And just, reassuring everybody we had a bit of a, a few difficulties last week, but we did do the recording that we sent out if people weren't, if people hadn't listened to the recording, I would strongly advise you to listen to the recording of session one. We, we, I think it, it was a really good session in the end, and I think that, redoing it was certainly worth sending out to everybody. I'd also like to thank everybody for the really generous emails.

I had so many people. Emailing me, some of you asking lots of really good questions about mindfulness and about how to apply it and about finding the time for mindfulness, but also a number of you really heartwarmingly seem to be really kind of quite concerned that, you know, we were all OK after the technological difficulties and thank you we were and some of you really kind of had this wonderful kind of spirit about it which was this is a mindfulness course, so. Let's handle the stress and let's, let's not be judgmental and, you know, I, I really appreciated those, those emails.

So thank you to everybody. So session two, I think it's a really, really important session because it's something that will fit so well with an awful lot of people working in professions like the veterinary profession and a lot of you guys out there who are trying to sort of handle stress every single day. And as I've begun to spend more time working with vets and I attended the conference recently in Edinburgh.

Where we looked at mental health in the veterinary profession, and I learned such a lot about the, the competing stresses that you all have to deal with. And it's much, much more than just what people think, you know, there's, there's financial pressures, there's, interpersonal pressures, there's the pressures of, being so highly trained to, to deliver a particular service, but not always being able to deliver that service at the level you would like to. And I've begun to appreciate how relevant mindfulness is for you all, so I hope tonight will be a very good session.

I always make sure that we share this next slide because if you have an organisation like MetLife helpline and you know, we have mind Matters, then I just think use it if you get to that place. And as I said last time, once we do start to become more mindful and we start to become brave enough to stop. And be curious about our stress or our reaction to our stress or the difficulties that we might be having.

Sometimes when we're curious, we come across stuff that is a bit scary and we Discover insights into our ourselves perhaps that cause us consternation. Now I'm really happy for people to email me and chat about how mindfulness has awakened any of those responses, but you do also have the email service and the MetLife helpline. So with no more ado, let's just Have a think about how you've done since last week.

Now I did touch on this last week, but John Kabat Zinn refers to practise as weaving the parachute. And the idea is that the more you meditate and the more that you live mindfully, The more likely it is that when things go awry in life, as they will do for all of us, then if you look at that picture there, the guy's having a soft, And controlled landing. And he's not going to come to any damage and In a strange way, it's there's something quite peaceful about that picture as well, I think.

And so we asked you this week to have a go at practising the body scan meditation. In order to really become more aware of the way that stress impacts on the body, but also more aware of our automatic pilot that tells us sometimes that, oh, there's pain when it's not, or There's real stress. There's my heart pounding, and it's not, and our fear brain.

It's designed really to Make us act in a protective way and very often if we are in a high stress situation, what happens is that we, we really, really struggle to just maintain a sense of equilibrium because we're overreacting all the time because of those sort of amygdalic messages, the amygdala being the fear centre in our brain. So I hope people did really well and at the end when we do the chat and people come in, do let me know how you're doing with the body scan. We asked you to practise, showering, listening to music, mindfulness in a mindful way, but to find one activity each day that you're going to do mindfully.

And also to try and eat one meal mindfully, and that means stopping. Switching off the radio or the telly while we eat. Looking at our food.

Tasting our food. Becoming aware of the textures and the nuances of our food and actually enjoying our food so, so much more. So.

Without getting into a nag thing, I think the science is really clear that mindfulness is a dose effective quality to mindfulness, that we need to find how much, how long do we need to be meditating for to get that relaxation response. And Coupled with the relaxation response is this stance of learning to live our life by being more in the moment. So, you'll notice that part of the title of today's session is handling stress, and our aim on this course is to help you all to become more aware more often.

More aware more often. And you remember the slide from session one with the chap walking along, walking his dog, and his head is completely unaware of the day that he's walking in, all the scenery that is surrounding him. And It's about recognising that a real powerful influence that takes us away from being fully present in each moment.

