Using mindfulness to deal with everyday pressures | Regina Chow Trammel | TEDxAzusaPacificUniversity

Modern life is stressful, and in truth, most of us aren’t handling it well. In this informative talk, drawn from research in social work and religion, Dr. Regina Chow Trammel explores how the ancient practice of mindfulness can enable all of us to transcend the pressures of life and make use of our whole capacity as a human being - body, mind, and spirit.

Dr. Regina Chow Trammel has a background in clinical social work practice, which includes more than a decade in private practice in the Chicago area and experience in psychiatric and medical social-work settings. Her area of clinical focus has been in the treatment of depression, anxiety, postpartum mood disorders, sexual abuse history, family conflict, self-injury and eating disorders. Regina is an assistant professor. Her research focuses on the effects of a Christian-informed mindfulness intervention as an alternative to traditional Buddhist-informed mindfulness on stress management.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx.

As a social-work educator
and former practitioner,

I'm interested in building
and maintaining

the emotional and mental capacity

of those who do the hard work
of helping others.

Take, for instance,
a day in the life of a social worker.

I'll call her Kerry.

A typical day for Kerry
may start like this.

In the morning, she checks her emails,

and she's quickly interrupted

because a client is in need
of emergency shelter.

She handles the client situation

and begins the application process

for a grant that will fund
more beds for her agency.

More beds means
more veterans off the streets,

more single moms and their children
in a safe place to stay for the night.

By midafternoon, she transitions
and settles into group therapy,

where she hears the emotional content
and the stories of trauma and abuse

of the women, who survived
domestic violence.

She offers the skills
and interventions of a social worker,

and she provides comfort
and empowerment to the women

in order to get them
back up on their feet again.

By the end of the day,

she has seen many clients,

she has heard many stories,

and she's spent.

She's emptied of herself.

She's given over her skills
and interventions,

time and resources,

the best that she could give.

It's a busy day. It's stressful.

And many days are like this for Kerry

and for social workers in general.

In fact, social workers
suffer from burnout quite often.

And though I realize
that not all of you are social workers -

and I can't fathom why -

(Laughter)

but you often, probably,

experience intense periods of stress
in your own life as well.

So today, I want to talk to you
about an ancient practice

that you can use to further extend
your capacity to deal with stress.

It's called mindfulness.

Mindfulness, in a short definition,

is the ability to stay
in the present moment.

In fact, it is the ability
to so focus your attention on the present

that you're able to evaluate
your thoughts nonjudgmentally.

I also want to share with you
three reasons why I believe

mindfulness can extend and build
your capacity to take on pressures,

especially as you do the hard work
of helping others.

It can expand your ability
to take on stresses

in a more healthy way.

I came into mindfulness practice

because I experienced
an intense period of stress in my life.

I did not like the way I felt
when I had this stress,

I did not like the way
I sounded to others,

and I didn't like the way I reacted.

Mindfulness gave me the tools
to be able to calm and be present

and be able to evaluate

how I was acting, how I was feeling,
how I was thinking.

Take, for instance, this picture.

It is a blurry something.

This is how we feel
when we 're under a lot of stress:

a blurry mess.

Our thoughts jump from thought to thought,

and we're out of focus.

Our life feels chaotic and unclear.

What mindfulness does

is it helps us to step out
and zoom out of that blurry mess.

Our life becomes more focused.

Our thoughts start to come together.

We're able to form a picture
of our lives more clearly again.

The first reason why mindfulness
can extend and build your capacity

to be able to help others,

taking on their stress,

is because it helps us
experience our stress differently.

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn
is a researcher from Massachusetts,

and he was the first

to westernize and secularize
the practice of mindfulness,

as it comes originally
from Buddhist religious thought.

Over eight weeks,

he had patients who dealt with
chronic pain due to medical conditions

practice mindfulness.

And after the eight weeks,

these patients reported a decrease in pain

and a decrease in intensity
of that chronicity of pain;

that pain, in general,
was not so front and center anymore.

Now, nothing changed
in their medical condition,

but their experience of pain did.

In this ongoing study I'm a part of,

I have created a six-week program

that draws from Christian-based
mindfulness practices.

I've asked these students to listen
to these modules that I've created,

on their cellphones or their laptops,

and report their levels of stress
before and after this mindfulness program.

They reported lower levels of stress

as well as increased levels
of mindfulness state.

Their thoughts were more
centered and focused

as a result of the mindfulness practice.

Mindfulness allows us
to experience our stress differently.

Things do not change.

These students' lives were still impacted

by the academic pressures
and their personal lives,

but yet their experience of pain differed.

This leads me to my second reason

why mindfulness
can help you deal with stress:

it helps you make better decisions.

When we're assaulted with big situations

where we need to carry
the responsibilities of crises

or we need to just simply
make a step in the right direction,

mindfulness can clarify our thoughts.

Instead of a jumbled mess,

we can prioritize our values,

we can integrate whole parts of ourselves

and act in a way that is congruent
with who we are.

Congressman Tim Ryan from Ohio
understands this very well.

As a policy maker,

he understands good policy
requires a sharp mind and a warm heart.

