Myths of mindfulness

To our first Myth…

Mindfulness can only be done with formal, daily exercises.

Some believe that the practice of mindfulness requires specific formal, structured exercises every day, and if you are not doing that, you are not really practicing mindfulness.

Basis in truth: If you want to get into shape, it is not enough to watch a video or to take a class. Regular physical activity is required to maintain optimal physical health. To gain physical health in the most efficient way, a structured, routine approach with gradually increasing intensity is ideal.

Likewise, if you want to develop your attentional capacity in the most efficient way, it can be helpful to have a routine, structured, graduated approach of formal exercises that have been tested and used for centu­ries. You might begin with paying attention to an engaging activity like eating a raisin. You might then practice systematically noticing internal body sensations, as in the body scan. You could then practice feeling the breath, noticing the entire body all at once, and mindfully listening to sounds. You could practice mindfulness in motion, as in mindful walk­ing or mindful stretching. As your skills increased, you could practice a mindfulness of thoughts exercise. You would then be ready to practice mindfully working with difficult or challenging experiences and would be able to integrate mindfulness more naturally into your daily life.

After decades of research, this gradual and systematic approach to training people in mindfulness has worked well in MBSR (Kabat-Zinn, 2013), MBCT (Segal, Williams, & Teasdale 2013), and other programs, so it has continued to be promoted. Those who learned mindfulness from meditative traditions take comfort in using formal exercises that have worked for thousands of years.

Reality: There is some debate among psychology experts about the importance of daily, formal mindfulness exercises. Proponents of eight-week training programs like MBSR and MBCT tend to emphasize the importance of daily, structured practice. Other approaches, like ACT, place primary emphasis on bringing mindfulness into daily life and are less likely to ask people to practice formal daily exercises. They often employ "mindfulness without meditation" (Harris, 2009) because many people are reluctant or unwilling to do formal practices for a variety of reasons, but they still find ways to help people benefit from increased present moment awareness.

The research has produced mixed results in terms of whether or not formal, daily mindfulness exercises are essential to improve one's men­tal health or quality of life (Epstein, 2017; Wimmer, Bellingrath, & von Stockhausen, 2020). While meta-analyses have shown an overall small association with reported mindfulness practice and positive out­comes, these results are not universal (Lloyd, White, Eames, & Crane, 2018; Parsons, Crane, Parsons, Fjorback, & Kuyken, 2017). In fact, some research shows no correlation, and some shows that increased mindfulness is correlated with decreased homework practice (Byerly-Lamm, 2017; Ribeiro, Atchley, & Oken, 2018).

It seems likely that the bottom line is that there is no one best approach for all individuals. Some may benefit from structured practices, others may not. However, a few analogies may be helpful in choosing the path best for you, as the dilemma between structured daily practice and flex­ible freedom is common across a variety of disciplines.

Physical exercise provides a good analogy. If I go to the gym and engage in a formal workout routine every day, it will be a good way to help ensure I am consistently maintaining my physical health. How­ever, someone else might argue that they do not need to go to the gym, but that they can incorporate exercise into their daily lives. They regularly park their cars farther away in parking lots and get exercise from walking. They take the stairs instead of the elevator. They chop wood for their fireplaces. They play basketball with their kids.

A good argument can be made for either approach. Most would agree though, that if you are currently not in shape, it might be best to set up a structured approach to get a good start. 

The problem for some people is that when it rains, they park their cars closer. If they are with friends, they do not want to seem weird by being the only one who takes the stairs. Buying precut firewood is easier. When it gets cold, they stop playing basketball.

Routine appears to be key. Going to the gym can become a habit. However, it can also become a habit to walk, stretch, and do push-ups and sit-ups.

Just as being sedentary can be a habit, getting lost in our minds can also be a habit. Formal mindfulness exercises can be a structured way to break that habit. Being more present and in the senses throughout your day can also become a habit.

Even if you have had the discipline to practice daily formal mind­fulness exercises, there comes a time when you can let them go, when "practice" and "daily life" are interwoven. If you are a master guitar player, I can hand you a guitar and ask you to play anything, and it will sound great. If you have never played a guitar before, and I ask you to play anything, it will sound terrible. It takes a certain amount of struc­tured practice and discipline to be able to have complete freedom. You start learning scales and chords when you play guitar, but the point is not to play scales and chords, it is to be free to express yourself in a unique and personal way.

Interestingly, there is even debate among practitioners of ancient meditative traditions. Some schools emphasize that it is essential to do formal practice on a regular basis. Other traditions warn that while it can be important for beginners, it can start to become some­thing artificial and unrelated to daily life.