Is this automatic tendency to judge our experience. And we, I suppose we find it's quite often we find it's not quite right in some way that webinar could have gone better, that phone call could have been better. I could have been calmer.

My tone of voice could have been different with that owner of the yappy dog. But actually We get into What should, what ought to be happening, what we expect or what we want. And from a mindfulness perspective, I would be really encouraging you to wonder whether all of these judgments can lead on to sequences of thoughts about blame.

And those thoughts can take us down some fairly well worn paths. We all have what I call mind stories, and it's a bit like our mind is like a mind machine that churns out these stories, and my mind machine might churn out. There's my mind machine telling me, Mike.

You're a burden. There's my mind machine saying, Mike, you're a fraud. There's my mind machine saying you should have done better.

And it's a bit like If we aren't aware of our tendency to be over judgmental, we're also not aware of the fact that our mind is churning out these unhelpful stories that really don't work for us in terms of living a happy and meaningful life. And just for a second now, I'd just like to pause and give you all the time to What are your mind stories that Disrupt your day. What are the regular mind stories that Push you about or make you feel uncomfortable.

And how aware are you of them? Because In this way, this way of Fusing being Too judgmental. We actually lose awareness of the moment.

And because we lose awareness of the fact that we are just in this moment now, this unique moment now, we lose the freedom to choose what. If any action we could be taking now that. Is a denial of psychological flexibility.

It is in fact psychological inflexibility. And the unhappiest people I've ever met have always been psychologically inflexible. They give themselves no sense of choice.

Their thinking is black and white. They never pause to be curious about why they're behaving in such a way, thinking in such a way, and In terms of You all participating in our mindfulness, of course, we can regain our freedom from all of this tyranny of the mind. If we just as a first step, acknowledge the actuality of the situation we find ourselves in, without being hooked into automatic tendencies to try and judge or fix.

Or the opportunity to simply practise bringing. Kind of a different way of looking at it. Now this for me is what the body scan brings.

It brings an opportunity for us to practise. Bringing an interested and friendly awareness to the way things are right now in each moment without having to do anything to change things. So when we do a body scan, there is no goal to be achieved other than to bring awareness.

Specifically, And maybe to achieve some special state of relaxation, although that is not a goal. For this particular exercise, sometimes that's a byproduct. And so We are going to start this evening's mindfulness course by Having a think about how the mind, how the body scan can help us to handle stress and increase our psychological flexibility.

You see the picture there of the tree bending in the wind. And it's that sense that we want our minds to be able to bend and to flex with the stresses and the difficulties that are occurring. Now in a moment we're going to Do the body scan again.

But this time more mindfully. And I want us to pay particular attention to The tyranny of our mind noticing that if we find an ache in our toes that we have an automatic tendency to want it not to be there. Notice the auto the automatic tendencies, smile at that and accept that at this moment.

That's what's occurring. And it's the psychological flexibility to recognise that what is now may not be later. And when we get to the heart and we, or the chest and we find that we're breathing.

Too fast. Why is it too fast? Let's be curious about it.

That is the way we're breathing. Our breathing is our breathing. And just catching ourselves.

With that overwhelming tendency of humankind to keep judging. Smiling at it and letting it go. And I'm reminded of a really wonderful story that I sometimes will share with clients when I'm working with them.

And it's a story that is of a king. And he is surrounded by warring factions and countries on every border that are Threatening him and causing him stress and causing him anxiety and causing him to be on edge and over watchful, and he becomes tired and he becomes fatigued with this constant high level of stress. And when it's his birthday, he calls the wisest people in the land to his courtroom and he says, right.

I want you to give me a present that's going to make me feel less stressed and less fraught and less. On edge. And he sends them all away and he says, in a day's time come back with my present.

And they come back and some of them bring in, beautiful women, and he says, I've got them already and They don't distress me. And some of them bring him money and he says, I've got loads of that, and that doesn't actually help me and some of them bring him wonderful things to eat, and that doesn't help, and he sends them all away until at the back of the room he spies the wisest old woman in the land. And he calls her forward and he says, and what have you got for me that's going to help me?

