Ideas to Help - JUNE 6, 2014 FROM THE COUCH BY RACHEL KELLY

I’ve just washed my hands. Not exactly an ‘unhistoric act of kindness’ – George Eliot’s recipe for staying sane – nor obviously on the list of the New Economics Foundation’s ‘Five Ways of Well-Being’ (our last communication). But stay with me. It’s my chosen act that I do ‘mindfully’ every day. I feel the coldness of the water. I hear its splashing against the basin. I smell the soap’s scent. I see my lather-covered hands. By concentrating on these sensations, in the moment, I am briefly relieving my mind of worry for the future or regret about the past, the classic pattern of the anxious and depressed. Choosing an activity which I repeat through my day provides windows of peace and calm, full-stops amid the rush, and a reminder to slow down. I find it easier to use an everyday activity than stopping altogether to practise breathing or other mindful exercises. You might choose brushing your teeth: whatever works. And – dare I say it, given mindfulness’s current fashionableness – it may not work for you. The only certain about strategies to stay sane is that everybody finds something different that may help. 

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