DEVELOPING THE HABIT OF SELF-AWARENESS THROUGH MINDFUL

SELF-COMPASSIONRYAN A. MCKELLEY, PH.D., LP, HSP

PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-LA CROSSE

OBJECTIVES

• Identify the biopsychosocial benefits of mindful self-compassion practices for

adolescents & their wellbeing providers

• Describe interventions for deepening and integrating more self-awareness into ordinary

daily activities

• Demonstrate several mindfulness and self-compassion exercises to help adolescents

improve executive functioning, reduce stress and anxiety, and increase compassion for

self and others

OPENING EXERCISE

• Answer the following questions on note

paper:

• A part of me I like is…

• A part of me I struggle with is…

• If I were 10% more accepting of myself, I

would…

• Share with a partner…or give yourself

permission to pass

CULTURAL BARRIERS TO LIVING MINDFULLY

• Technology

• Email

• Push vs. pull notifications

• Social media

• Entertainment media

• U.S. work/school culture

• Conflict b/w modern and ancient stressors

• Neuromyths of multitasking*

• Monkey-mindedness*

THE MYTH OF MULTITASKING

• True multitasking involves engaging in two tasks

simultaneously. But…it's only possible if two conditions are

met:

• at least one of the tasks is so well learned as to be automatic,

meaning no focus or thought is necessary to engage in the task (e.g.,

walking or eating) and

• they involve different types of brain processing.

RESEARCH ON DIVIDED ATTENTION

• You and every other so-called multitasker are actually serial tasking. Rather than

engaging in simultaneous tasks, you are in fact shifting from one task to another to

another in rapid succession.

• Meta-analysis shows that multitasking is neither effective nor efficient (takes 40% longer)

• National Academy of Sciences and Stanford University researchers found that

• Those who consider themselves to be great multitaskers are in fact the worst multitaskers

• Those who rated themselves as chronic multitaskers made more mistakes, could remember

fewer items, and took longer to complete a variety of focusing tasks analogous to multitasking

than those self-rated as infrequent multitaskers

MONKEY-MINDEDNESS

• Killingsworth & Gilbert’s “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy

Mind”

• “Stimulus-independent thought” (AKA mind wandering) is

brain’s default mode

• We think about our surroundings, contemplate the past,

anticipate the future, or think about things that will never

actually happen

• Used experience sampling on 5000 people from 83

countries (ages 18-88)

• How are you feeling right now? (0=very bad to 100=very good)

• What are you doing right now? (22 activities)

• Are you thinking about something other than what you are

currently doing? (no; yes, s/t pleasant; yes, s/t neutral; yes, s/t

unpleasant)

Fig. 1 Mean happiness reported during each activity (top) and while

mind wandering to unpleasant topics, neutral topics, pleasant topics

or not mind wandering (bottom). Dashed line indicates mean of

happiness across all samples. Bubble area indicates the frequency of

occurrence. The largest bubble (“not mind wandering”) corresponds to

53.1% of the samples, and the smallest bubble

(“praying/worshipping/meditating”) corresponds to 0.1% of the samples.

Results

1. Mind wandering in 46.9% of samples and in at least

30% of samples during every activity (except making

love)

2. People less happy when minds wandered than not-–

true for ALL activities

3. What people were thinking was better predictor of

happiness than what they were doing

FROM MINDFULSCHOOLS.ORG

WHAT I LEARNED FROM 25 FIRST-YEAR COLLEGE STUDENTS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY

• First-Year Seminar on “The Psychology of

Addictive Technology”

• 10 Life Labs that challenged students to

develop mindfulness about their tech use

• Included smart phone apps, social media,

streaming media, and video games

• Reflective journals that included tracking

use, observing peers’ use, resisting use,

etc.

• Semester-long research projects

LIFE LAB 1 & 2: PREDICTING AND THEN TRACKING USE

• What was the longest duration of smart

phone use over a 6-day period?

• 40 hours

• Mean use?

• 22-25 hours

• Simply tracking reduced many students’

use by 10-20% over the semester

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE LAB #2

• If I were to go out in public and not be on my phone I would feel left out or “weird” because everyone

else is on their phone. I feel like being on your phone is the “normal” thing to do and that everyone does

it. Maybe if other people were not on their phone all of the time I wouldn’t be on mine as much.

• To be completely honest, I wish we could go back to when physically calling people and making plans

was a thing because then people wouldn’t have to worry about being around their phone all the time in

fear of missing out on something.

