Beginning to understand Mindfulness

To understand Mindfulness you need to understand the relationship between thoughts and emotions.

Mindfulness is a practice that currently has a wide diffusion and sometimes is part of evidence-based treatments, such as dialectical behavioral therapy or mindfulness-based therapy.

It consists of observing the events that happen in the present, in a particular way: without judgment, with full openness and acceptance. Each thought, emotion or sensation that presents itself to the consciousness is contemplated without attempts to eliminate them..

This practice also provides benefits to people who do not present any psychopathological condition and is trained through workshops worldwide by instructors who guide the meetings.

Being part of multiple treatments in different psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, stress, eating behavior problems, chronic pain, among others, it is common that those who are dedicated to teach this practice know how to guide the participants but do not know the Biological and psychological mechanisms that allow the benefits, reason for which the criteria for its use and its usefulness is often unclear..

The objective of this article is to give an account of one of these psychological factors that allows understanding the conditions under which this tool is useful in clinical settings as well as in the general population, since it is necessary to understand when, why and for what purpose to train in this practice.

Mindfulness and the mechanism of fear

Humans, as well as other animals, have inherited from our ancestors the ability to approach what we find appetitive and to move away from aversive events. This ability is extremely useful for subsistence and allows us, among other things, to avoid potentially harmful situations.

One of the mechanisms through which the organism emits flight and escape responses is fear.. Faced with a stimulus that is presented as threatening, a series of responses are produced that prepare the individual to avoid the danger and thus safeguard his or her life.

However, we can be afraid of something that is not dangerous. Evidence of this are the various anxiety disorders, where the feared stimuli will not kill us, but will activate the fear response, which can often be unpleasant.which in many occasions can be unpleasant.

A person with a fear of exams knows that the exam will not kill them and that the more anxious they are the worse they will perform, however they will experience greater fear the closer the date of the assessment and will want to avoid this event.

Someone with panic attacks may know that they will not die from it, given that they have experienced these symptoms on many occasions, but they may still fear having an episode again and may avoid going to places where they feel this is more likely to occur. Other examples are phobias or social anxiety, where this self-protection mechanism is also activated in the face of stimuli that are not harmful.

• You may be interested in "What is fear for?"

Scary thoughts

Many external events can generate fear even if they are not dangerous. There are also internal events that also do so: thoughts and emotions.

No matter how hard you think about an aversive situation ("I have cancer", for example), you will never make it happen just by thinking about it.It is not biologically possible. No matter how intense an image is and no matter how strong a thought is presented, none of this will make it more likely that its content will happen.

But thoughts are often disturbing, as are the associated emotions, which is why it is to be expected that the person who fears these thoughts will try to avoid or suppress them.

This can lead to what is known as "cognitive fusion," i.e., basing our behaviors on our thoughts, basing our behaviors on our thoughts rather than on what is happening in the context and responding to them as if they were reality..

The news is that external stimuli can often be avoided or escaped from, but the same is not true for internal events. Paradoxically, thoughts become more prominent when we try to avoid, control, escape or suppress them.control them, escape from them or suppress them.

This is one of the reasons that gives meaning to the practice of Mindfulness both as part of a treatment in clinical conditions and for people without a psychopathological condition that perform the practice to achieve a better quality of life, as contemplating their own internal experiences and not fight against them will bring us benefits.

To learn more about this topic, request information about the course "Psychological basis of Mindfulness practice".