I suffer anxiety/agoraphobia. Mindfulness will not help you at all if you're severely ill, only once you start to make a recovery. So I suggest using mindfulness to try and mitigate bad episodes of stress. Sometimes a pill is the only thing that can kickstart your recovery. Be open minded to all avenues of treatment. The NHS has extremely limited resources, and have huge waiting times. It's boring but it's true, exercise and eating properly along with relaxation techniques such as mindfulness do help. I also recommend The Chimp Paradox as an alternative way of handling the inner demon that is your survival instinct, which unfortunately for many people, has not evolved to cope with modern living.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Chimp-Paradox-Management-Confidence/dp/009193558X

When I was ill about 5 months ago, there was nothing that would help me apart from medication.

This is how roughly how medication works today; imagine you want a pair of shoes, you know what size you are, you go to a shoe shop and they know what size you are and they have the shoes to fit you. Using this analogy, if you go to a pharmacy, they don't know what size shoes you are and you don't know what size shoes you are, so all they can do is give you the first pair that usually do the job, if they don't work then they try another pair and so on and so forth. Gene editing breakthroughs were made in 2015, so in another 15-20 years, we should see significant changes in medication tailored to the individual. I've had my genome profiled and whilst it's interesting, there is inconclusive evidence of which genes could be responsible for my problems. Even in 2015 we're extremely limited in what we can achieve with medication. We currently live in the medication dark ages, in the future people will look back and be in almost disbelief at how primitive we are today.

If you don't suffer from mental health issues then it's almost impossible to imagine what they're like. Imagine you had flu, proper flu that knocked you on your back for a couple weeks at a time, now imagine this as mental pain, this is currently how I feel most days, sometimes I feel like I should die and sometimes I feel full of hope and sometimes I feel normal. You can't snap out of it, you can wish it away or will it away, the more you try the more powerful the anxiety becomes. You literally have to accept it and it lessens its power. You've heard of 'placebo' well there's 'nocebo' as well, Google it!, the power of the human mind is amazing and scary at the same time. This is the human condition. Mindfulness can help and it can help everyone regardless of whether they have mental health issues or not.

Clearly, you are one who is much happier with mindlessness.

I'm not! :stuck_out_tongue:

Mindfulness is an extremely useful tool to many sufferers of Anxiety, Stress and low mood. I personally found Mindfulness to be more useful than medication, which is a prescription charge every month. Great find op, thank you.

Mindfulness is such an amazing tool. I thought it was a crock of shi* until I tried it. Also proven by psychological studies to work for many people. Heat added

I dont like missing out on cheap apps I may want in the future so I have downloaded it but not yet tried it other than clicking on the "welcome" option which sounded very soothing. The app looks to be good quality though and well thought out.

thanks buzz, wasn't even aware this app existed. may help me get back on track with mindfulness exercises.

Thus appears not to be the latest version as there's a new v2 which is £1.49. But for 10 worth a punt

Bunch of hippy $hit3

Brilliant! Like hoards of people buying boxes and boxes of mince pies because of the date. Everyone knows a week later they will be given away free but nobody will want them anymore because the calendar says January, not December. Human madness; but avoiding it is difficult.

Good luck with your treatment..... People won't truly understand what you are going through until it happens to them unfortunately. The stats suggest that is 1 in 4 of us will encounter some form of mental illness throughout our life time :disappointed:

666 heat :confused:

Cheers op, I had loads of Google rewards cash so 10p won't go a miss, and I could do with some stress relief after Xmas and new year atm :-\

Not showing up with reduced price. Maybe it's expired. Great deal though.

I dont know whether it is going to be useful, but with 10p you can only buy haribo packets these days... cant go wrong

I am truly amazed that the human race hasn't become extinct during the past few thousand years: how did we ever survive?

Bought, depression sufferer, perhaps it will help. I'm open minded.

Heat added. I've used meditation timers in the past, but my biggest hurdle is making the time to meditate, hopefully the 10p hole in my pocket will motivate me more now ;P

GET.gg

Thanks.

Edward Bernays (Century Of The Self 1m40s promo trailer): https://youtu.be/gT_edvJieEI

Or pursue mindless consumerism. All because its a bargain and I don’t need it anyway! Now leave me be, as I need to meditate and consume...

Possibly the best post on HUKD ever. All this money saving and suchlike is all ultimately in order to persue happiness anyway.

"Silent meditation with bells" im curious? However, what a load of cr..

I'm a strong believer in mind body and spirit. Mindfulness can help but you also need to look at the body and spirit. The body being exercise/diet but spirit does not necessarily mean religion it is a belief in anything that gets you optimistic and looking forward with hope. Your environment is also critical. I used to suffer from anxiety, tried every technique going. Left my job, went self employed and have never been happier.

Thank you for the heads up. I just started my audible free trial and listening to the book now.