• Picturing myself spending over an entire day doing nothing but sitting on my phone makes me rethink

my personal belief from last week of my screen time not being something that consumes a big part of

my life, because clearly, it does.

• Another thing holding me back from spending less time on my phone would be the fact that everyone

else is always on there’s. What am I supposed to do when everyone else is on their phone but I'm not?

LIFE LAB 4: MINDFUL BOREDOM (PART 1)

• Step 1: Spend a couple of days paying attention to moments when you are bored and you feel the impulse to reach for your device (it

could be a phone, video games, streaming media, etc.). Don't stop yourself--go ahead and give into the impulse. However, just begin to

notice if you observe anything interesting in your heart, body, or mind. Use these following reflective questions for guidance:

• In my HEART: What am I experiencing emotionally right now in this very moment?

1. Specific feelings—“Feeling x.”

2. General mood—“Feeling x.”

3. Use words of emotions such as “joy”, “peace”, “discomfort”, “bored”, “fear”, “anger”, “frustration”, etc., as “x”.

• In my BODY: What am I experiencing sensationally right now in this very moment?

1. Posture—“Feeling x.” or “Noticing x.”

2. Senses—Sights, sounds, tastes, skin sensations, and points of contact with the ground/floor/earth, your chair, etc.—“Experiencing x.”

• In my MIND: What am I experiencing mentally right now in this very moment?

1. Thoughts—“Thinking about x.” or “Noticing my mind going to x.”

2. Qualities of the mind—“My mind is doing x.” or “I’m mentally feeling x.”

LIFE LAB 4: MINDFUL BOREDOM (PART 2)

Step 2: When you have a short block of time to do so, catch yourself being bored and RESIST the

behavior of reaching for your device. Start a clock and just be mindfully bored for 15 minutes--no

interruptions, no exceptions. Please answer the following questions in your reflection. Be sure to

spend a few paragraphs getting in depth with your responses.

1. What bores you? When are you most bored? What is the most boring time of your week?

Why?

2. How does boredom make you feel? What do you do if you are bored? What role does

technology play in your boredom?

3. What was it like for you to spend 15 minutes mindfully resisting escaping your boredom?

4. Is boredom necessary? Do we sometimes need boredom? Yes or no? Why?

5. Based on The Psychology of Self-Management content from Monday's class, what are

one or two things you think would work to reduce your screen time? What did you learn

from the Judson Brewer TED Talk that might help?

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE LAB #4

• Top three themes from 15

minutes of doing “nothing”?

• Feelings of loneliness

• Feelings of anxiety/stress

• Guilt about “not being

productive”

MINDFULNESSREVISITED

“Mindfulness means paying

attention in a particular way;

on purpose, in the present

moment, and

nonjudgmentally.”

- Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-

Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

BREAK IT DOWN

• Choose the intention of your

attention

• Breath?

• Thoughts?

• Feelings?

• Body?

• Object?

• It doesn’t matter!

PAYING ATTENTION

BREAK IT DOWN

• Just be aware of the ways things are

NOW

• Your experience is valid

• Monitor how you are doing

• If you drift off, gently return

PRESENT MOMENT

BREAK IT DOWN

• Default mode is to judge experiences one way or

another

• “I want to feel happier.”

• “I wish that didn’t bother me so much.”

• “I want them to like me.”

• Cultivate practice of saying, “Isn’t that interesting?”

• “I notice that this bothers me. Isn’t that interesting?”

• “I notice that I really want to be accepted. I wonder

why that is?”

• “I don’t want to feel anger, but it is part of life. Huh.

Like every emotion, it will pass.”

NON-JUDGMENT

PRO TIP: JUST LIKE FEEDING A BABY

• Babies get distracted when

feeding—just like we get

distracted…All the time

• What do you do?

• Speak invitingly and encourage a

return to the task

SAMPLE TRAINING PROGRAMS

Program Target Population Delivery URL

Mindful Schools K-12 15-min lessons 2/week www.mindfulschools.org

Mindful Education Teachers & Admin Online www.mindfuleducation.com

MindUP™ K-7 schools 1-year curriculum www.mindup.org

Mindfulness Without

Borders

High school Online or f2f www.mindfulnesswithoutborders.org

Mind Body Awareness

Project

At-risk youth <18 in

schools, community,

or incarcerated

Online or f2f www.mbaproject.org

Source: Mindfulness With Children by Daniel Rechtschaffen

TEACHING MINDFULNESS TO TEENAGERS: 5 STEPS

1. Model mindfulness

2. What’s in it for them?

• Share research benefits (e.g., improved

test performance, reduced anxiety)

3. Teach teens about their brain

• Dan Siegel’s TEDx talk, “Brainstorm: The

power and purpose of the teenage brain”

4. Teach teens about their mind

• Analogy of monkey mind

5. There’s an app for that!

• Stop, breathe, and think

• Smiling Mind

• Take a Break!

Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-rudell-beach-

/teaching-mindfulness-to-teenagers_b_5696247.html

RESEARCH: PSYCHOSOCIAL

• Reduces loneliness in older adults in RCT (Creswell et al.)

• Improves relationship satisfaction in adult couples based on daily reports (Carson et al.)

• Reduced fear of negative evaluation in social and performance situations (Goldin &

Cross)

• Immediate drop in cortisol for musicians practicing mindfulness vs. controls (Dorjee et

al.)

• For parents of children with special needs, MBSR reported more satisfaction in

parenting, improved interactions with children, and less parenting stress (Singh et al.)

RESEARCH: EDUCATION

• Improved executive functioning in 2nd and 3rd graders (UCLA)

• In over 800 students (90% w/ free or reduced lunch), improvements in self-care, class participation, and

showing care for others (UC-Davis)

• Sitting meditation in classrooms reduced negative behaviors in 16 different studies (Black & Sussman)

• Reduced symptoms of ADHD in adolescents (Zylowska et al.)

• Teachers in MBSR program (UW-Madison)

• Reduced burnout and distress

• Increase in self-compassion

• More effective classroom management behaviors

PUBLIC ENEMY #1 TO SELF-COMPASSION

USING THE SELF-COMPASSION SCALE

• 26-item self-report on thoughts, emotions, and behaviors associated with:

• Three components of self-compassion (self-kindness, common humanity, and

mindfulness)

• How often people respond to feelings of inadequacy or suffering with each of six

components (3 above + judgment, isolation, and over-identification)

• 12-item Self-Compassion Scale—Short Form

• Best correlation with overall score for SCS—not each component

SCS RESULTS

• Improves self-reported emotional well-being in adolescents and adults (Bluth & Blanton, 2012)

• Reduces self-judgment, feelings of isolation, and over-identification (Neff, 2016)

• Mediates impact of body dissatisfaction and unfavorable social comparisons on psychological quality of life (Duarte,

Ferreira, Trindade, & Pinto-Gouveia, 2015)

• Can assist in the reduction of compassion fatigue and burnout in practitioners and caregivers (Beaumont, Durkin,

Martins, & Carson, 2015)

• Significantly reduces shame-proneness, irrational beliefs, and symptoms of social anxiety (Candea & Tatar, 2018)

• Is negatively associated with procrastination and maladaptive perfectionism (Barnard & Curry, 2011)

• Results in more motivation to change for the better, try harder to learn, and avoid repeating past mistakes particularly

with health-related behaviors such as sticking to a diet, quitting smoking, or starting a fitness regimen (Germer & Neff,

2013)

SELF-COMPASSION INCREASES SELF-IMPROVEMENT MOTIVATION FOR STUDYING

• Breines & Chen (2012) conducted four trials w/ comparison groups (vs. self-esteem or

positive distraction)

• Self-Compassion predicted

• Higher motivation to make amends and a desire to not repeat transgressions

• Greater desire to spend more time studying after an initial failure

• Greater preference for upward social comparison after thinking about a personal weakness

• Greater sense of motivation to change that weakness

BUT…BEWARE THE BACKDRAFT

DEMO: MIND-BODY CONNECTION

DEBRIEF

• What was happening in your

body?

• Is this an example of a mind-

body connection?

• What are other examples in

your life?

DEMO: FRIENDLY WISHES

DEBRIEF

• What kinds of wishes did you

send?

• How did it feel to send wishes

to others?

• What is difficult about this

activity?

DEMO: 5 WHYS

DEBRIEF

• What surprised you?

• What was challenging?

DEMO: 3 THINGS IN COMMON

DEBRIEF

• What surprised you?

• What was challenging?

RESOURCES ON MINDFULNESS FOR ADOLESCENTS

Q & A

• COMMENTS?

• QUESTIONS?

• CONCERNS?