Mindfulness and the Habitual Mind

We tend to think the same thoughts, recycling old ideas or experiences. *Notes from Chapter one of a new book purchase.

Mindfulness really just means being more present to the Now experiences in your life and mind, and just observing, rather than judging/shaming/worrying. Let go of control is somewhat the goal - stop trying so hard to NOT THINK ABOUT THE WHITE ELEPHANT. Just let that white elephant go nibble some leaves and observe that in your mental imagination instead. Or whatever works for you, for the purpose of becoming more at peace internally. Equanimity in the face of positives, negatives, or neutrals — it all will pass from the present and fade into the past.

What is peace of mind? Can it be learned? Yes, seems to be the answer - with practice for 6-8 weeks or more to build more peaceful pathways within the brain.

• New book purchase, a 2024!: Mindfulness and Character Strengths; A Practitioner’s Guide to MBSP 2nd edition, by Ryan M. Niemiec, Hogrefe Publishing, 2024)

• I still need a budget. Goal - try You Need A Budget .com (ynab.com)

“The Habitual Mind” represents the research findings that suggest most of us are dwelling on the same patterns of thoughts much of the time. That sounds boring to me. I go a little too far towards the extreme of constantly exploring new ideas and reading new material - without always spending enough time practicing the new information to make it stick as a new habit or using it in some other way. I blog to save my ideas and things that I found interesting enough to want to be able to find and access again.

“Monkey mind” - skittering between many ideas - may be part of my tendency to always seek new info rather than utilizing new material more fully. It is more fun to experience the new info as new info, rather than to spend the time practicing or digging deeper into the topic before seeking other new topics. This passage suggests monkey mind is more our routine self talk though - our habitual self talk.

“The Habitual Mind

There is much our mind can get distracted with. Research has shown that our minds can process about seven items (sounds, odors, images, emotions) at once, and it has been estimated it takes just 0.06 second (1/18) to process each item. The result is 126 pieces of information every second (half a million per hour; Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). That’s a lot of “options” for where we can potentially bring our attention to! There is far more that is not attended to by our mindful awareness than attended to.

»Csikszentmihalyi adds that the majority of our thoughts are the same as they were yesterday. Thus, our habitual mind is simply recycling old thoughts, difficult interactions, painful memories, or mundane and trivial experiences.*

Mindfulness is contrasted with automaticity, a state of unawareness that occupies a significant portion of our daily living, in which we are going through the motions of an activity, not tuned in or aware of our internal experience. Meditation teachers often refer to our mind’s ability to hop around from thought to thought as monkey mind, because at these times our mind is like a group of monkeys in trees, chattering about as they randomly hop around from branch to branch and from tree to tree. Mindfulness helps to “deautomate” our mind, weakening habitual and reflexive patterns of thinking and feeling (Fuochi & Voci, 2020; Kang et al., 2013).

»In other words, mindfulness helps us to wake up from monkey mind and habitual living, and to become present and attend closely to what is happening internally and externally in the present moment.”

(page 12 of the book or page 37 of the pdf, Mindfulness and Character Strengths; A Practitioner’s Guide to MBSP 2nd edition, by Ryan M. Niemiec, Hogrefe Publishing, 2024)

[Bold and » added by me.] [*The habitual recycling of old thoughts may also be called rumination - spending too long going over the same thoughts or worries.]

Seeking new information regularly may not be exactly what is meant by “monkey mind”.

Mindfulness and mindlessness - habitual autopilot thinking, are considered a continuum - a spectrum within which we operate sometimes being more mindful - consciously present and sometimes more mindless, functioning on autopilot during routine tasks - allowing our mind to wander freely while washing dishes for example. “Meditation” does not have to be only done while sitting in a yoga pose. Some people prefer walking or standing and swaying or moving a little.

One end of a continuum is not necessarily ‘good’ and the other end is ‘bad’ - it is more about recognition that there is a difference and we, with practice, can gain more control over how present we are or whether we are allowing our mind to wander as we take a break or want to think more freely.

The points within each group below, from Figure 1. Continuum of Awareness, may not always represent the extremes of the continuum either - being in a “mode of doing” - may just mean that you are busy with work, but you are mentally present while doing it rather than being on autopilot.

