4 mins

The growing popularity of mindfulness

Mindfulness has its roots firmly placed in Buddhist meditation and is loosely defined on the practice of ‘learning to live consciously in the present.’ An ancient art, mindfulness promises us a healthier, happier, more enjoyable life – claims which modern science has supported.  According to research, allowing ourselves to live in the moment has proven benefits on our wellbeing.

With modern life demanding more from us than ever before and technology disrupting our lives, it’s not surprising that our interest in mindfulness continues to grow – with everything from courses, and apps to ebooks promising us to teach us a better way of being.

Mindfulness has been used for some time in physical health, for example Jon Kabat Zinn using mindfulness to help people with chronic pain.  More recently Western mental health professionals have adopted mindfulness to treat people who suffer with difficulties managing their emotions, for example depression through to working with people with schizophrenia.  At The Chelsea Psychology Clinic our clinicians have been delivering Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) in a group format to help clients better understand depression and teach them strategies to manage the way that they respond or react to their thought patterns and experiences.

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Advice from Dr Anna & Dr Elena
  • When you start mindfulness practice it helps to find a space every day to find five or ten minutes to undertake formal mindfulness exercises. There is no achievement goal in mindfulness, you are learning to be here in this present moment and with whatever that brings.  There are many ways to do this through courses and apps (see below) that teach you different ways of practicing and can give you the access to a lead mindfulness practice at home.  Practicing some mindfulness exercises more formally can help you to notice your thoughts, urges, sensations, desires and dreams.  Developing a formal mindfulness practice can be thought of a bit like building a new muscle in the gym, it takes time, practice, and repetition to become easier but there will always be something new to learn.  The most important thing to remember is that your brain is designed as a thought producing machine and it will always be taking you away and noticing that you have been taken away and then bringing yourself back is being mindful.
  • Using mindfulness in your day-to-day life does not have to mean just engaging in formal mindfulness meditation. Formal mindfulness practise can then allow you to call on your mindfulness techniques when you notice yourself being taken away by what is occurring in your mind or body. You may begin to notice that this indicates that you may be about to become emotionally overwhelmed.  Being able to observe what is occurring for you will allow you to use your mindfulness ‘muscle’ that you have been building in the formal practice to bring your self back to this present moment, not the past moment or future moment that had taken you away from being here now in this moment.  We can take any moment to practice being mindful, for instance making a cup of tea by noticing the sound of the water going in to the kettle, the sound the kettle makes as it comes to the boil, the way the steam comes of out of the kettle, the way the colour comes from the tea bag as your pour the water over it, the way the smell arrives at your nose, the way the cup warms in your hand, the way the tea feels as it enters your mouth – all little moments of being present and experiencing this moment and allowing all the other mental traffic to slide on by while you keep bringing yourself back to this moment and this cup of tea.
  • Mindfulness can be helpful for most people. There is particular evidence for therapies for recurrent depression and use in therapy for emotion regulation difficulties.  However, that is not to say that you need to be experiencing difficulties to get benefits from mindfulness.  Mindfulness can improve your life experience and increase your knowledge and awareness of your self in this time and place.

Reliable Resources

The Mental Health Foundation teach mindfulness practice through its online course, Be Mindful

Mindfulness for Wellbeing and Peak Performance, is a free 6-week online course

Calm – a free mindfulness app offers to teach mindfulness practice

Popular app, Headspace offers to teach meditation and boasts over 5 million users

The Mindful Kind – podcast by mindfulness blogger Rachael Kable

4 easy ways to be more mindful at work

Dr Elena Touroni

Dr Elena Touroni

26 May 2016

"Dr. Elena Touroni is a skilled and experienced Consultant Psychologist with a track record of delivering high-quality services for individuals with all common emotional difficulties and those with a diagnosis of personality disorder. She is experienced in service design and delivery, the management of multi-disciplinary teams, organisational consultancy, and development and delivery of both national and bespoke training to providers in the statutory and non-statutory sector."

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Dr Elena Touroni

Dr Elena Touroni is a skilled and experienced consultant psychologist with a track record of delivering high-quality services for individuals with all common emotional difficulties and those with a diagnosis of personality disorder. She is experienced in service design and delivery, the management of multi-disciplinary teams, organisational consultancy, and development and delivery of both national and bespoke training to providers in the statutory and non-statutory sector.

Having obtained a first degree in Psychology (BSc) at the American College of Greece, she completed her doctoral training at the University of Surrey. Dr Touroni is highly experienced in the assessment and treatment of depression, anxiety, substance misuse, personality disorder, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, adjustment disorder and relationship difficulties. She works with both individuals and couples and can offer therapy in English and Greek.

She is trained in several specialist therapeutic approaches such as Schema Therapy for individuals and couples, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness-based approaches and Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT).

Dr Touroni has held a variety of clinical and managerial positions including as Head of Service in the NHS. Further she has held academic positions for the University of Surrey and the Institute of Mental Health lecturing on specialist postgraduate Masters and Doctorate programmes. As well as holding a variety of NHS positions, Dr Touroni is the co-founder of a private practice in Central London that has been a provider of psychological therapy for all common emotional difficulties including personality disorder since 2002.

Dr Touroni has a keen interest in developing preventative approaches for psychological well-being and has been involved in the co-creation of bespoke wellness retreats for transformative change for the past 5 years. She is the founder and one of two directors of The Chelsea Psychology Clinic.