And she reaches into her pocket and brings out a tiny little golden ring. And he scoffs and he says that, he says, I've got many rings bigger than that, much better than that. Give it here, and he sticks it on his little finger and he's very cross but he says, You haven't helped at all.

And he says, but sire, if I could only explain, and he says, No, no, go away. And the stress gets worse and the stressors increase, and he's more on edge and he calls her back and he says, I need help and she says, Well, Sara, I did try to help you. I gave you the ring, and he says, but that hasn't helped at all.

And she says, If I can just beg your indulgence, sire, she says, have a look, a really close look at the ring, and he does. And he sees that there's something inscribed upon it, and he looks really closely and inscribed upon the ring is the words This too shall pass. And that's the body scan, I think.

Is this ability to find And to catch ourselves judging. And then to smile and to recognise that what I'm experiencing now is in this moment. And it may not, may well not be in the next.

So The body scan We're going to do it again in a few moments, but this time we're going to do it more mindfully. So it is around about a 6 minute body scan meditation and I just want us to think what I mean by more mindfully. So regardless of what happens, whether you lose concentration, you become distracted.

Just accept that these are your experiences in the moment. And your job while you're Engaged with the body scan is just to be aware of what's occurring. Even if your mind is wandering.

Even if you're distracted by thoughts or emotions. Your job is to simply notice them as passing events and then gently return. To the body scan, meditation, and to my voice as I Take us through.

I'm gonna ask you to also notice any ideas about whether I'm doing well or not so well. I'm going to ask you to try to approach this body scan with the attitude of, well, OK. What is this?

That's just the way things are right now. Before we start, I'd also like you to notice if you have any expectations about what the body scan may do for you. And maybe instead of having expectations.

Just for a moment, imagine that you're planting a seed. And the more you poke around and interfere with that seed, the less it's able to develop. But when you just let it grow, The seed expands and becomes a life lived with more mindfulness and greater freedom.

To choose skillful behaviours going forward. So let's not poke around at this body scan. Let's just experience it.

And keep experiencing in the next week. So, our first meditation of Week 2 is the body scan again. And I will be prompting you as part of it to Carry out the body scan more mindfully.

So, if you can get yourself into either a strong, dignified, seated position. Or if you would choose tonight to Lie down with your head. Just raised slightly and Making sure that you're comfortable, but not too comfortable.

And We'll begin. The body scan. So we begin this meditation.

By just thanking our mind. And thanking Our decision really. To take this time.

To get to know our bodies. Without judgement. That.

I just ask you to take your attention to begin with just to the breath. Paying particular attention. To the movement of the chest as we breathe in.

Let's be pretty out. I'm bringing our attention. To the top of your scalp.

I'm just finding your scalp. Being in the moment right now. That part of your body.

Bringing an awareness to any. Sensations that arise. Any itches or any Tingling.

Be aware of any tendencies to try not to have. What is And smiling at that urge to scratch or to itch or to make it different. I'm curious about why is that so hard to do.

No judgement. Just curiosity. Bringing your attention down.

Forehead Over your eyes. Suckling on your jaw. Once again applying a mindful curiosity, why is it clenched?

What happens if I Just let it go. And if your mind is distracted or your attention is drawn away. Applying that curiosity, what is it?

That's cajoled my mind away from just being in the moment with my body. Is it a sound, a smell? Thoughts and emotions.

And bring your attention back. Find your shoulders. June.

It's one shoulder higher than the other. Is our head in a relaxed. Comfortable position.

Finding our breath and the movement of your chest again. Being in the moment. As we Scan down our body.

Find in your left hand. I'm bringing your forefinger. And your thumb together.

Exploring the swells. Of your pads of your finger. And just .

Noticing the resistance if I go one way. And is there a different resistance if I swirl my finger and my thumb the other way? Bringing your attention to the Finger in the thumb of the other hand now.

I'm palpating the finger in the thumb. Feeling good. Flash G.

Plump back up again. Moving your attention down to the tummy. Curious.

Sense of what's happening there. Be in the moment with Your pardon. Labelling what you find.

That's fine. That tension There's relaxation. Noticing that we can do this without making any judgement.