“Figure 1. Continuum of Awareness

Mindfulness; Auto pilot/mind wandering (mindlessness);

«Here, now; »Then, later;

«Skillful responding; »Habitual reaction;

«Aware, present; »Monkey mind, distracted;

«Mode of being; »Mode of doing;

«Allowing/letting be; »Fighting the experience;

«Facing reality/truth/pain; »Avoiding”

(page 15 of the book, or page 40 of the pdf, Niemiec, 2024)

Reframing new material - organizing it in your own way, can help you to remember it. Teaching others as we learn things ourselves can help us to remember the new material too. It might also help us to work through how we might want to use the information.

Benefits of Mindfulness practice are seen with many health conditions.

The potential benefits for sticking with mindfulness practice including breathing exercises are numerous. Research has found improvements in interpersonal relationships of intimate or other types and improvements for many chronic conditions.

“Mindfulness has been found to be intimately linked to improvements of multiple functions of attention and with cognitive flexibility, as shown in studies of meditators outperforming nonmeditators (Moore & Malinowski, 2009). These findings are of benefit to mindfulness-based programs aimed at enhancing participants’ attention. Mindfulness-related meditation has been integrated into psychological approaches to treat a variety of psychological disorders and problems, including stress, anxiety, depression, relationship problems, borderline personality disorder, substance abuse, binge eating disorder, insomnia, bipolar disorder, and psychotic symptoms (Baer, 2003; Grossman et al., 2004; Nyklicek et al., 2010; Segal et al., 2002; Shapiro & Carlson, 2009).

Ellen Langer (1989, 1997, 2009), who emphasizes cognitive aspects of mindfulness involving novelty and thinking in alternative categories, has found that increases in mindfulness result in greater competence, health, longevity, positive affect, creativity, and charisma. There is also research that shows the benefits of mindfulness on relationship functioning (Carson et al., 2004). In addition, Shapiro et al. (2002) discuss the impact of mindfulness on interpersonal functioning, citing Tloczynski and Tantriella (1998), who found that breath meditation for 6 weeks was superior to a relaxation group and a control group, in significantly decreasing interpersonal problems.” (page 19 of the book or page 44 of the pdf, Niemiec, 2024)

Learning Self Regulation skills as a child vs Having external control by parents or caregivers.

Externally controlling care as a child may leave a need or desire to have authoritarian leaders or bosses as an adult - someone to tell you what to do. Making decisions is a skill and involves balancing risk, fear, and realistic goals.

Being able to have more control over whether you are consciously present or in autopilot mode - learned as an adult, can help those of us who didn’t learn good self-regulation/self-control skills when we were young. Children who had overly controlling parents may not even have been allowed to practice their own self-control skills because there was constantly a parent nagging about something they should stop doing or start doing “Right this minute!”

I have had to recognize the uncomfortable idea that I may even have developed some oppositional defiance as a result of having overly controlling parents. Tell me to stop chewing my fingernails too often and I may start chewing them even harder - leaving little painful holes in my skin… Gosh darn it! I will show that parent of mine! Ouch though. That hurts. Who am I really showing? and what am I showing them? That I react to others instead of acting in my own best interests? Hmmmm…

“One of the most salient research findings to emerge is that mindfulness has an impact on neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to rewire and restructure itself through learning and experience. Lab studies of meditators has shown that repetitive mindfulness practice drives positive changes in neuroplasticity, leading to greater emotional balance, compassion, happiness, and the buffering of stress and trauma, which reflect greater mental and physical well-being (Lutz et al., 2007).” (page 24 of the book, page 49 of the pdf, Niemiec, 2024)

Oxytocin levels in saliva have been found to correlate positively with mindfulness or compassion therapy work. (Bellosta-Batalla, et al., 2020; cited by Niemiec, 2024)

What is mindfulness? In summary:

“Any time an individual brings their attention to the present moment with curiosity, openness, and/or acceptance, they are practicing mindfulness. Any time an individual catches their autopilot mind, aware of what the mind is up to, they are practicing mindfulness. The person might be working, sitting at a computer, walking in the woods, playing an instrument, or spending time with family. The person has become present and alive in the moment. These spontaneous examples of mindfulness can be cultivated by practice.” ((page 24 of the book, page 49 of the pdf, Niemiec, 2024)

I learned of this book from the site (viacharacter.org) which has a screening of character strengths. A free report has some basic information about the results and two prices for more information. I bought the full price report and it was revealing. I have taken the screening in the past and this time the results said a lot about where I have been focused in my skillset and where I have been avoiding challenges or more experience.