When I was training to be a Zen teacher, I would interview students with my Zen teacher Wonji Dharma observing me. A student once asked, "I am feeling inspired now, and have been practicing regularly for several years, but I have this fear in the back of my mind that after I leave this retreat, I will slack off and not keep up the practice. How do I avoid slacking off?"

My teacher eyed him carefully. "So, you are making your practice separate. What is correct practice?"

The student thought for a moment, then hesitatingly said, "moment to moment . . ."

My teacher leaned closer to him. "How you keep your mind moment to moment. How can you slack off from your life? So, when you sit on your cushion, you are saying, 'This is my practice, and this is my life.' And you are saying that slacking off can't also be practice."

The silence in the room was palpable, effectively cutting off our thinking. "Why can't you keep moment-to-moment mind while slack­ing off? What's preventing you from doing that?"

The student smiled. "Absolutely nothing!" A moment of clarity burst through, and we all laughed out loud (Sears, 2014).

I have met many people who have been practicing daily, formal mindfulness practices for decades. This is very commendable. How­ever, some of these people have never learned to bridge what they are practicing into daily life. A regular formal practice can be very helpful for building our ability to pay attention in the moment. But what is the point of only being "present" when you are engaged in formal prac­tice? Why make practice different from daily life? The present moment is the only thing you can experience. What do you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell right now?

It has been said that a practice like mindfulness is a medicine, not a diet (Broughton & Watanabe, 2017; Watts, 2004b). You do not have to keep taking medicine once you have recovered from your illness. However, when the world continuously throws unhealthy things at you, you might choose to take medicine regularly.

Summary: The research has produced mixed results about how essential daily, formal exercises are in order to benefit from mindfulness. Like physical exercise, a regular routine is likely the most efficient way to develop skill, but some people are able to incorporate informal mindfulness practices into their daily life. Just as with physical exercise, it is likely that there is no one formula best for all individuals. In any case, one could say the goal is to be more present in each moment, and one must be cautious not to make formal practice different from one's daily life. 

Further Resources

Broughton, J. L., & Watanabe, E. Y. (2017). The letters of Chan Master Dahui Pujue. Oxford University Press.
Epstein, D. E. (2017). The role of home practice engagement in a mindfulness-based intervention [ProQuest Information & Learning]. In Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering (Vol. 77, Issue 9–B(E)).
Harris, R. (2009). Mindfulness without meditation. Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal, 9(4), 21–24.
Lloyd, A., White, R., Eames, C., & Crane, R. (2018). The utility of home-practice in mindfulness-based group interventions: A systematic review. Mindfulness, 9(3), 673–692.
Parsons, C. E., Crane, C., Parsons, L. J., Fjorback, L. O., & Kuyken, W. (2017). Home practice in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and mindfulness-based stress reduction: a systematic review and meta-analysis of participants' mindfulness practice and its association with outcomes. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 95, 29–41.
Ribeiro, L., Atchley, R. M., & Oken, B. S. (2018). Adherence to practice of mindfulness in novice meditators: practices chosen, amount of time practiced, and long-term effects following a mindfulness-based intervention. Mindfulness, 9(2), 401–411.
Sears, R. (2014). Mindfulness: Living through challenges and enriching your life in this moment. London, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Watts, A. (2004b). Out of your mind: Essential listening from the Alan Watts audio archives [audio CD]. Boulder, CO: Sounds True. 
Wimmer, L., Bellingrath, S., & von Stockhausen, L. (2020). Mindfulness training for improving attention regulation in university students: Is it effective? And do yoga and homework matter?. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 719.

Myth: Mindfulness exercises have to be at least 45 minutes long

Some people feel that mindfulness exercises have to be done for long periods of time, so they are just too busy to do them. Or, they might be afraid that even if they had the time to try them, opening up to all their thoughts and feelings for a long period of time would be overwhelming.

Basis in truth: One of the first structured mindfulness trainings to be scientifically studied was the eight-week MBSR program, which was first offered in the 1970s (Kabat-Zinn, 2013). In the program, Jon Kabat-Zinn gave each participant an audio cassette of mindfulness exercises to practice at home, many of which were 45 minutes long. These recordings are still available today (Kabat-Zinn, 2021). MBSRand similar programs have shown their effectiveness with a lot of research support over the years (de Vibe, Bjørndal, Fattah, Dyrdal, Halland, & Tanner‐Smith, 2017; Querstret, Morison, Dickinson, Cropley, & John, 2020).

