Mindfulness and Apps to Help with Stress Management

The Seattle Fire Fighters Health Care Trust (SFFHCT) recently sat down with Dr. Marcie Hamrick and Dr. Beth Murphy (a former fire fighter) at the Station 2 Clinic. In a fascinating discussion we learned why, as Dr. Murphy would say, “mindfulness as a stress management strategy is phenomenal.” Below are some excerpts from our meeting and a list of links to the apps mentioned in the video. Be sure to watch and share it with others.

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SFFHCT: How do you define mindfulness?

Dr. Beth Murphy

I feel like sometimes I just dumb it down, but mindfulness is being present. We spend so much time thinking about the next thing, and that really is part of the fire fighter mentality. You have to be prepared. So that means, you’re always thinking about the next thing. And then the more stress that builds up, the more likely you are to be thinking ahead, to try and manage whatever comes up so that you won’t get overstressed. So, mindfulness, one, is it helps you be present in the moment and to have that awareness of yourself in that moment and in whatever that interaction is…

It’s beneficial because, a lot of times, people are struggling with ruminations, these thoughts, negative thoughts, lots of negative thoughts. In fact, 80% of our thoughts are negative. They actually did a study on that. And so, mindfulness, the practice of mindfulness allows you to recognize that you have a lot of thoughts, and they’re not always helpful. And they would call that like a metacognitive awareness, and that actually gives you a lot of power in and of itself.

Dr. Marcie Hamrick

I think of mindfulness as paying attention to the present moment on purpose, but with a sense of non-judgment. And that last part is the kicker. Because it’s one thing, as you were saying, to recognize what is true in a given moment. And I think a lot of people think of mindfulness as, “Oh, I need to feel peaceful or happy or calm.” And actually, it’s just noticing what is. It may be, “I’m really tired,” or “I’m really pissed off,” or “I’m feeling sad or I’m feeling worried.” All of that is being mindful, it’s actually noticing what is true.

I think that the tough, maybe the harder part of mindfulness as a practice is adding that sense of, “However I’m feeling or whatever is happening, whatever is true is okay.” It’s like we add this second layer of, “I’m feeling this way and I feel guilty about it,” or “I’m feeling this way and I’m judging myself as being weak because I feel this way.” And, we get ourselves into this spiral that leads nowhere good, certainly not to joy, with that negative judgment. And we think that that negative judgment is helpful. It’s what keeps us alive. That is an evolutionary trait that we think negatively. It has kept us alive for as long as we’ve been around. So we have this negative bias, which is natural. But as you said, just noticing how negative our thinking is and how we worry about things, and that worry is not helpful, it’s taking away from the joyfulness and the presence that we may have in our lives, which are happening right here right now…

The beauty of mindfulness practice is, again, it’s not blissing out, it’s just becoming more present to our lives and to the people we care about. And, that’s just the stuff of life, and that’s the joy that mindfulness can hold.

SFFHCT: Can apps really help?

Dr. Beth Murphy

…most of the time when I tell fire fighters that they should meditate, I get an eye roll, which makes me chuckle. But, a lot of times, the resistance really comes from, they think about meditation as, “Well, I need to clear my mind,” and while there are meditation styles that that would be the purpose, mindful meditation is just about that acknowledgement of, what’s going on in your head and the non-judgment, that’s okay. You don’t get carried away with it. So, having an app is very useful, because then they can just follow along, which actually can help them kind of focus on actually what they’re trying to do.