The Neuroscience of Mindfulness
Mast Cell Action is delighted to share our new event with you The Neuroscience of Mindfulness - How Mindfulness Works hosted by the wonderful Deborah Bircham.
Have you ever been curious about what Mindfulness is, and if it might help you? Perhaps you’ve heard about it, but don’t know what it really means? Maybe you have tried a mindfulness app, but not really found it beneficial. Perhaps you have a really busy brain, and don’t think you could ‘do’ Mindfulness. Maybe you’ve tried it and enjoyed it, and you’d like to deepen your understanding. Or, maybe you just don't really think it's ‘your thing’!
Did you know that Mindfulness is a scientifically-based set of tools that has been shown to improve mood and mental wellbeing, anxiety and depression, and even has benefits for pain and other physical problems, like high blood pressure, IBS and inflammation?
What does this mean for us, with MCAS? How can mindfulness benefit us specifically?
Join Deborah to find out more about the neuroscience of how Mindfulness works, and how everyone can develop their own unique mindfulness practice to support them to manage difficulty and feel better—EVEN if you struggle to sit still, switch off and relax!
The session will also include a short Mindfulness taster practice!
Disclaimer
We’re all in different places and we all need different things at different times on our health journey. Everyone reading this will be affected differently by their MCAS and will experience different symptoms. In these sessions, I will share some ideas and thoughts that have resonated with me through my own research, things that have helped me on my own health journey, and things that make sense of some of my own symptoms. Some of these things might be things you already know. Some of these ideas might be new, some might be challenging. Not all of them may resonate with you. What works for one person, won’t work for another. My advice to the people I work with is always ‘take what ‘lands’ for you – take what you feel is helpful, and feel free to use it to help you on your MCAS journey, and leave the rest. It’s fine to disagree or to feel differently, and if it doesn’t feel right, or helpful for you, then don’t worry about it. Only do what feels right for you. Wellbeing is not a ‘static’ thing, it fluctuates and changes with time. Some of these ideas might be worth revisiting later on in your health journey, as they may become relevant for you as your situation changes.
About Deborah
Deborah is a Mindfulness teacher and Holistic Health Coach, and she specialises in supporting people with long-term health conditions through a combination of naturopathic health coaching, mindfulness and psychotherapy techniques. She has a particular interest in the mind-body connection and how we can support our own wellbeing through self-care and self-compassion practices. She has MCAS, Dysautonomia and Lyme Disease and uses her own lived experience of long-term illness to enable her to fully understand and support those she works with. She is motivated by wanting to ensure that others have the information and support they need to empower them on their health journey, and give others the support that she didn’t have when she became unwell. You can find out more about Deborah here.
What you need to know
We will be running these sessions virtually through Zoom, you are welcome to attend with your microphone and camera off if you feel more comfortable doing so. We will email out the Zoom link to join 1 hour before the session starts. Please check your spam folder if you can't find this link.
Please book a place for everyone who will be attending online, even if you'll be attending using the same device. This helps us keep the event running smoothly and safely and also helps us to decide what kind of events to organise in the future.
Please note: We will be taking a register so if there are a large number of participants, it may take a while – please be patient if you are in the waiting room. It will make the process of admitting people and taking the register much quicker if you could change your name before joining, to the name you used when booking. You can access a step by step on how to change your name here.
Please contact events@mastcellaction.org with any questions.
Attendance is free, although donations are much appreciated as this helps us to keep the lights on and to keep delivering essential support and services for people living with MCAS. If you are able to do so, there is an option to make a donation, when booking your spot.
Places are limited, so please do let us know if you change your mind or your plans change so we can offer the spot to someone else.
How Mast Cell Action Uses Your Data
We will collect the information you provide on Ticket Tailor to gather statistics about how many people attend our events and how many people return to our events and also demographic information about who is attending Mast Cell Action events. These statistics are vital to helping charities like Mast Cell Action demonstrate the impact of our work, and we use them to report to our funders and other groups to demonstrate the difference that funding support can make.
In our database, your name will be stored along with these statistics but identifying information is never included in reports. We don’t collect or store more information than needed to generate these statistics and have no access to any financial information you provide to Ticket Tailor.
All information is stored in line with our GDPR policy.
Unless you ask us to, we won’t sign you up to any mailing lists and will only send you information related to your attendance at this event. If you want to hear about more events like this in the future, please sign up to be a friend of Mast Cell Action.