A group of US Marines sit cross-legged on the grass at Quantico barracks in Virginia. M16 rifles are slung across their backs. Dog tags are blowing lazily in the breeze. It’s been a long hard day of counter-insurgency training and advanced weapons’ drills.
Now it’s time for a spot of meditation in the evening sunshine.
Each Marine closes his eyes and breathes gently in and out. One by one they start to relax. Their broad shoulders and powerful chests soon move in fluid harmony with their breath. Knotted muscles unfurl. Gritted teeth loosen. Their grimy faces are soon the picture of peaceful tranquility.
Although it makes for an incongruous sight, the US Marines are embracing an ancient form of meditation known as ‘mindfulness’ - and they report remarkable results.
After eight weeks of meditating for just 15 minutes a day, the soldiers are far better at dealing with anxiety, stress, depression and insomnia. It helps them stay calm and focused in the thick of battle, while improving overall mental and physical fitness.
‘After the course, I wasn’t scatterbrained anymore,’ says Major Jeff Davis, a 40-year-old infantry officer. ‘I had no problem concentrating when I was upset. I can’t think of any aspect of my life that it hasn’t helped me with.’
It isn’t just the US Marines who are using mindfulness meditation. Ruby Wax is an aficionado. Hollywood stars such as Goldie Hawn have embraced it. And academics at Oxford and Cambridge teach it to their students to help them cope with exam stress.
Mindfulness has now become one of the hottest topics in mental health. One study, in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, has shown that it increases happiness and well-being, while a major study in Psychological Science revealed such changes help regular meditators live longer, healthier lives. Other research has shown that it improves memory, creativity, and reaction times. It also boosts the immune system and lowers blood pressure.
Over the past month alone, studies have shown that mindfulness can help with rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, and might even aid weight loss.
Mindfulness, although it has its roots in Buddhism, is an entirely secular type of ‘brain training’. It is also deceptively simple. It is simply paying full, wholehearted attention to one single thing at a time – usually the breath as it flows into and out of the lungs. Focusing on each breath in this way allows you to observe your thoughts as they arise in your mind and, little by little, to let go of struggling with them.
This gradually weans you off the compulsive addiction to judge everything as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. This stream of mental commentary fuels the sense of background unease and disquiet that drives anxiety, stress, and depression.
If you spend a little time each day ‘living in the moment’ by observing the way thoughts pop into your mind, negative ways of thinking simply run into the sand. You become far less self-critical and destructive.