On this episode of Wellbeing, Guy Murphy chats with Dr Wendy Li and Dr Marc Chao from James Cook University about mindfulness, and how it can help treat disorders such as depression, anxiety and PTSD, specifically in relation to veterans.
“I think changing the relationship between the mind and the body is one of the important mechanisms. Because our minds do not connect to our body very often, even though mind and body are all together.
“And when we, our mind is always not to bring our body all the time. For example, if you have the experience of a sleeper’s mind, a service sleeper’s mind, and the mind is always bringing the body, why can’t you go to sleep? Actually, it’s the mind’s problem, because the mind is racing very fast.
“So changing the relationship between the mind and the body can change the perception of some of the symptoms. For example, I had a proposal, who is a veteran, had some physical injury and experienced a lot of pains. And before he joined the mindfulness intervention, he blamed the body very frustrated, not by himself, because he could not do some easy movement because of the injury.
“But after practicing mindfulness, and because mindfulness always brings the mind back to the body, and he found that actually the pain helping to bring the mind back to the body. So he called the pain as a good pain.”
– Dr Wendy Li