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gums in group meditation smartphone apps
or even organic dance mindfulness comes
in all shapes and sizes counting the
breath on the exhale from one it's the
psychological process of feeling present
in your own body by paying attention to
the moments to your thoughts feelings
and the environments around you it's
argued that stress anxiety and
depression can be managed half of work
absences last year in the UK were due to
stress or mental health and companies
are starting to take well-being
seriously it's no longer unusual for
businesses to offer mindfulness
meditation classes designed to reduce
workers stress while increasing
productivity Steve Jobs at Apple you
know he introduced proper programs you
know then you've got Google doing it and
these are creative innovative companies
now you've got people like you know
Goldman Sachs doing @h you know HBO
Procter & Gamble when you invest in your
staff in this way you get more out of
them
they're obviously less stressed but also
they become more innovative in their
thinking more creative more productive
claire's also a qualified Gong
meditation master she compares
mindfulness meditation where you
concentrate on breathing the driving on
a slow country road
the Gong meditation is more like
hurtling down a motorway the destination
is the same but you get there much more
quickly so I take up an invitation to
visit her home studio for a gong bath
there are moments when your wasn't
really thinking about anything it's
almost like you're in a coma
kind of state and it's not what you
saying there cuz I definitely felt like
I lost touch with time
vo dancer or organic dance can also
apparently lead to a state of
mindfulness you become mindful of not
just yourself but your relationship to
others your relationship to the cosmos
and beyond that for some people that
first opening circle is quite is the
hardest bit to kind of be with a group
of other people that they don't know and
hold their hand and connect yeah great
this hand-holding as well you will can
expect to be present in your own body
and your mind will certainly have a
holiday for a while because we don't
talk during the session so I might
explain some exercises and dances that
were that that I will suggest we do and
then you listen to your own body's
reaction to the music it's safe to say
that my body doesn't react brilliantly
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and the head remembering this can be
loose my movements are particularly
stiff when sue instructs us to form a
circle and collectively reach deep into
the well of desire dancing with a group
of complete strangers is a disarmingly
intimate experience sue instructs us to
shake hands or embrace as we look deeply
into each other's eyes I struggle with
this but I'm struck by how welcoming and
sincere everyone seems to be and there's
a fleeting moment where I somehow manage
to forget about how ridiculous I must
look its roots lime Buddhism but
mindfulness is increasingly popular in
the West in the US alone the meditation
market is estimated to be worth over a
billion dollars and it's forecast to
rise to over two billion dollars by 2022
and these days you don't even have to
put down your smartphone to do it
headspace is one of several well-being
apps on the market it says that it
offers guided meditation to 54 million
users across 190 countries managing
anxiety letting go of stress putting
down our phones so there's a meditation
about putting down your phone which is
available on your phone
mindfulness delivered via mobile device
that provides a constant source of
distraction sounds like a contradiction
but headspace argues otherwise we
actually recently published a study
showing that using headspace for a short
period of time just two weeks 10 minutes
a day could can reduce compulsive
internet use actually using your phone
to meditate can reduce more problematic
use of technology that could cause
distress the body to online
while testing the app I find the biggest
challenge is finding the time to use it
this is something the app reinforces by
sending push notifications to remind you
when it's feeling neglected force
tracing Li as I increase the duration of
the meditations my mind's increasingly
drifts to all the other things that I
could be getting on with the way that we
live our lives is over stimulating there
always has been stressed but it seems to
we can't escape it as easily now and our
minds just don't have the opportunity to
to rest feeling overwhelmed burnout
losing your temper flustered I think
it's fair to say I would I feel most of
those things on any given day it's
increasingly an acute crisis that needs
innovative solutions some critics argue
that mindfulness has been commodified
oversold and the people with mental
health struggles are being exploited for
commercial gain in his book McMahon
fulness Ronald Percy contends that
mindfulness has become a new capitalist
spirituality the research has been
showing that there are adverse effects
such as fear and anxiety and panic
nobody's asking why there's so much
stress for example in in corporate
cultures when you're told to sit in a
corner and watch your breath instead of
collaborating and organizing with your
co-workers to maybe ask some difficult
questions about about what's going on in
the workplace so yeah I take issue with
the pacification of function of
corporate mindfulness for sure
after spending a couple of weeks trying
out different programs it's clear to me
that what works for one person won't
necessarily work for another and it
isn't as simple as just closing your
eyes and trying out a breathing
technique
it might not happen straight away and
finding the time to fit it into a busy
schedule isn't easy it turns out that
mindfulness can be hard work
you