Adam Dayan is joined by Dr. Eli Kraiem, Clinical Psychologist and Director of Guidance and Psychology at Sephardic Academy of Manhattan Elementary School. Together, they explore the benefits of mindfulness, discussing how it can help both children and adults recognize their emotions, manage stress and anxiety, and improve focus and self-awareness. Listeners will have the chance to participate in three mindfulness exercises, with Dr. Kraiem guiding Adam through each technique to demonstrate how it’s done.
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ANNOUNCER: This is Curious Incident, a podcast for special needs families, and your window into the world of special education. Special needs parenting can be challenging, and we want to make it easier by providing you with the resources you need to help your child. Still deep into the world of learning differently with your host, special education attorney Adam Dayan.
ADAM: I am pleased to present my next guest on the Curious Incident podcast Eli Creme. Eli Creme received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Long Island University. He has extensive experience in training working with children, adolescents, and adults with a variety of presentations, including anxiety, learning disabilities, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, autism, and behavioral challenges. He also has experience utilizing interventions, including individual therapy, family therapy, group therapy, and psychological assessments, to support students both emotionally and academically. Eli is currently the director of guidance and psychology at the Sephardic Academy of Manhattan Elementary School, and has a private practice where he works with children, adolescents, and adults in individual, family, and couples therapy in lower Manhattan. Eli, it’s great to have you here. Welcome to the studio.
ELI: Thank you Adam. It’s a pleasure to be here.
ADAM: So I’m really looking forward to speaking with you about the subject of mindfulness. Let’s start off by defining it. What is mindfulness?
ELI: Mindfulness can be hard to define, because ultimately it’s an experience that we have. But the standard definition that I found helpful for mindfulness is moment to moment awareness or moment by moment awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, or their external environment without judgment.
ADAM: You want to give an example. So right now in this moment, we’re sitting here face to face for a conversation. What are you being mindful of?
ELI: It can be hard, especially while you’re engaged in an activity, to be mindful about everything. And especially to be mindful, even about certain things other than the conversation that you’re having. But right now, my attention is very much focused on my physical body, the chair that I’m sitting on, the table that my arms are resting on, the temperature in the room. I’m really trying to bring awareness to the experience that I’m having presently. And we can talk a little bit about the effects that that has on my ability to, let’s say, perform better on this podcast or to have more focus. But generally in all scenarios, I try to be mindful of my physical sensations in my body. What are the benefits of doing that? So there are many different benefits to mindfulness, especially over the past decade or so. There’s been prolific research on the various benefits of mindfulness throughout the age ranges. So for children, adolescents, adults, and even people who are much older in their 70s, 80s can benefit from mindfulness. And I would say the top three benefits are as follows. The first is reduction in stress. Everybody experiences stress in their lives. Some people more than others. Some people have more tolerance for stress than others. But in general, mindfulness can help reduce the anxiety and the stress that you feel. The second is it helps with emotion regulation. So people who feel very overwhelmed by their emotions sometimes feel like their world is ending or have the sense that they have to react to feelings or to thoughts in a very reactionary way. Rather than acting intentionally with purpose, mindfulness can be very helpful with that. So I would say with emotion regulation and impulse control. And then third is its ability to help you improve your attention. That can help people with ADHD who have attention deficit disorders. But it can also be helpful to any person, whether you have an issue with attention or whether you’re a person who has, you know, normative attention, to be able to pay better attention, to focus more when you’re in, can be in school for children or for college students or adolescents. It can be when you’re at work, some people really struggle paying attention at different times during the day or different seasons or depending on what’s going on in their personal life. So it can help improve attention there, even in relationships and in your day to day functioning socially, it can help improve your attention.
ADAM: Okay. So we’ve got stress reduction, emotional regulation in impulse control and improving attention. And I know we’re going to talk more about those things in our conversation before we do, before we go further, you shared with me why you’re passionate about this subject. You told me that it was based on your own personal experience. Do you want to say a little bit more about that? Share with our listeners?
ELI: For sure. So when I was 19 years old, I was studying in university and my best friend and I were very passionate about building a business together. And we ended up starting a financial technology company. We dropped out of school or really took a leave of absence because I ended up going back to pursue my education. But we started a company, we had about 15 employees and raised some capital. And thankfully, things were going really well business-wise. But personally, I was really struggling. I felt a tremendous amount of stress managing the operations of the company, managing investor expectations. So I was feeling a lot of anxiety with the tremendous responsibility of building and running a business. And that coupled with some personal issues that I was having on my own family-wise and within myself led me to experience a depression and anxiety. I ended up getting diagnosed with a clinical depression. And that led me to the realization that I really needed to seek help and I went to see a therapist. Unintentionally, I found a therapist who used mindfulness interventions in the therapy setting.