The report emphasizes that in ranking the 24 main strengths, it doesn’t mean some are ‘weaknesses’ as much as underdeveloped or under used parts of oneself. Love of learning and beauty stood out at the top of my list and self-regulation was the last on the list. Hmmmm……. Very revealing. Also revealing though that I may have gained more self recognition since a decade or more ago when I did the screening the first time. It is too easy to fool ourselves about our own thoughts and habits.

My health is different than it used to be. It literally is more difficult for me to ‘self-regulate’ than it used to be when I was working full-time. I was stressed and busy but I was handling it, with a lot of migraines and body pain though. I was very inflamed and had fibromyalgia like pain and fatigue from undiagnosed autoimmune hypothyroidism. I have lived experience in the more recent past that many things can leave your mind in a whirling state of reactivity.

Mental health therapy is needed and helpful, but improving nutrient deficiencies or hormone imbalance can be what is truly needed to help the mind to be able to be ‘self-regulated’ by conscious choice.

When hyperparathyroidism was a problem for me, with elevated parathyroid hormone, (PTH) secondary to low calcium levels, my mind was jittery and my body was too. It felt under too great a pressure and there was a VERY STRONG urge to ‘pop’ myself - pop the overfull balloon with a knife or by gouging my eyes out. That is just a really scary and weird urge to have. The fact that I didn’t do that, means that I was able to self-regulate my behavior, my actions, even though internally my body had lost normal ‘self-regulation’. I didn’t learn of the elevated PTH for years and I learned that labeling the weird urge helped me to not act on the feelings. I called it my ‘stabby mood’ - solution, just don’t stab myself/don’t gouge my eyes, and I will be okay. It will pass or be less strong of an urge at least.

Hyperthyroidism had left it hard to complete a sentence within my thoughts or speech - I would forget what the beginning half of the thought had been. I was familiar with scattered thinking from ADHD afternoons - but then I would forget what the last sentence had been, rather than what the first half of a sentence had been. How can you ‘self-regulate’ what you already forgot? (Because your mind is racing so fast - it seems to me - memories don’t have time to form when there are so many thoughts - overactivity, and probably lack of calming glycine, magnesium, and GABA.)

My point in pointing out there can be physical reasons for difficulty with ‘self-regulation’ - is that while mindfulness and meditation are truly very important and can be very helpful for retaining self control in difficult situations they aren’t the only answer a patient might need. While I didn’t gouge my eyes out, others with low calcium/elevated PTH have done so. It would help them and me more to provide adequate calcium and/or vitamin D and magnesium, every day for the rest of our lifetimes.

When we recognize that an underlying dysfunction is causing hyperactivity of thoughts; or clinical depression of thoughts; or extreme anxiety and paranoia associated with histamine excess; then we can correct those problems and restore normal thinking and restore a more normal ability to make conscious choices about our actions and reduce physically driven impulsive or compulsive reactivity. A person may also need to learn how to still the mind in order to be able to add a bigger pause between the urge and the desired action or reaction to the feeling. It helped me to keep in mind, along with the weird new urge, an older memory of bandaids and bloody scabs that I would irritate endlessly so they never healed for a long time, and I would remind myself that I didn’t want to bother with bandaids and cleaning up any bloody drips. Practicing safe thoughts when more calm, can help those practiced thoughts be up front and present when needed to slow down an unsafe urge. Self injury is not always suicidal in nature - it may be more about early child trauma leading to inner messages saying things like ‘I deserve pain, I deserve punishment, I am a bad child, or I am not good enough.’ We can learn some horrible things as scared toddlers, and then keep telling ourselves those horrible untrue things for the rest of our lives - or until enough happens to disrupt the patterns and new skills are sought out.

Labeling feelings and experiences is a strategy tip mentioned to help with mindfulness practice:

“Labeling and experiencing: As you notice thoughts and emotions occur, label them as thoughts or emotions. Meditation scholar Jack Kornfield (1993) has suggested you might say to yourself “judging mind” or “planning mind” to label thoughts of self-criticism or thoughts of the day’s plans that emerge. Emotions, such as anxiety, sadness, joy, and peace can also be labeled as such and experienced in the moment as one gets stronger in the practice.” (page 28 of the book, page 53 of the pdf, Niemiec, 2024)

photo op

The Wheel of Character Strengths. (positivepsychology.com)

Disclaimer: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health care guidance.