Imagine for a moment you’re going about your day, checking emails, following up with projects and double-checking deadlines, when suddenly your smart watch sends you a reminder to take a moment for mindfulness. You stop for a moment, read the reminder, and think, “Why bother being mindful when I have so much to get done today?”

A key skill of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is the skill of Mindfulness. A lot of things probably come to mind when you think about mindfulness, but as a DBT skill, mindfulness is meant to stretch someone to have both full awareness and attentional control. This can look like having awareness of the present moment including your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, while also staying focused on just one thing at a time.

There are many benefits to practicing mindfulness and living a more mindful life, but in case you aren’t totally convinced that it can benefit you, here are some encouraging reasons to spend more time practicing the skill of mindfulness.

Benefits of Mindfulness

• Provides you with more choices and control over your behaviors. As you work on slowing down your thoughts and reactions, you can more easily notice emotions and urges and keep yourself from acting on impulses.
• Increases pleasure and sense of enjoyment, while decreasing emotional suffering.
• Improves your physical health by lessening pain, stress, and tension.
• Helps you make more balanced decisions by giving you the ability to pay attention to both emotional and logical thinking.
• Increases ability to show compassion towards yourself and others.
• Makes you more effective and productive by gaining a greater ability to focus your attention on one thing at a time.

So now you might be thinking, “This mindfulness thing sounds like it might really help me, but how do I even begin to be mindful in my busy life?” It’s important to start out with knowing that there is more than one way to practice mindfulness, and it can be trial and error to find the method that works best for you. A simple approach to start with is ODP: Observe, Describe, and Participate.

Mindfulness Skill: ODP

First, begin by observing or simply noticing the things going on inside of you (your mind and your body) and outside of you (your environment, other people, etc.).

Next, describe those things that you noticed by giving them a name or a label. The important thing to remember in this step, is to keep the names and labels fact based and try to remind yourself not to drift off into your emotions.

The final step is to participate; this step involves purposefully choosing one of the things that you observed and described and fully focusing your attention on that one thing. This can look like fully submersing yourself in the process of doing the dishes by only allowing yourself to think, do and feel things that have to do with the dishes, such as noticing the smells, the sights, and your thoughts related to doing the dishes.

If you are interested in learning how to apply this and more Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills, consider joining one of our adolescent or adult DBT skills groups.

Groups are offered numerous times throughout the year and can be an excellent source of knowledge and support for those struggling to regulate their emotions, manage challenging behaviors, and navigate difficulties in relationships. (More information is here.)

If you are in the Greenwood/Indianapolis, Indiana area and are interested in learning more about our DBT Skills groups, give us a call at 317-743-8202 or email [email protected]. Even if you’re not in the area and have questions, we would be glad to help if we can.