And in his work, he actually leads
mindfulness practices on Capitol Hill.

Now just take a second
and imagine that for a moment:

Republicans and Democrats
in the same room together

in mindfulness bliss.

It's a neat picture
and so needed in our times.

Congressman Ryan uses mindfulness,

and he spoke to Anderson Cooper
about this in a 60 Minutes episode

and said it has helped him
prevent himself from burning out,

that the stress and the pace
of policy making is intense,

and it's given him the ability
to reach across the aisle

and extend a hand to people
that he doesn't agree with

in order to craft good policy,

anticipating how
those policies will play out

in the day to day lives
of people it will affect.

You see, mindfulness allows us
to be more compassionate,

to, instead of react, be more empathetic;

instead of be in conflict,
be more collaborative;

instead of be self-centered,
we're more self-aware.

These are the gifts of mindfulness.

And mindfulness
builds compassion for others,

and as we anticipate the needs of others,

our decisions are not
as focused on reaction,

but we're able to anticipate
how those decisions play out,

how they help or hinder
the healing process

for society or organization
or for relationships.

So do me a favor

and do this exercise with me
for just a few moments

so you can experience
what I'm talking about.

Close your eyes

and take three deep breaths in with me.

Take your first breath in
and fill your lungs to capacity.

Imagine that this air
is very clean and good and pure,

and allow it to nourish your body,

and exhale.

Take your second deep breath in,

and allow that breath to travel
through those tight parts of your body,

maybe your gut or your shoulders
or your neck areas,

where it's often tight.

And relax.

And exhale.

And on your third breath,

do the same and assign your breath
a color of purity.

Allow that breath, again,
to travel to those tight places,

soothe those sore spots,

take in that relaxation.

Exhale.

Continue to breathe in this way
as I talk to you.

There's nothing you need to do
right now except to breathe.

There's nothing that is asked of you.

There's no task to be completed,

except for you to simply
just sit and breathe.

You can put all the to-do lists away.

You can let go of the worries of the day.

Just sit and breathe.

Thank you. You can open your eyes.

I hope what this exercise showed you

is just a little taste

of what a mindfulness
exercise could do for you,

especially as you confront
conflict or big situations

or organizational places
where you need to make big decisions.

You can take a step back
and breathe just for a moment

and be present

and be able to then renourish,
rejuvenate yourself

before you confront that situation

or before you need to make that decision.

Because what happens in mindfulness,
as you sit in awareness,

is the truth of reality
that starts to come to fruition,

which is this:

The past cannot be changed.

The future cannot be forced.

All we have is the present moment.

And in that present moment,

we can make the best decisions we can
in order to better the lives of others,

but it takes some thought

and it takes some congruence.

It takes our ability

to connect with our values
and the things that we hold dear.

So you, hopefully, have experienced

that breath is a foundation
of a mindfulness practice,

which leads me
to the third and final reason

why mindfulness can extend and expand
your ability to take on stress,

especially as you help others,

which is mindfulness fosters wellness.

And what I mean by wellness

is this ability to cope with stressors
in our lives and bounce back.

In fact, mindfulness
is a tool of self-care.

When we give of ourselves to a cause

or we provide skills and interventions
that will make a change in healing,

we need to rejuvenate
and we need to refresh the wells.

Mindfulness allows us that space and time

to refresh, to connect

and to be able to access
all different parts of ourselves.

In a 2014 study by Shonin,
Gordon and Griffiths,

these researchers

used a more religiously oriented
mindfulness-based practice -

it was more faithful
to its Buddhist roots -

and these researchers

asked the participants how they felt
after this six-week program.

One participant said
that they felt "cradled in comfort."

In a study I conducted last year,

I asked Christian psychotherapists
who used mindfulness-based therapies

questions like,

How did you feel using
this mindfulness-based therapy

with your client?

What worked? What didn't work?

But they responded
in a very interesting way,

and they said

that they felt a presence of the divine
with them in that room

as they work with their clients.

In fact, that divine presence
assisted them;

it was a source outside of themselves
that helped them in discernment,

that helped them extend
the healing process.

It helped further the work
that they did in healing their clients.

These therapists understood

that they could access
a part of themselves,

a spiritual side that was accessed
through the practice of mindfulness.

And when we can use spirituality,
our body responds.

And when our body responds,
our mind responds.

And when our mind responds,
our spiritual selves respond again,

so forth and so on in a virtuous cycle.

Mindfulness allows us to extend
the limits of our human capabilities

by accessing all parts of ourselves.

We don't have to compartmentalize
those different aspects;

we can all work in unison
to confront a situation

or to help us determine
what the next step is.

Mindfulness fosters wellness

because we're caring for ourselves
as we care for others.

We use all spheres of our lives
to attack the problem.

So if you're interested
in building a mindfulness practice,

first start with your breath.

Anchor your thoughts
with a passage or a quote.

Take in the benefits of mindfulness.

You will experience stress differently,

you will make better decisions,

and you will be fostering wellness
and an attitude of self-care.

Breathe and be mindful.

Thank you.

(Applause)