ADAM: And I was just for engaging in mindfulness. You’re a young man. I think you said late teens or early twenties, right? And I’m wondering if you had any resistance to speaking with a professional or accepting the mindfulness techniques that he was trying to share with you.
ELI: Yes. So part of anxiety and part of depression can be getting stuck in these repetitive thoughts. And some of the repetitive thoughts that I was having was, I don’t need help. I can figure this out on my own. Mindfulness-based strategies and all this new age type of interventions are silly. Why do I need to speak to someone else about my problems? I should be able to deal with them on my own. And that only got me further into a depression and further into my anxious thoughts.
ADAM: And by the way, it’s so helpful that you’re sharing that because those are common thoughts and feelings that people have about this subject, about speaking with a professional or seeking help, exactly.
ELI: And I’m very thankful that I was able to find someone, even though I was resistant in the beginning and skeptical and even cynical to the therapeutic process and to mindfulness, who was patient enough and understanding enough to let me go through that process of doubt and questioning. And then opened for me a new way of looking at the world and a new way of understanding myself.
ADAM: So let’s just focus on that piece for a second, right? Because we were talking before about how do you help people overcome resistance in this sense? What was it that the professional you were speaking with did that helped you overcome that resistance and be open to the methods that he wanted to give you?
ELI: So my experience, working professionally and through my personal experiences, that resistance typically comes from resistance from others or by invalidation from others. And so when I encountered another individual, my therapist at the time, who was unconditionally accepting of the resistance that I had and was tolerant of it and was patient with it, I ended up understanding that that resistance was a defense against me wanting to be intimate and me wanting to be vulnerable. I was very afraid to be vulnerable and to really discuss the problems that I was struggling with within myself and interpersonally with others in my life. And I think you’d be surprised to know that a lot of people experience that same resistance until they find someone in their lives. It can be a therapist. It can be a partner or it can be a best friend who is willing to accept them for who they are and to accept their challenges, to accept their resistance and that ultimately allows you to drop the defenses that you have and to look within yourself even more and to understand and to work on the challenges that you’re presenting with.
ADAM: That’s really helpful background. You’re speaking with this professional and he’s talking to you about mindfulness practices. Do you want to talk more about the specific practices that were helpful to you?
ELI: Yes, there are many different types of mindfulness, which can include being aware of your breath, which is one of the most classic mindfulness practices. But when we engage in intentional mindfulness, we can pay attention to our breath. We can pay attention to any other physical sensations in our body that can be anything from walking to just paying attention to the chair that you’re sitting on and the experience of what it’s like to sit on a chair or mindful eating. So if you’re going out for lunch, you can take 10, 15 minutes or even one minute to pay attention to what it’s like to put food into your mouth, to chew it and to swallow it and what it’s like to feel the food go into your stomach and so on. There are also other types of breathing mindfulness techniques that we can get into a little bit later. We’re going to do one exercise of mindful breathing. Then the last piece of mindfulness I think that’s really important is, mindfulness to external stimuli, to things that are outside of our bodies and outside of our personal experience. And that can be a mindfulness to looking at a beautiful nature scene, mindfulness to watching a movie, mindfulness to any sort of external experience that you can witness on your own.
ADAM: So you gave a few examples. What do you want listeners to take away from that?
ELI: I think what’s really important is making mindfulness your own. There are so many different types of mindfulness, some of which I’ve mentioned, some of which I haven’t mentioned. You have to find the mindfulness techniques that work for you. For example, I spent a lot of time, especially once I learned about the value of mindfulness through my own experience in therapy, doing very basic mindfulness techniques, sitting in my room, sitting on a chair and just being aware of my own thoughts and my own emotions coming up and allowing them to pass. I spent a lot of time personally at silent mindfulness retreats where I spent four to five days, sometimes even longer. You don’t have access to your phone. You don’t have access to any sort of technology devices and you don’t communicate with anyone else there. And you sit in silence and spend about eight to ten hours a day sitting with your eyes closed or open, being attentive to the physical sensations and the thoughts and emotions in your body.
ADAM: You just heard people running for the door. They heard eight to ten hours of silence, no phones and they left. They’re gone. We lost the listeners. Yes. Let’s try baby steps. Okay. And I can speak from personal experience that this stuff is awkward initially. You know, when you first try being more mindful or paying attention to your body or working on your breathing, if it’s not something you’ve done in the past, it’s awkward at first. Would you agree? Yes. Okay. So people push past that initial awkwardness and practice any of the numerous mindful techniques you mentioned if it feels weird initially.