Running a concentration now down the right leg. Finding the toes. Of your right foot.

Maybe be pressing them into the floor beneath you. And letting them go. And running a concentration down the left leg.

And again, just finding the space. Between the times. And for the last minute of the meditation.

I'm going to ask you to. Direct your attention. To different parts of your body.

Bringing a curiosity, why did I choose to go to my left knee? On my ear. Oh my breath.

Without judgement. So the last minute I'd just like us to. Scan that body.

You having the psychological flexibility to choose. Which entered the body. You're going to be That one.

One minute. And well done. What a difference I think we find as we've been practising the body scan for a week.

And then I think when we do this the body scan again on week 2 and we do it even more mindfully. We discovered so much more about this. Ability to Be with whatever is occurring without judgement, without trying to make it different.

And just extending that out into our lives to wonder, well, You know, how often do I get hung up and cross about stuff when I could just let it go? Interesting, isn't it? So a second meditation.

Of session 2 is the sort of core meditation of the. Mindfulness-based stress reduction course. It's the mindfulness of the breath.

And I'd just like to share with you some thoughts. About the breath, really. Essentially breath is life.

I suppose you could Yeah, you could think of the breath as being like a sort of thread or a chain. That links and connects all the events of your life from The moment you're born. Through your childhood.

And even on to death in the end. Because the breath is always there every moment. And it sort of moves by itself throughout our lives like this ever flowing.

River And I wonder whether you've ever noticed, have a moment now just to think about this, how your breath changes with your moods. I know when I'm tense or angry. My breath is short and shallow.

When I'm excited, my breath quickens. When I'm content. And happy My breath is slow and full.

And when I'm really scared. Or I'm Shocked. My breath almost disappears.

But it doesn't quite. It's there with us all the time. Now what we learn.

Throughout this course and it's a really important lesson for life, really, I believe. Is that your breath can be like used like a tool. Much more than just the brand.

It can become like an anchor. To bring a sense of stability to our body and our mind. When we deliberately choose to become aware of it.

We can just tune into it. At any moment in the day. And next week, we start the first of the three-stage breathing space meditations, which are a very short 3-minute meditation that we can start to use.

You know, we have a very difficult client comes in or somebody very Obnoxious even at the front desk, or maybe we have a very sad moment. And rather than just plough inexorably through to the next client we're seeing or into the next event in our lives, why not stop. Find the bra.

Take a moment. And that's the 3 stage breathing space, but before we do the 3 stage breathing space, we need to get in touch with our our breathing. Because mostly, we're not.

It's just there. It's just something that happens, it's forgotten. Because of this, one of the first things we do.

In this course is to get in touch with it. We want you to get Brilliant at noticing how the breath changes with your moods. Our thoughts and our body movements.

Now let's be really clear here. This isn't about controlling the breath. Far from it.

It's about, it's much softer than that. It's much warmer than that. It's much more holistic than that.

It's just noticing our breath. And I think I almost think of my breath now as being like a friend. Because all that's necessary is to get to a place where we can observe, watch, and feel the breath.

With a sense of curiosity in a lovely relaxed manner. And in that way, the breath can be so life changing in terms of living a more full, meaningful life and a less stressed, difficult life because with practise we become more aware of our breath. And we can use it actually to direct your attention to different aspects of your life.

You can use the breath to breathe into tense muscles. Or to breathe our focus onto an area of our life that requires attention. We can use the breath to help with pain.

With anger To soothe Difficulties related to relationships or just the stress of being a vet. And during this programme, from this session on, we really are going to be exploring. A breath.

So with no more ado. And it is really important that we do this next meditation and we get our posture right. So once again, I'd like you to think about your posture.

And I'd like you to make sure that you're sitting in a comfortable position. With and I am with your spine erect. Just allowing your shoulders to drop.

And ask you to close your eyes in a moment if it feels comfortable. And if it doesn't, just focus your attention on a spot on the wall. On the floor in front of you.

So as long as you're sitting in a dignified Awake Sort of position. Let's begin the 2nd meditation of this course. Mindfulness of the breath.

