Mindfulness and Meditation For Parents Of Sick and Premature Babies and Neonatal staff
Welcome to Life’s Little Treasures Foundation Mindfulness and Meditation Tracks. This series of mindfulness tracks have been created for parents with a baby in the Neonatal unit and neonatal staff. Make every day a Mindfulness Day.
It’s natural to feel overwhelmed with high levels of stress and anxiety when you have a baby in the NICU or SCN, but through mindfulness techniques, we hope to alleviate some of these stresses, even for just a few moments. Let your body relax, invite your mind to relax and refocus to remind you to look after you, to take a deep breath, focus on the now and be kind to yourself. Hopefully these practices support you to gain some calm, clarity and care so you can continue to support your baby and family.
We encourage you to use these practices if and when they are useful for you. If a track if helpful please use it as much as needed. If there are some practices that don’t resonate with you please don’t use them. There are many other ways to care for yourself and your family such as going for a walk, eating a healthy meal, talking with a friend, having a nap or break or taking a bath if you are at home. Please do what works for you. We do hope that these practices and resources can support you and your family in some way. If you do enjoy these practices and find them beneficial, use them as needed and please refer to resources below to learn more about mindfulness and meditation.
What is Mindfulness
Mindfulness is intentionally bringing your attention to the present moment. It’s about paying close attention to your experience in an open and non-judgemental way. Its a bit like listening deeply to yourself in the way a good friend would. In each moment you can pay close attention to your body, your breath, the senses and then there’s also the internal world of emotions and thoughts.
There’s a lot to pay attention to in any moment. There are 2 qualities are particularly important when practicing mindfulness. These are interest and care. We pay attention to what’s happening with interest and care. We’re not judging or criticising what we notice. We are not wanting things to go away or be different. We are simply noticing what’s happening with interest and care. Most of these short mindfulness practices are aimed at directing the attention to the body and breath and senses to create some space, calm and ease in the midst of day to day challenges.
We hope that these tracks are helpful and if you want to learn more about mindfulness, we encourage you to use the information below to explore ongoing training and support to develop a mindfulness and meditation practice.
Why is mindfulness beneficial?
There are many benefits of practicing mindfulness including increased, calm, self-awareness, and ability to get to sleep.
With mindfulness we can learn to become more aware of our habitual thinking patterns. Many of us spend a lot of time thinking about the future, creating stories about what’s happening now, and rehashing things that happened in the past. With mindfulness you can notice this and care for yourself. We can invite the attention to let go of habitual thinking about the future and past, and come and back to the body and senses. Back to the physical reality of what’s happening right here and now, not our thoughts about it.
By paying attention to something like the breath you can calm and settle your mind. You are not feeding the thoughts and worries any more. You are creating some space and calm.
By paying attention to the body and senses you become more connected to what’s actually happening in the room or place you are in right now. You can be present for yourself and those around you in this moment and the next. Thoughts and emotions will be present too, but perhaps when you do these practices there can be a bit more space, calm, clarity and care available too.
Resources and further support:
We have included a range of tracks for you to explore. We have kept them all short, and the intention is that they might bring a bit more calm, clarity and care into your day.
If you are interested in mindfulness and the benefits possible from practicing its important that you find some further training and support to develop a practice that works for you longer term.
Please find some resources for further support and information:
- BOOKS: Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990) Full catastrophe living: The program of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Dell, New York Mark Williams and Danny Penman (2011). Mindfulness: a Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World. Piatkus
- APPS: Smiling Mind – is a free app that includes many meditations and practices that you can try. Go to the adult program and try it out.
Headspace – has excellent meditations and programs. There is a small monthly fee.
- COURSES: Mindful Moments Australia – 5 week courses and regular classes www.mindfulmoment.com.au
Openground – 8 week MBSR Course www.openground.com.au
- About mindfulness Rick Hanson: How meditation changes your brain
Jon Kabat-Zinn: Listening is an act of love
- Australia-wide mindfulness communities and retreats