ELI: So I think it’s similar to many other hobbies that you may pick up over the years, similar to starting riding a bike. When you were five, six, seven years old and you started to ride a bike, it felt very awkward at first. Maybe you started with training wheels and then you took off those training wheels and you were really wobbly and fail a bunch of times. And you were afraid of how other people would perceive you if you fail or if you are wobbly. But then you learned how to ride the bike and it became very smooth and enjoyable and enhanced your life. And I think that we can see mindfulness through that same lens of in the beginning, like any other hobby or any other skill, it can feel awkward. It can feel uncomfortable. But over time, all the research shows and anecdotally, my personal experience and many others have shown that it can really lead to benefits in a range of different areas of our lives.
ADAM: That’s a great example.
ANNOUNCER: If you like what you are hearing, please let us know by subscribing to the Curious Incident podcast and letting other special needs parents know about it too. If you have thoughts, questions, comments, or would like to suggest ideas for a future episode, we’d love to hear it. So email your feedback to podcast at dayanlawfirm.com.
ADAM: You like how can mindfulness practices be adapted to suit the various unique needs of children with disabilities or special needs?
ELI: That’s a great question. I think that really comes down to making mindfulness your own or helping a younger person make mindfulness their own. If they’re not able to create their own ideas about how to personalize it. And so why don’t we think about an example? We can think about a child, let’s say, who is nine years old or ten years old who’s struggling with ADHD. And it’s really hard for them to sit still. And they can’t participate in the traditional quote unquote boring mindfulness of sitting down and paying attention to your breath or to the physical sensations in your body. How do we get someone with ADHD who’s hyperactive and running around the classroom or running around the house to engage in mindfulness? So like I said, there are many different types of mindfulness to match all the different types of personalities and experiences that we can have. One example of how I would deal with a child of that sort is to try to find something that they enjoy. It could be either a food that they like. It could be a toy that they like. Something that really keeps them stimulated and engaged. And to try to help them slowly and interestingly, because we want to make it interesting to them for them to want to engage in it, become more and more aware of that food or of that object. So if we start with an example of food, the child really likes pizza. Can take them to the pizza store, sit down with them and say, okay, we’re going to start with a pizza. First, I want you to eat a bite of the pizza really, really quickly. And naturally, like we all do when we’re just eating mindlessly, we eat the pizza very quickly, swallow it within a second and it’s gone. And then you take the trial to the next step and say, now we’re going to try a really interesting exercise where I want you to slowly eat the pizza. First look at the pizza. Feel the pizza. Experience the smell of the pizza. What does the pizza feel like? Does it feel rough? Does it feel soft? What does it smell like? Then put the pizza very slowly into your mouth without chewing it. What are the first tastes? What are the first flavors that come out of the pizza? What are the physical sensations that it feels like in your mouth? How does it feel on your tongue and your gums and your teeth? And then slowly, slowly have them bite the pizza, move it around in their mouth, chew it very slowly, and then finally swallow it and ask them to compare. What were the two experiences like? Eating the pizza really quickly and then eating the pizza mindfully. And what I think you’ll find is children are much more aware than you might expect. Even children who have ADHD and are super hyperactive and they’ll be able to tell you that, wow, I was able to enjoy the pizza much more when I took the time to bring my awareness to it. Then you can use that as an analogy to their entire lives and say, wow, maybe we can try to incorporate that into other aspects of our lives. And so the goal for every child or every individual is to meet them where they’re at when it comes to mindfulness and to see what they’re capable of and then slowly introducing more and more advanced stages of mindfulness.
ADAM: So can you just extend that a little bit further? You gave a great example and they do this exercise with you. They become more mindful of their eating and then they look for ways to apply to other areas of their lives and then what?
ELI: Depending on the issue of the individual, if we’re dealing with someone who has difficulty focusing in class, so we might start with mindful eating and then we might say, wow, you were really able to bring your awareness and enjoy the pizza a lot more when you’re able to be mindful of it. Why don’t we try and mindfulness exercise in the classroom? Because I know it’s really hard for you to sit still in the classroom. Let’s try another mindfulness exercise. Let’s see what it’s like for you to hold a fidget spinner while you’re sitting in class and to be really attentive to the fidget spinner or to silly putty or to play dough while you’re sitting in class. And as you introduce these different types of mindfulness techniques in the class, you could slowly, slowly introduce the idea of, okay, what is it like being mindful of the material that’s being present, being mindful of the teacher in the room, being mindful of the other children in the room, being mindful of how your behavior potentially influences others. Is it distracting? Is it helpful? And I think doing that step by step rather than trying to flood the child or the individual with these more advanced mindful techniques or telling them you’re not being mindful, you need to be more aware without showing them the experience of it that can be really damaging.
ADAM: Okay, so gradually building up that muscle. Exactly. So some listeners are thinking my child doesn’t have ADHD. I’ve got a child with autism or sensory processing difficulties or a speech impairment or, you know, there’s so many different possibilities. So what do you say to those listeners?
ELI: It really depends on the challenges that are coming up for your child. Someone with autism might really struggle with anxiety and impulse control. Really with a learning disability might feel very anxious because they’re not performing well in school. They might feel really down and have these negative thought cycles of I’m really not intelligent. I’m not capable of performing well in school. I’m never going to be a success. So when it comes to those types of thought patterns or feeling negative emotions towards yourself or the environment around you, we can really create mindfulness based strategies to help with a variety of issues that the child is struggling with.
ADAM: So let me stick with that for a minute. Those recurring thoughts that critical voice that some people have inside their heads, how does mindfulness help with those things?
ELI: That’s a great question. And that’s actually one of the most important things that mindfulness can help with when we mention the first benefit of mindfulness is stress reduction. One of the benefits is that it can decrease that critical voice in our minds. And by doing that, it can decrease the stress and the anxiety that we experience. So how does it help with that? When a person experiences these recurring thoughts, I’m no good. I’m going to fail this test. Nobody likes me. Whatever that obsessive thought is or whatever that recurring thought is, what happens is the reason why it’s so damaging is because we accept that thought as true. We accept that thought as objective reality and we respond naturally to that thought. We respond in all ways possible to that thought as being true. Now, the way that mindfulness helps to interfere with that process is it creates the space by bringing awareness to our thoughts. It creates the space for us to see a more objective reality. What I mean by that is it allows us to pay attention from a zoomed out perspective. And to see those thoughts as a process that’s happening in our minds, but that it’s not necessarily true. It’s not necessarily objectively true. And when we can see that over time, it doesn’t happen in one session of mindfulness. It doesn’t happen overnight. It does take time. But when we can see the process happening more objectively, we can then say, wow, maybe I don’t need to accept this thought cycle and I don’t need to get stuck in this thought pattern. Maybe I can replace that thought pattern with a more positive thought pattern. And that can ultimately lead to a reduction in anxiety, to more positive self-esteem, and a more positive way of looking at ourselves and the world around us. Speaking about the depression that I experienced and the anxiety that I experienced, using mindfulness was incredibly helpful in my being able to zoom out, see the process that was happening in my mind and realize saying to myself, wow, I’m so critical of myself. And realizing that it wasn’t actually me that was being critical of myself. It was this thought process that’s not me. You don’t have to identify with the thought process. The thought process is happening within you, but it doesn’t define you. The benefit of that, like we said, is that it can cause a radical shift in the way that you perceive yourself, in the way that a child perceives themselves, and can lead to many many improvements in emotional functioning, intellectual functioning, behavioral functioning. And even there are many health benefits to it. Physical health benefits improves immune, autoimmune health, and reduction in any sort of psychological stressors means that there’s less cortisol going on in your body and that you’re feeling more relaxed. And so there are tremendous benefits, not just psychological, but also physical benefits. When there’s less stress, when there’s less criticism, everybody knows that when we’re feeling more relaxed, we can think more clearly. We can make better decisions. And so naturally, that’s what happens through the process of mindfulness. And one more point that I think is really important to discuss is the effects of mindfulness on impulse control. The way that mindfulness can help with impulse control is when you see things from a more outside perspective. When you see things from a more objective perspective, when someone says something really mean to you and your instinct is to yell, to curse at them, to get really upset, or it can be the opposite, to withdraw. You can then think more clearly about what’s the best way to react to this situation that will be most beneficial to me. You can really take the time to process that rather than acting in an impulsive way that is maladaptive that might hurt you or other people around you. This can be really helpful for a range of challenges that children have, especially behavioral issues in impulse control, which we didn’t necessarily get to yet, but they’re all tied together. ADHD, impulse control, anxiety, and stress that can manifest in very similar ways. People who have ADHD can have all sorts of other challenges because of the results of their inability to pay attention. So mindfulness can really, really be helpful in a range of challenges that children struggle within school and at home.