If we just begin By allowing your eyes just to close. Or to focus on that spot on the wall. Or the floor.

I'd just like you to bring your awareness. To any bodily sensations. Bringing particular attention.

The sensations of touch. Or contact or pressure. Where your body is making contact with the floor.

Or whatever you're sitting on. Just as in the body scan. Just like you to explore.

The sensations. Of touch and pressure. And then I'd like you to bring your attention.

To your belly. Bringing awareness to its. Rising, And it's expanding gently as we breathe in.

I'm bringing awareness to your tummy as it falls or recedes on the out breath. Focusing only. On your breathing.

Being with Each in breath For its full duration. As it is. Being with Each out.

As fully as you can. As if you were Riding on the waves. Of your own breathing.

Bringing a curiosity. To this process of breathing. Noticing the temperature of the air as you breathe in.

Whether it changes as you breathe out. Noticing where your in breath begins in your body. Is it the tummy, the chest, the float?

There is no right or wrong, what is is. And following your in breath. And bringing a curiosity to Whether this is one continuous process breathing in and breathing out.

Or is it 2 or 3? Processes, let's try. So we breathe in.

And the in breath stops for an infinitesimal moment before the out breath takes over. And at the point where the lungs empty. We breathe in again.

There's more to his breathing than meets the eye. If your mind wanders away from the breath. Softly With compassion Just notice what it was that pulled your attention away.

And then gently. Escort your attention. Back to your tummy.

Back to the brain. Just breathing. And if your mind wanders from the breath, 1000 times.

Nothing changes. Your job is simply. To bring it back to the breath every time.

No matter what took it away. It's just as valuable to become aware that your mind has wandered and to bring it back. As it is.

To remain aware of the brain. For the last Minutes of this meditation. Please just Stay with the breath.

Being with it on in breath. And the out breath and if your mind wanders. Smile.

Notice what took it away. Gently bring it back. And re-engage with the brain.

One minute. Well done. So we're off and running.

Where body scanning. And we Engage with the mindfulness of the breath now. We're becoming More mindful of hope.

Well done. So This week, we're gonna ask you to continue to use the body scan again. For 6 days and you'll have seen in the booklet there was a place to record your reactions.

It really does help if you can. And at a different time, practise the, it's about 10 minutes, maybe a bit less, the mindfulness of the breath meditation, which The good people from the webinar that we'll be sending out with the recording. And Just recognise that being with your breath.

For a decent period in each day. Just provides this brilliant opportunity to really get to know our breath in this new and exciting way that we've shared with you today. And use it as an opportunity.

Notice that By finding our breath throughout the day. And just bringing attention to our breath, it pulls you back into being in the moment. And because we are more in the moment, our hope is that you're going to start to experience more of that which brings you pleasure.

And if you do, you'll see in the booklet there's a space, there's a grid in there which asks you to And this will really help for next week's meditation and next week's session if you could do this, is start to record some of the pleasant events that you notice happening. For example, Maybe just kind of, let's say, Someone makes you really, really laugh. And you recall that as a pleasant event.

And notice how it made you feel, which part of your body became alive when you laughed. What happened afterwards, what thoughts pushed their way into your mind during that moment of happiness. To really kind of connect with.

That which brings us pleasure because it's a hugely important part of the mindfulness process. And try and find another routine activity. If you can keep eating one meal mindfully every day, or a snack.

Think about showering, washing the dishes. Yeah, reading to your children. Petting the dog.

But kind of remember John Cabotzin's definition, mindfulness about paying attention in a particular way on purpose. You know, there's the choosing to do this thing. In this way You know, it's not, oh, I found myself being mindful.

It's I'm choosing to be mindful and that way it takes us to really start to move in leaps and bounds. Towards becoming someone who lives a less stressful life. And a more joyful life.

So I hope you Enjoyed and found this to be a useful session. I'll go back to Megan now and be really pleased and gratified if people have got queries, got any comments on session 1 or session 2. Any thoughts about how they're doing with their with, with their meditation, their home practise.