I used the headspace app in the past but it's extremely expensive for what is it. Hopefully this will be a good alternative

Mindfulness cam be helpful but there are several apps that are free which are better than this one in my opinion. The Insight Timer app has dozens of free guided meditations, both Buddhist based and mindfulness /relaxation orientated. The Destressify app also has quite a lot of guided meditations and a program where it will give you a meditation or reading exercise each day.

The following books are good for those suffering from anxiety:

Self Help for Your Nerves by Dr Claire Weeks - a fantastic comforting book.
Stop Thinking, Start Living by Richard Carlson (cbt )
The Worry Cure by Robert Leahy (cbt) - this is £3 in my local The Works atm.

Jon Kabbat Zinn books and guided cds are good too. Loads on You Tube.

As another poster said, sometimes you do need medication to help with depression or anxiety, but it is worthwhile trying some of the free mindfulness and cognitive therapy stuff that is available.

I'm a big fan of mindfulness. I usually use youtube for guided material, but for 10p, I couldn't say no to this

Just another way of getting a quick snooze on the sly. I'm all for it.:sunglasses:

Yeah, as a poster above has said, Mindfulness is great, but should be used carefully by people who are actively in the grip of serious depression. As all of that sitting quietly inspecting your internal mindscape can lead to a lot of very distressing thoughts for people who are in a bad place.

Use cautiously with the guidance of a professional.

I recommend the Andrew Johnson apps (has a few, I do like his Relaxation, Sleep and Positivity ones) also found on Play store.
Has really helped me the last few years to relax, sleep and put me in a positive mind state.
I do find his apps are quite brilliant.

Mindfulness/meditation helps you to relax and remove negative thinking. I've been to a mediation class quite a few times and always feel more calm and peaceful afterwards. It's not some unproven mumbo jumbo, Buddhists have been practising it for thousands of years and the NHS now offer mindfulness as a treatment option, so it's definitely worth checking out. Thanks to the OP for posting and others for sharing their experiences.

That's from the book of dating.

Thank you for posting Buzz, ordered, always fancied a bit of meditation! :smiley:

Awww bless you fishmaster, me sends ya a big hug! <3

I am skeptical but will give it a punt at 10p

Thanks OP, I will give it a try

Time to cash in my google opinion reward.

FM, edited that down to reply - very well put.

The Chimp book is excellent.

I can also recommend reading the text "Who moved my Cheese" which is freely available on the internet (google knows about it) and covers matters of letting go and moving forward.

Other apps which are good - I use the Andrew Johnson ones. Available on Android and iOS. Some are free, some you pay for, but he often does offers on his Facebook page.

Either way, if you've got concerns about anxiety or stress, your first port of call should be to go and have a chat with your GP who will be able to give some advice and/or medication. The problem with depression/anxiety/stress is that it doesn't go away if you ignore it.

It's very easy to just collect books, DVDs and apps about meditation and mindfulness, but at the end of the day you need to choose one, do it twice or at least once a day for 20 minutes, and develop a habbit... once or twice here and there when you're stressed won't help anyone.

It's like building muscle, only you're building the front part of your brain up which science has proven meditation does.

After years I've eventually settled on a free timer app called Bhodi Timer which just sounds an effect of your choice to start and finish, and very simple transcendental meditation repeating a mantra in your head.

Eckhart Tolle is excellent reading to help you make sense or as it where, help you give up the need to make sense of all of the rubbish in daily life.

That said if this helps people discover mediation and give it a try then HOT.

Personally I'm a massive believer that meditation should be taught and practiced in every school from a young age... imagine a whole generation with smaller amygdalas and thicker pre-frontal cortex... we might actually advance as a race in a worthwhile sense... not just with better 'stuff'.

downloaded, thanks OP. BTW the ladybird mindfulness book is an absolute hoot. LMAO.

Future cat lady right there.

And the Government would be able to scare us!

Heat for the deal, will download and have a look later.

bought - ta op. :-)

The Mindfulness app is a great tool for everyone who wants to become more present in their life, both beginners and more experienced practitioners. We are confident that it will enhance your day and make your life richer and more interesting!

Fishmaster thank you for sharing that personal post. Mental health is so challenging to a family who lives with it. However if you don't have 'spots' 'runny nose' etc it can be difficult to make people understand.

The Mindfulness app is a great tool for everyone who wants to become more present in their life..

Mindfulness is an extremely useful tool to many sufferers of Anxiety, Stress and low mood. I personally found Mindfulness to be more useful than medication, which is a prescription charge every month. Great find op, thank you.

2.29 on iOS. :-(

Great app, and very useful for those who take a few minutes each day to pause and actually think. As opposed to those who know nothing about mindfulness and take a few minutes to poke fun! :-)

This would probably go well with 8 cans of Stella

im with buzzD on this one. i meditate as i follow Buddhist teachings. Its good to check in with yourself once in a while.
Honestly dont knock it till youve tried it. if the app isnt for you there's probably a mindfulness group near you.

Thanks

lmao :laughing:

I'm not! :stuck_out_tongue: