Why Every Day?

[JonW]

Great post, Tzu. Your thoughts are much appreciated.

[Bils42]

I am quite new to this particular practice and came to it as part of my recovery program for CFS. Practice everyday is especially important to me as I am both learning the practice and changing my mind. I know that I need to make physical changes to my brain, namely reduce the sensitivity and size of my Amygdala, which is the area of the brain that monitors incoming data for perceived threats & governs the stress response. People with CFS/ME, when scanned with a fMRI, have larger than average amygdalas whereas mindfulness practitioners have smaller than average amygdalas. In order to make these Changes I need to practice a lot and am currently sitting for a minimum of 1 1/2 hrs/day (2x45min) and aim for more. In addition to this I practice Daoyin & Taijiquan as the body needs to move.mI find these practices particularly beneficial to the body and require an attentive, calm mind which benefits & is benefitted by mindfulness training. I have also been on a 5 day retreat recently and will do at least 1 more this year.

I am in the fortunate position at the moment where I have time to focus on my practice a lot as I am in recovery. I am making the most of this time to make real lasting changes to my mind/body/spirit. Once my recovery is complete I know I will have to do a lot more paid work (I currently work part time) which will likely reduce the amount if time that I have available for my practice, but will still need to sit on a daily basis. I do know that if stop practicing then my mind will likely revert to a less than optimum state.

Therefore daily practice is essential if I want to continue to benefit from it

[JonW]

Welcome to the community, bills42.

[Gareth]

I am updating this one today. I read the initial thing that I wrote, and this time I also twitched when I read the bit about "mindlessness." Bio is right; the brain's natural tendency isn't towards mindlessness, modern life makes this the case. I have made a few changes and posted the following:

Because mindfulness requires a commitment to regular practice. If there is no commitment, then the mind can easily be drawn back into it's old ways. Modern life holds so many distractions and it bombards us with so much information that it can lead the mind astray easily. Jon Kabat-Zinn, who pioneered secular mindfulness says the following: "Making a time for formal practice every day is like feeding yourself every day. It is that important."

This is especially the case when you first begin your practice. Your patterns of thought have been with you your whole life, and you cannot change them overnight. What’s really important to start with is to practise lots and lots, and on a regular basis. Every Day is the title of this page, and whilst it’s not critical that you practise every single day, it’s a good place to aim for. Nor should you beat yourself up for not practising, that would go against everything that mindfulness is all about. The 8-week mindfulness course has been specifically designed for people first starting out their practice, and it is well worth investigating for those coming to mindfulness for the first time.

Over time, it becomes much easier to be mindful, and mindfulness becomes a way of life. Regular practice is still important, but it becomes less critical than it is at the beginning. It becomes easier to bring mindfulness into your everyday life and apply it to tasks like washing the dishes or brushing your teeth. Once the benefits begin to take hold in your life, making time to practise every day isn't really an issue; it just becomes something that you do because the benefits are so enormous.

This can still be changed easily, so please give feedback if you've got any.

[JonW]

No apostrophe needed in second line. Otherwise great.
The point about mindlessness/modern life is a good one. Certainly the endless distractions of modern life make it more challenging to live in the moment than in previous times. But living in the moment seems to have been a problem for human beings for thousands of years. Stilling the incessant internal chatter is not a new challenge for humankind.
There are some interesting theories about how that inner chatter is related to our fight/flight/freeze instincts. Our minds have been genetically wired to be on high alert since the Flinstone era. Back then Fred, Barney, Wilma & Co. had to be on alert in case they came under attack from woolly mammoths and the like. These days we don't have to worry about mammoths on the rampage (not in this part of Hove any road) so we invent our own reasons to fret.
You might argue that Fred Flinstone is a fictional character with no basis whatsoever in reality. But I'd argue that the same could be said about Adam & Eve. Or, to be politically correct, Adam & Steve.

[Gareth]

Spelling and punctuation errors have always been a bugbear for me, breathe, let that one go Gareth. I can't see an apostrophe in the second line - tell me the word that it's in.

The more that I think about this, the more that I'm convinced that the human brain is actually designed by evolution with a pre-disposition towards mindfulness. Think about the caveman. How could he really be anywhere else other than in the moment. With greater mindfulness, I certainly operate much more effectively as a human being and surely that's where evolution would have taken us? Only we went and ruined everything with our big brains didn't we? Very interesting parallells to be drawn with the whole Paleo thing that I did.