Now's the time to, to share that with yourselves and with others. And I'm very happy now to take questions and to share thoughts. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. That was fantastic as always. I, I certainly felt really relaxed, really, really relaxed.

It was, I definitely drifted off. I was worried I wasn't gonna come back. It was lovely, really nice.

Just the usual drill, and before we do start any questions, as you probably know, we always, do a short survey after the webinars, and if you would kindly spare some time to provide feedback, we'd be really grateful. The feedback is anonymous, so if you would like us to respond, please let us know who you are and provide us with your email address, and one of us will get back to you. Your thoughts on this evening's webinar and what you would like to see covered in the future webinars we provide are much appreciated.

The survey should have popped up in your browser. If you have any questions, please do pop them in. Thank you.

OK, so we do have a few questions for you, Mike. So, a few various questions. One of them I'm somebody's asking when is the best time to meditate?

What time of the day? When you're with this sort of beginner's mind, I think that it's quite important. It's a really good question because it's quite important to find a time when you're not going to have a sense of hurry up.

So. Yeah. Maybe a good is, is to find a time when, for me, a really quiet fellow time of the day is when I get home from work.

And in that period before you start preparing your tea is a really good time to meditate. You also have to think about whether you're naturally a morning person or an evening person. I'm a real morning person, so I like to begin every day with a meditation.

My best advice, you know, is to, you know, with this thing about psychological flexibility. It's to have a go through the time of the 8 weeks at different times. And see which one really grabs you, but for the moment that Just try and choose times when there's not an intense time pressure.

That helps. Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant.

Another question, any tips on staying awake? Yeah, I, I think that it's a lot to do with, with posture and making sure that you're just not too comfortable. Yeah.

I will start using the Ting say bells next week. And when you know the bell is gonna ring to end the meditation, in a strange way, that kind of keeps you a little bit more alert. But I think posture's really important, but also don't get, don't worry about it.

Yeah, don't worry too much about it. If your, if your body sends you to sleep, it's probably because you need a, you need a kit. You know, and, and as long as you don't sleep at every time you meditate, but don't get hung up on it.

OK, that actually brings us to another question of whether it is better to meditate sitting up or lying down. So it kind of links. Yeah, I find that some meditations are much better than lying down, like the body scan, I think is much better done.

Particularly, did you notice tonight, everybody, I did a linear body scan, which is different to the one we did last time. So I went from the top of the body to the bottom, And some people prefer that, and if you're doing a body scan, I think that's better done lying down, whereas I think the mindfulness of the breath meditation, I always find are much better than in a dignified, seated position. So, but you know what, in the spirit of mindfulness and curiosity, use this course as an opportunity to experiment.

There is no rule about how to do each one. I can only tell you what works for me, but I'm already thinking, you know, in the spirit of curiosity, John, I think I'm going to try a a mindfulness of the breath lying down and see what happens. You know what is is what happens happens.

Seeing what's right for your body. Yeah. Because you meditate, don't you, Megan?

Yes, I do. I try, I do try and do it every day, even if it's just for 10 minutes and I've found that the morning's best for me, definitely. And do you sit or lie?

Sit in the morning and then if I do it in an evening, I'd, I'd lie, I lie down and do the body scan. Yeah, we will be doing another meditation later on, which is fantastic for sleep, which is called Les on a stream and you would always do leaves on a stream, lying down, because quite often we're doing leaves on the stream because it's so relaxing but it does help with sleep. That sounds lovely.

I look forward to that one. We have a couple more minutes just for a few more questions, . I find myself criticising myself, how can I improve and stop being harsh on myself.

So yeah, there are any ways of if your mind starts to. Suppose, yeah, criticise you for being distracted by the thoughts. You know, I think that this is one of the things that mindfulness, one of the most powerful things that mindfulness can bring to us is we can bring a gentle attention on purpose to almost this sense that we are not our thoughts.

So if there is this self-critical voice, I like to think of, you know, I spoke earlier about the mimic machine churning out these stories. Well, if the stories are self-critical stories, sometimes it's really useful to As if you find critical thoughts pushing into your meditation, is to smile at them and to label them as just a, just my critical voice. Just my my machine churning out a critical story.

