Introduction & Theoretical Background
Mindfulness-based programs such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT: Segal, Williams & Teasdale, 2013) and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR: Kabat-Zinn, 1990) have demonstrated beneficial effects for a wide range of psychological disorders, as well as helping people to cope with pain and illness (Goink et al, 2015; Khoury et al, 2013). Mindful awareness exercises form part of treatment approaches such as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT: Linehan, 1993) and compassion focused therapy (CFT: Gilbert, 2014).
The Mindfulness Of Breath exercise forms part of the Psychology Tools For Mindfulness Audio Collection, a guided introduction to the practice of mindfulness meditation. The exercise encourages present-moment awareness using the breath as an anchor for the attention. Naturally the mind will wander, and the practice encourages non-judgemental acknowledgement of where the attention went, and then gently returning to the breath. In this way we learn to change our relationship with thoughts, allowing them to be there