TWO-MINUTE version of this technique is available for hyper-busy people dealing with stress

Summary of the Focus Your Thoughts Tool

The Focus Your Thoughts Tool is a way of focusing your thoughts. It can be used on its own, or as part of developing a mindfulness meditation practice.

• Sit in a quiet place, eyes closed, back straight.

• Inhale and exhale three deep breaths.

• Start counting as described below.

• Let the sequence of numbers slowly rise up line-by-line to fill your mental space.

• This will help reduce the spare space for unhelpful thoughts.

• Just relentlessly bring your attention back to your counting.

• When you end, again inhale and exhale three deep breaths and as you exhale, feel your tension reducing a little.

• Even if you mind is racing throughout the whole session (it can be five, ten or twenty minutes, or more, long), stick with it, you will definitely make progress.

• You can complement this technique, which is focused on your thoughts, with Progressive Muscle Relaxation focused on your body, a link is given below.

• Later, when walking down the street or doing the dishes, just start the counting again for a minute or two, it will help to transfer the calm from your meditation sessions out into your everyday life. You can also use the technique to quickly de-stress in two minutes.

Details of the Focus Your thoughts Tool

If you are new to mediation you can use this simple meditation technique. If you already meditate using some other technique, but are finding that you are having difficulty focusing at particularly stressful times, you can revert to this very simple bare-bones technique for a while. You will find that doing it will ultimately benefit whatever other mediation technique you normally use.

Useful for an individual or for a group

You can use this technique on your own. Also, if you are in a group working (online, or if offline) you can use the technique for two to five minutes at the start of a meeting to help everyone focus themselves. If you want, when you return from a break you can use the technique again to collect yourselves. Whatever time spent using the technique will more than return itself in terms of increased efficiency and reduced stress.

The steps in the process

1.     When doing the technique on your own. Find a quiet place if you can. If in a crowded house, find a larger wardrobe if you have one, or go out to the garage or shed or wherever you can. Sit in the washroom for five minutes if that is the only place you can escape to (it can be a good place to meditate at work). Negotiate with other adults or teenagers in the house and ask them to not disturb you. Negotiate a length of time that suits. Just start with five minutes. Then later on, as you get more into it, you will be able to do ten or ultimately twenty minutes or more. If the kids are making too much noise, put on hearing muffs or ear plugs, if you have them. With a group, at the start of a meeting, everyone can agree to do the technique for, say two to five minutes, whatever timing feels appropriate for the group and the situation they are in.

2.     Sit on a chair that has a straight back, or no back at all, close your eyes, make your back straight.

3.     Take in a breath and then breathe it out at least at half the rate you breathed it in. Do this three times. You may feel yourself relaxing a little.

4.     Start to count in the following way: count one and one, one and two, one and three, one and four, one and five, one and six, one and seven, one and eight, one and nine, one and ten. Then, two and one, two and two, two and three, two and four and so on. Just keep counting that is all that you need to do. The concept is very simple.

5.     Then, whatever number you get to when you finish your mindfulness meditation session, e.g. fifty-nine and ten, you can start roughly at the next number, e.g. sixty-one and one, when you go to meditate later in the day. This approach gives you a sense of progress, so that even if you only get a couple of minutes to meditate at different times during the day, you get a sense of accumulating meditation minutes by the time you reach the end of the day. When you get to one hundred and ten. Start back at one and one.  You don’t need to be obsessive about starting at the right place, the important point is to just be doing your counting. You may find that your counting syncronises with your breathing, but it does not have to. This type of counting differs slightly from just counting to ten as is suggested in some meditation approaches. The reason for this is first, as has been mentioned, you can get a sense of progress across sessions even if they are all short. The second reason is that it is a slightly more complex mental task than just straight counting. This gives your mind more to focus on, particularly when you are just starting out with meditation or, if you are a regular meditator, in those situations where you find yourself somewhat stressed and it is particularly hard to focus.

6.     Of course, you may find it hard to keep focused on the counting. Thoughts will keep coming into your mind. That is fine, just keep returning to your counting.

7.     You may be able to imagine the set of numbers you are counting moving up and filling up a matrix that slowly moves up once you have finished a line and progressively fills up your mental space.

8.      You are not trying to completely eliminate thoughts when you start out, you are just trying to fill your mind with the numbers that you are counting to reduce the mental space that is available to be occupied by the random thoughts that normally arise.

9.     You may find it hard to stick with the counting. Don’t be discouraged, what you are doing is hard but it will pay you back if you stick with doing this meditation technique regularly. Think of it like this, imagine you are climbing a mountain which is your ongoing mindfulness meditation practice. To get to the mountain you need to cross some foothills, they are swampy and filled with tangled vines. It is hard work. However, there is no way to get to the mountains without crossing those foothills. So every metre you travel, you are getting closer to your mountain. You are making progress no matter how difficult it is*. So every meditation session, no matter what happens in it, is part of you making progress.

10.  When you finish mediating, do three deep breaths again as you did at the start. Imagine you are taking in clear light with the in-breath and expelling all your tension with the out-breath. You may get a feeling of some relaxation at this point as you breathe out. Regardless of whether you do feel any sense of relaxation, congratulate yourself for your five, ten or how many minutes you have spent meditating, you are now that much closer to the goal of your mountain.

11.  As you go about your daily life, when you get a moment, for instance just walking along the street, doing the dishes, or at the gym, you can start up your counting again from where you left off. When you do this you do not need to syncronise your counting with your breathing. This is because your breathing rate may change depending on whether you are walking on the flat or walking up stairs, or at the gym etc. It is fine to just do this for just a minute or two. Doing this helps transfer the increasing calm you will slowly be developing during your meditation sessions out into your everyday life. You can also use the technique as two-minute de-stress tool in the moment when a stressful situation arises.

12.  Focusing your thoughts is the first stage in building up a mindfulness meditation practice. At any stage you can move onto Accepting Your Feelings. Go to the Accept Your Feelings Technique to find out how to do this.

13. This technique is designed to help you to reduce the number and intensity of thoughts going through your head. It is a good idea to complement using this technique with a focus on relaxing your body. Go to Youtube and select a Progressive Muscle Relaxation Training video such as this 15 minute one put up by Children’s Mercy Hospital to help you do this.

Dr Paul Duignan is strategist and clinical psychologist who practices mindfulness meditation. You can find these instructions at http://paulduignan.consulting/focus.

*Please note that if, when doing any type of psychological or self-development work, you find you are feeling overwhelming emotions or persistently troubling thoughts, you need to talk to a health professional.