Just criticism. And and in a strange way what we're doing there is we're separating who we are from this thought, and we call that thought diffusion. And one of the lovely techniques that you can use for that is I'll share it with you now, it's sometimes if I get a really critical thought that's pushing its way in.

I will use this technique. I'll stop and I'll say right at this moment I'm having the thought that I'm rubbish at this. Now, if you deconstruct that, it's a thought, only a thought, and it's only happening right at this moment.

And then I'll shift and I'll say, well, A few moments ago my mind sent me this thought that was saying that I'm rubbish. It was just my mind and it was just my thoughts, and it was a few moments ago. And then right now I'm witnessing.

That my mind wanted me to think. In a self-critical way, and I've got a choice whether I do or whether I don't. And just by that process there, we can really diffuse down those thoughts, and that in itself is a sort of mindfulness process, but in the middle of a meditation, the best way to deal with self-critical thoughts is to label them and, and, and call them out, you know.

Hello, there's my self-critical thought. Smile at it. Let it be.

Big, big part of mindfulness that. Yeah, definitely. That was very good.

I think we all do that when we, especially when we start off. We've got somebody asking, which is fantastic. Do you, do you have any advice encouraging this at work for other colleagues?

Yeah, I do actually. I think sometimes if you just want other people, you know, it depends. Think about your colleagues.

I find with GPs and vets and people like that, people, people who come from a scientific bent, is actually to show them some of the science. Go find the DEC 2007 research, you know, you can Google it and there's a PowerPoint that goes with it, and send them the PowerPoint and say, look, this is what mindfulness can do for you. For other people, I think it's about just maybe getting them to take part.

I wouldn't do it yet, but when we get the three stage breathing space and we do that next week, it's getting them just to try a short meditation and to, to see how that, that makes them feel. Yeah, but you know, choose which technique you use for your scientists. Hit them with a bit of science, and, and that can be terribly, terribly inspiring.

Yeah, brilliant. I think, . Just providing some evidence sometimes really helps.

Yeah, there's a fascinating thing came out last year. There's a thing called the Mindfulness report, and it's this, and, and what they asked 80 GPs, how often they prescribed mindfulness via, you know, webinar, via book. Via apps, whatever, and there was only about 3 of them said they did.

And then they asked the same GPs, if it was your son or daughter who was feeling anxious or depressed, would you prescribe, would you want them to have mindfulness or an antidepressant? And I'll leave you to guess what their answer was. Yeah.

It's amazing isn't it just because, you know, when you stop and you think about it, we can get the, we can get incredible results for stress-related conditions just with this beautiful, lovely technique, rather than having something that comes along with side effects, etc. Etc. Etc.

So, you know, I think one of the ways to inspire people sometimes is to It's to, to sort of share some of those stuff, make them read. There's two really brilliant, two really great government type white papers. One was called Mindful Nation, and it's a, I mean, I know I'm a bit of a geek, but it's such a good read.

And the other one you can Google and find it's just called the Mindfulness Report, and that's the one with the stats about the GPs in. You know, there's so much good stuff to read out there about mindfulness. Fabulous.

Thanks, Mike. And we have some, I think this will apply for, to a lot of people actually when they concentrate on their breath, they tend to become tense and panic. So just the person just wondered if you had any tips.

Do you know what is expected is my best tip with that because it's so alien, isn't it? It's so alien to. Because we live such lives of hurry up and such lives where it's almost safer not to pay attention to what is happening.

So if we expect that, and similarly to I said with the self-critical voice, when we notice that there's feelings of panic, whatever you do, try, don't try not to have them. Meet them with a sort of mindful acceptance and label it. There is just the beginnings of a feeling of panic.

It's just panic. You know, and I think that something I use quite a lot with people is, in 1 to 1 therapy is I have these Chinese finger traps. I don't know if you've ever seen them.