With physical exercise, it can be good to devote a specific amount of time to get into physical shape to overcome years of bad habits. Like­wise, it can be good to devote a set length of time to practice mindful­ness in order to develop new habits to overcome years of old, unhelpful habits of thinking and reacting.

Reality: There is debate as to how long a mindfulness exercise should be, and research results are mixed (Goldberg, Del Re, Hoyt, & Davis, 2014; Paulson, Huggins, & Gentile, 2019; Strohmaier, Jones, & Cane, 2021). While some studies show longer practice periods correlate with higher mindfulness ratings, other studies show the opposite.

It is difficult to argue with the wonderful research results of pro­grams like MBSR. However, many individuals quit or are simply not interested in coming to a program that will require them to practice 45 minutes per day. For individuals with issues like high anxiety, or a history of trauma, the idea of opening up and becoming present to one's internal experiences for 45 minutes can sound terrifying. For this reason, many MBSRand other mindfulness programs offer differing lengths of mindfulness recordings for participants.

Jon Kabat-Zinn has recorded mindfulness exercises for the MBCT program that are 30 minutes long (Williams, Teasdale, Segal, & Kabat-Zinn, 2007). My own MBCT courses have only 15-minute exercises (psych -insights .com /mindful ness) and have been shown to produce effective results (Byerly-Lamm, 2017; Hente, Sears, Cotton, Pallerla, Siracusa, Spear Filigno, & Boat, 2020; Luberto, Wasson, Kraemer, Sears, Hueber, & Cotton, 2017; Sears, Tirch, & Denton, 2011).

Many studies have now confirmed that brief mindfulness exercises can be helpful, especially for beginners (Azam, Latman, & Katz, 2019; Basso, McHale, Ende, Oberlin, & Suzuki, 2019; Berghoff, Wheeless, Ritzert, Wooley, & Forsyth, 2017; Luberto & McLeish, 2018; Stroh­maier, Jones, & Cane, 2021). In fact, an important component of the MBCT program is called the "three-minute breathing space" (Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2013; Williams, Teasdale, Segal, & Kabat-Zinn, 2007). When I teach the three-minute breathing space, people some­times tell me they do not like it, because they need more time. With a teasing smile, I ask them, "So, you need more time to get into now?"

While longer mindfulness practices can be very helpful to develop attention and skill in working wisely with thoughts, feelings, and sen­sations, shorter exercises can be helpful to bridge formal practice with daily life. Even remembering to pause and take one mindful breath can be useful for breaking out of the habit of always living in our heads.

It appears that there is no one best length of practice time for every­one. What is best will likely be different from individual to individual. It also appears that practice quality may be more important than prac­tice quantity (Goldberg, Del Re, Hoyt, & Davis, 2014).

Summary: Formal mindfulness exercises vary in how long they last, and it appears that there is no one best length of time that is optimal for all individuals. Ultimately, there is only this present moment, and you are already here, no matter how much "time" you take to try to get into it.

Further Resources

Basso, J. C., McHale, A., Ende, V., Oberlin, D. J., & Suzuki, W. A. (2019). Brief, daily meditation enhances attention, memory, mood, and emotional regulation in non-experienced meditators. Behavioural Brain Research, 356, 208–220.
Berghoff, C. R., Wheeless, L. E., Ritzert, T. R., Wooley, C. M., & Forsyth, J. P. (2017). Mindfulness meditation adherence in a college sample: comparison of a 10-min versus 20-min 2-week daily practice. Mindfulness, 8(6), 1513–1521.
Goldberg, S. B., Del Re, A. C., Hoyt, W. T., & Davis, J. M. (2014). The secret ingredient in mindfulness interventions? A case for practice quality over quantity. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 61(3), 491.
Kabat-Zinn (2021). Guided mindfulness meditations: Series 1 [audio recording]. Mindfulnesscds .co m.
Luberto, C. M., Wasson, R. S., Kraemer, K. M., Sears, R. W., Hueber, C., & Cotton, S. (2017). Feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of a 4-week Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy protocol for hospital employees. Mindfulness, 8(6), 1522–1531. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0718-x
Sears, R., Tirch, D., & Denton, R. B. (2011). Mindfulness in clinical practice [with audio CD]. Sarasota, FL: Professional Resource Press.
Strohmaier, S., Jones, F. W., & Cane, J. E. (2021). Effects of length of mindfulness practice on mindfulness, depression, anxiety, and stress: A randomized controlled experiment. Mindfulness, 12(1), 198–214.
Williams, M., Teasdale, J. D., Segal, Z. V., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (2007). The mindful way through depression: Freeing yourself from chronic unhappiness. Guilford Press.