep.”

They also either catch up on sleep on Shabbos or – interestingly enough – they find Shabbos irritating because there is nothing “to do.”

Hey, wait.

Something’s going on here. This almost sounds like the makings of an addiction.

What’s an addiction? It’s an unhealthy relationship with a behavior or substance, one that gobbles up all your time, energy, and thoughts. How is it possible to be so very, very busy during the week that you feel compelled to complain about it – or your family does – yet on Shabbos, when you have the chance to get a mental rest, you don’t like it?

This is a sign of a terrible disconnect.

The disconnect is between you and yourself. It’s as if you keep busy to get away from yourself.

Then, on Shabbos, the very opportunity to repair that disruption is disturbing.

Why would that be?

The job that an addiction does for us is to distract us from pain. Generally, the pain is internal. It’s all about feelings we have about ourselves that are not kind, to say the least. Or to be blunt, in the words of a number of my clients, “I don’t like myself.”

Mind you, there is no solid reason for this. These people are lovely, smart, kind people. The story of how they came to that place begins with messages from childhood that they latched onto for reasons that I’ve explained in previous articles.

The reasons and the feelings go underground but they make their positions known just the same through addictions to their busy-ness, other addictions, anxiety, worry, and depression.

This is an age-old problem with an age-old solution. That solution is called mindful meditation. Americans think that the practice of mindfulness originated in Tibet with Buddhist monks. However, in Esther Wein’s class some years ago, I learned that on his deathbed, when Avraham Avinu gives “gifts” to the sons from his pilegesh and sends them to the “East,” those gifts may very well be the mindfulness skills we are discussing here.

Having heard about the praises for meditation practice from a trickle of people back in 1974, Herbert Benson, medical doctor and scientist at Harvard, decided to see if the benefits could be measured. He noticed that heart attacks, strokes, and high blood pressure were more common than they had been five years or ten years earlier. He reasoned that this came from the added stress our society was under (welcome to 2021, Herb) because scientists knew at that time the mechanics of the sympathetic nervous system and how it reacts when people feel under siege.

He decided to test all this, having a group of subjects practice what he called the “Relaxation Response” along with well-practiced yogis who also volunteered in his lab. He was fascinated by results that almost resembled the calmness of sleep except for several important differences: 1. The advanced practitioners (yogis) had brain alpha waves which were associated with feelings of wellbeing. These do not occur in sleep. 2. There was a rapid decrease in metabolism rate. In sleep, it takes 4 to 5 hours to drop oxygen consumption by about 8% while with meditation, it takes 3 minutes to drop oxygen consumption by 10 to 20 %. (Subsequent research shows that meditators then have a reversal in which more oxygen is delivered to the tissues and brain than in the general population. In fact, a 2018 study on the PubMed site of the National Institutes of Health showed that this additional oxygen delivery from meditation was a useful adjuvant to medication in glaucoma patients, of all things). 3. There is no rapid eye movement in meditation, unlike sleep.

Benson also found that there was a decrease in blood lactate in meditators. Lactate buildup in the blood is the result of metabolism, and when that process is not working as efficiently as possible, its accumulation can lead from muscle weakness to sepsis and death. What Benson also found is that the lower the lactate level, the lower the anxiety level that people experience. This has been corroborated by more recent studies.

“But Dr. Deb,” someone recently insisted, “I am not stressed. I do not have panic attacks. I don’t have addictions and overwork is not one of them, although I am, thank G-d, successful in my business. So I’m not your guy! I don’t need mindfulness meditation.”

Hold on there, friend.

Mindfulness could not have been a “gift” of the East if all it was there for was to solve problems. Rather, it is a life enhancer.

Here are some thoughts based on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s 1992 book, “Wherever You Go, There You Are,” that intro-

duced mindfulness meditation to this country in a big way: * In our everyday life it is easy to fall into “a robotlike way of seeing and thinking and doing.” But that very process will “break contact with what is deepest in ourselves.” Thus, the irony here is that regular waking life is “a dream” but we can counteract it by “waking up” in meditation. When we do, we can see “the interconnectedness of things” as well as the big picture look at our lives and the “direction” we are headed. * Mindfulness frees us a great deal because one of its key concepts is being nonjudgmental. Therefore, “when we commit ourselves to paying attention in an open way, without falling prey to our own likes and dislikes, opinions and prejudices, projections and expectations, new possibilities open up.” This brings clarity. * Every one of us has a lot going on that is not conscious. Mindfulness opens up “areas in our lives that we were out of touch with or unwilling to look at…such as grief, sadness, woundedness, anger and fear.” We can also “appreciate feelings such as joy, peacefulness, and happiness.” * Because our lives are so rushed, we forget that rushing the mindfulness while we’re trying to practice it precludes having that which we are searching for. “So in meditation prac-

tice, the best way to get somewhere is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.” This teaches us how to just “be,” which is something we are unfamiliar with – to our detriment. “Otherwise, self-involvement and greediness can sneak in and distort your relationship to the work” of connecting to yourself. * Patience is needed for this and that is a good thing. “Scratch the surface of impatience and what you will find lying beneath it, subtly or not so subtly is anger. It’s the strong energy of not wanting things to be the way they are and blaming someone (often yourself) for it.” This is pointless because there is no one to blame. When people act badly, they can be shown to have

It’s as if you keep busy to get away from yourself.

perhaps been given a poor upbringing. Whose fault is that? Blame is pointless. “When an incredulous reporter asked [the Dali Lama] about his apparent lack of anger toward the Chinese by an incredulous report at the time he won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Dali Lama replied something to the effect that: ‘They have taken everything from us; should I let them take my mind as well?’” * Another quality to cultivate from this is generosity – to yourself first. (That one sure reminds me of “Im ayn ani li, mi li?”) Here’s the thing: Because you are already “treating yourself” to you-time, you’re starting that path to self-generosity. *From there, of course, it expands to other wonderful middos. The Dali Lama is known for his specific focus on compassion for others when he meditates.

It’s not the 10 minutes that we all don’t have. We have it. It’s the weirdness of doing “nothing” that we have trouble with. But – like sleep in which we aren’t productive at all – it’s good for us in so many ways.

Dr. Deb Hirschhorn is a Marriage and Family Therapist. If you want help with your marriage, begin by signing up to watch her Masterclass at https://drdeb. com/myw-masterclass.