Deborah Netburn | (TNS) Los Angeles Times
Eli Susman had some experience with meditation when he attended a month-long retreat at Plum Village, a Buddhist monastery in Southern France in 2017.
The UC Berkeley PhD candidate in clinical science had been on other retreats where participants spent most of their time meditating. So he was surprised when he saw that the daily Plum Village retreat schedule included only 30 minutes of formal seated meditation a day.
Midway through the retreat he decided to extend one of his sessions, sitting beneath a tree for three hours. Later, he ran into a monk named Brother Treasure and told him about his practice. The monk’s response was not what he expected.
“Three hours?” Susman remembers Brother Treasure telling him with a smile. “How about three breaths? That’s all it takes to step into the present moment.”
The words stuck with Susman. It led him to wonder whether a shortened practice that takes no more than a few breaths can make a difference in someone’s life.
Seven years later, he and his colleagues at Berkeley’s Golden Bear Sleep and Mood Research Clinic have evidence that it might. Earlier this year they published a paper online in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy that describes how a simple 20-second self-compassion “micropractice” lowered stress levels and improved the mental health of undergraduate volunteers who did it every day for a month.
“Two of the biggest barriers people have for developing a meditation habit is having the time to do it and developing the habit of doing it regularly,” Susman said. “Micropactices are like tiny training sessions that are based on the most potent parts of therapeutic practices.”
Below, Susman describes the practice he developed for the study and explains how anyone can use it to try to feel better in less than one minute a day.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
How do you describe the 20-second self-compassion micropractice that you studied?
The instructions we gave were to close your eyes and call to mind something about yourself that has been bothering you and making you feel unworthy, unloved or not enough and notice what arises in the body.
Then we asked people to send kindness and warmth to themselves by placing one hand over the heart and another over the belly with the energy of giving themselves a hug and notice what arises in the body now.
Next, we invited them to ask themselves, “How can I be a friend to myself in this moment?”
Finally we told them to open their eyes when they were ready.
And doing this for 20 seconds a day really made a difference in the lives of study participants?
Yes, but it only worked for people who practiced it regularly. In our study we looked at the subset of people who practiced daily and at the whole sample of people who were given the instruction.
More frequent practice was associated with greater increase in self-compassion and a greater reduction in stress and mental health problems like symptoms of depression or anxiety compared to a control group.
How can people show kindness and warmth to themselves?
In the study, we used the phrase “How can I be a friend to myself in this moment?” This means imagining how you would treat a friend or your younger self in a similar situation with care. What advice would you give them? How would you guide them?
You can also imagine receiving unconditional love from a mentor, parent, or close friend. How would they support you in this moment of suffering? Can you offer the same compassion to yourself?
Does the location of the practice matter?
We didn’t explore that, but it's an excellent question.
Why is touching the stomach and chest helpful during the exercise?
While there has been extensive research on the benefits of touch, it has not been examined as a standalone intervention for emotional well-being in terms of offering self-compassionate touch. I was interested in the combination of self-compassionate thoughts and this form of touch as a way to regulate oneself.
We informed participants that they could choose other forms of touch like stroking their cheeks or giving themselves a hug. The important thing is that the touch method helps them feel compassion toward themselves.
I was surprised to find that most students in the study claimed they were too busy to do this 20-second practice daily. What's the reasoning behind this?
During a conversation with a friend, she joked that when people are stressed, they may feel they can't spare 20 seconds to pause. It might be more of a mindset than a reality, but more work is needed to help people understand that those 20 seconds can make a difference in their lives. We wash our hands for 20 seconds. We brush our teeth for two minutes. Why not dedicate 20 seconds to this?
Do you have any advice on how to turn this practice into a habit?
It can be useful to choose a cue, such as practicing after your morning coffee in the living room or whenever you're feeling stressed, if you can manage to do it then. The more specific you are in describing your cue and developing your plan, the more likely you are to develop the practice as a habit.
Does this research indicate that longer practice is unnecessary?
Most participants in our study were new to meditation or had never meditated before, so we don’t know how this would work for those with a dedicated meditation practice or extensive experience. Rigorous research is necessary to determine if shorter practices have advantages over longer practices, and for whom those advantages may be most significant.
Also, just as brushing teeth is not a substitute for going to the dentist, this micropractice should not replace therapy or more intensive mental health care.
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