They're sort of like, oh, they're really, they're, I've got one here actually. I don't know why I'm saying that because you can't see it, but it's a Chinese finger trap and you pop your finger in, you pop your finger in each end, and then you pull, and if you, and when you pull your fingers get trapped. And the second that you relax and let go of that urge not to have the experience of being trapped, the finger trapped lets you go, and your mind is exactly the same, you know, if I said to you, whatever you do, don't think about a chocolate cake, and I then described the most beautiful oozy chocolate cake to you, and I said, don't think about a chocolate cake.

You would think, you know, we can't help ourselves. With chocolate cake springs into our mind and we can taste the cocoa in the same way. If you say I don't want this feeling of panic, the feeling of panic will grow.

So smilingly accept it, label what's happening, and kind of be kinder to yourself, you know, why wouldn't this happen? Very normal. Yeah, absolutely.

That's brilliant. We've had a lot of people commenting to say, thank you, Mike, and what a wonderful session. It's been very informative.

Lots of lovely comments, from many people there. Well, thank you so much. And do, do ring or do email rather if you've got, you know, mindfulness questions that you want answers to in the week, you know, I, I always sit down at lunchtime and bang out a few emails back to people.

So, That's fine. OK, I think we do have maybe a few questions that have, haven't been answered, so yep, do, do email Mike. Don't want to, we have gone over a little bit, but I think it's been great for everybody.

Sorry, Anthony. Can I make a quick comment. It's, it's really interesting, Mike.

I, I really enjoyed that, but I love, the, the comments here from, from somebody who says, I'm finding this body scan technique very releasing. Is it normal to feel you're starting to float? So I really taken it on board there, whoever that was who and you know I didn't get that.

I didn't get that floaty feeling until about 2 years into meditation, so you're flying. It's a lovely feeling to get. I'm slightly jealous, but it's a lovely feeling.

Mike, it's very interesting, just I had to look through, . About 90% of women on this call and about 10% men, so it's, is there a sort of, does it attract women, mindfulness more than it does men or do men just not like to sort of let go? I, you know, I, it does seem to, it does seem to be something that women seem more prone to, to, to, to, to engaging with.

I think it's such a pity as well. I think really power to the fellows that have come on because, you know, we probably need, you know, the amount of men I know that are are stuck with that kind of underlying kind of tenseness and aggression and difficulties that really should use mindfulness. I mean, the figures are very clear that a lot more women do meditate than men, and I don't know, maybe they're wiser, Anthony.

Probably. But just like with just, because we've had quite a few people asking about, you know, practising the meditations. You have done some YouTube videos which they can follow rather than trying to sift through the recording and find the bit where the meditation is going on so they can join in on, yeah, I think the webinar that yourselves, you send out this time you'll be sending out the recording.

The mindfulness of the breath and the body scan again. So you shouldn't have to sift through the recording. You just should go and find you, you'll have been sent a YouTube link, that will take you to the meditations we've done today.

So if anybody hasn't had that, or a lot of people are saying things are going into spam, which is kind of normal, so do look out for it, but if you still can't find it, just email us and we'll make sure that you get that access. And Mike, perhaps if you're getting, it's almost worth you doing a blog on maybe some of the comments people have made, and we could put them out on the blog and and then. Everybody gets all, everybody else's comments, it's all anonymous anyway, which is great, but that way, you know, people can go into the blog, have a look at it and kind of see what other people are, you know, querying about, yeah.

I look at how you do a blog, but. No, well, no, you just send it to us and then we would blog it. Oh yeah, yeah, that you, you write something up, you know, as a little report and we'll do that.

But listen, I, I, I just wanted to say, you know, fantastic, we've had so many people again for this second course, as we did for the first. Fantastic, the, the fantastic work Lizzie Lockett is doing. I'm so pleased she is away at the moment, having a bit of a sabbatical which she so deserves.

So thanks to the Royal College for making it possible to make this so affordable for everybody. Thanks to you, Meghan, you're doing a great job. I'm gonna shut up, but I just wanted to make a few little comments.

So I'm, I'm going now, back to you, Megan. Thanks, Anthony. I think you've I think you've.

I think you've thanked everybody, but yes, thank you for attending this evening's webinar and for doing Dawn behind the scenes, she was co-hosting this evening and for answering all your questions.