Some of us love nothing more than the cosy feelings of grey winter days, snugly in hats and scarfs, closing the curtains early shutting the rest of the world out, log fires burning brightly, comforting lunches of home made soup and fresh crusty bread and butter.

But.........

What if your one of the many people who find these days difficult to live with, those grey winter days can leave us feeling low in mood, lethargic, having loss of concentration, mood swings and cheering ourselves up by comfort eating. These feelings are most likely triggered by the lack of sunlight in winter months, with shorter days and the winter weather causing darker cloud cover, contributing to the disruption of our natural body clock rhythms.  Research suggests that the lack of sunlight might stop a part of the brain called the hypothalmus from functioning properly, affecting our production levels of the hormones melatonin and serotonin.

Maybe if we change the way that we feel about the colour grey it can help us to overcome the struggle of those winter days. Is grey a colour of compromise, being neither black or white? The darker grey becomes the more dramatic and mysterious it becomes, whilst the lighter it goes towards being silver and white, the more illuminating, lively and sparkly it can be. We can think of grey as being timeless and practical, it can also be conservative, boring, drab and depressing or maybe it's sophisticated, elegant, smart and cool. Grey is the perfect neutral and allows it to be flexiable, it can moderate brighter hues and expertly pull a colour scheme together.  When too much grey starts to create feelings of sadness, loneliness or even depression for us, maybe its time to add some colour to change these feelings. To add energy and warmth try reds, oranges and yellows for a calm cooler mood add blues, purples and greens. Enjoy experimenting and see what works for you.  

Remember if we always colour the picture of our world grey, the picture will constantly be GREY, use the crayons of your imagination to colour the pictures that you want to see in your world.

Just because we are hearing about Mindfulness everywhere, does it mean we should jump on the band wagon of the lastest stress busting trend? "YES" is the answer.

So what are you doing right now and what are you thinking right now, are both of these things focusing on the same topic? If your thinking about something completly different than what your actually doing, your mind is somewhere else, rather than being on the present moment. We have become very adapt in our busy lives to multitasking and living our lives on auto pilot, rushing from one thing to the next or doing two or three things at the same, all this without paying full attention to our thoughts, feelings and emotions. Mindfulness in essence is being in the present moment with awareness of whats going on for us internally and externally without judgement or attatchment to that moment.

Mindfulness practices can help us to focus our attention and observe our thoughts, feelings and emotions, helping us to make clearer decisions, undertstand our emotions and to be more engaged in our lives.

Take a moment to sit and observe, this can be externally (the scenery) or internally (how you are feeling) this is just noticing, using your sesnses, seeing, hearing etc or what you are feeling, happy, sad etc. Now see if you can describe this observation to yourself, what is the experience without making a judgement of it, For examlple if I was sat watching ducks swimming and feeding on a pond, I would try to notice what I was actually seeing and feeling rather than saying whether I liked or disliked the scene I would just sit and observe with the whole of my being, and finally ,fully throw yourself into the experience of appreciating the present moment, remember their is no right or wrong, no good or bad just observation of the moment, staying with this type practice for as little as 5 minutes could be of benefit to you. As you get more experienced in doing this type of practice it could increase in the length time for up to 30 minutes or even longer.

Studies have shown that doing regular Mindfulness practices we can reduce our stress levels, improve our sleep patterns, lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety, strengthen the body's immune system, improve irritability and help our concentration skills. It helps us let go of the "what if's" in the future and accept the things that we cannot change in the past, realising the present moment is the only moment we truly have. 

What is MBSR? It is an evidence based 8 week course, generally the weekly session are 2 hours long with a committed daily practice time of 30/45 minutes per day, 5 or 6 days per week, It offers training in Mindfulness practices, these practices (include: mindful breathing, mindful movement, body scan and other simple mindful techniques) when learnt, can help people to cope with stress, anxiety, depression and pain.

The course is designed on the original MBSR programme that was developed in the 1970's by Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn, it was then used to treat adults suffering from both mental and physical chronic pain that was a side effect of illness.

Today it is a practical and experiental course, giving its participants the opportunity to build committed regular mindfulness practices, learning both formal and informal types of practice.  The different practice skills can then be used long after the 8 week programme has been completed. It helps to form new patterns of thinking and build new healthy lifestyle habits,  assisting in changing the way that we react to our real everyday life pressures and ultimately lowering the health risks that are associated with high levels of stress. 

It seem that some of us are forever living life in the fast lane that we somtimes forget to check in with how we actually are, how we feel phyisically, emotionally and mentally. Mindfulness helps us to focus our attention on the "right here, right now" and live in the present moment.