ADAM: And I feel like we’re talking about everything on two different levels. There’s the level of the child, how they can become more mindful of themselves. And there’s the level of the parent, both in terms of being mindful about what’s going on with their children and about what’s going on within themselves. Do you want to speak a little bit more to that?
ELI: Yes, that’s a really good point, that there are two different dimensions to this. The child who’s having their own challenges at school, and then the parent who’s supposed to be the supportive figure and wants to be the supportive figure genuinely, but also has their own issues and might feel a tremendous amount of stress or guilt or sadness because of what their child is going through at school. And so I think that using mindfulness and mindfulness techniques, both for children and for the parents who are going through these challenges, can be really, really effective. And so a parent who’s going through the situation might engage in mindfulness in a way that helps them realize, you know what, a lot of these fears are coming from internal fears. Maybe some of them are coming from cultural experiences that we’ve had, but a lot of them are coming internally. And if I engage in these ideas that my child is not going to be successful because they have ADHD, it’s going to make it more of a reality. Rather than someone a parent who decides, you know what, they are going to have challenges. They might need extra services, but I believe in them. And I know that they can succeed. And by taking on that approach with the help of mindfulness can really help your child excel. And we’ve seen this in the data, whether you have a learning disorder, whether you have dyslexia, ADHD, fluency disorder, autism, people can become really, really successful when they’re given the resources that they need and the right emotional support by their caregivers and the school.
ADAM: Very well said. So let’s shift gears a little bit. I want listeners to get a feel for the practices, the exercises that we’ve been speaking about. Could you walk us through a simple mindfulness exercise that parents can try with their special needs children at home?
ELI: Yes. There are several different breathing techniques that one can use and can be very helpful in a range of different situations. So for example, they can be very helpful in acute emotional situations when a child is emotionally dysregulated, where they’re having a fit. They can be screaming. They can be crying. They can run into the room, not want to talk to anyone. They can also be used if we’re feeling mild levels of stress before we go in to work one day because we feel very overwhelmed by the work schedule that we have. So the first breathing technique that I think is especially helpful for children, it’s a simplified version of some of the other breathing techniques that we have is called belly breathing. And it can be used for adults too. So the way it works is you place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly. Got it. And it’s really important while you’re doing this to make sure that you’re sitting upright, that you’re sitting straight so that when you breathe in, you can maximize the air flow. We inhale and count to four. So we inhale for four seconds and then we exhale for four seconds. And we’ll go through that process a couple of times and then reflect on what that experience
ADAM: is like. And if I’m understanding you correctly, I’m trying to breathe from my belly, which is different than the way I would normally breathe through my chest, correct?
ELI: Exactly. So it’s called belly breathing because we’re not just inhaling into the top of our chest. We want to inhale very, very deeply and bring the air all the way down into our stomach so that our stomachs inflate. And so let’s start with four seconds of breathing through your nose into your stomach. And now exhale through your mouth for four seconds. And we’re going to do this a few more times.
ADAM: Exhale through your nose. Should we be holding our breath?
ELI: No holding your breath. This is a very simplified version for children. And we can do a more advanced technique right after this that I think will be more helpful for adults. Let’s go through this cycle a couple of times. Now, very deeply through your nose for four seconds. Exhale for four seconds. Inhale again for four. Exhale for four. Now I want you to continue this. And while you’re doing this, I want you to try to imagine and visualize. You’re inhaling a lot of air into your body. And as you exhale, you’re exhaling all of the stress that you’re feeling right now. Picture that in my brain. Picture that in your minds. Yes. So continue. Exhale. Now inhale again.
ADAM: Exhale again.
ELI: We’ll do this two more times.
ADAM: Inhale.
ELI: Exhale. Last time. And exhale. So how are you feeling now, Adam? Completely lightheaded.
ADAM: And relaxed.
ELI: And relaxed. So it’s a very simple technique that you can use with a four-year-old. Someone who’s in preschool or in kindergarten, up to someone who’s much later in their years. And it will have the same effect of lightheadedness, relaxation, allowing you to see things a little bit more clearly and less clouded by the intense emotions that you might be feeling in the moment.
ADAM: Amazing how that happens, right? You’re feeling so strongly in one moment. And then some time passes and it just recedes.
ELI: Yes. And that’s one of the major tenets of mindfulness is that emotions and thoughts pass. We can choose to accept them as reality or we can let them pass if they’re thoughts that aren’t beneficial to us, if they’re emotions that aren’t beneficial.
ADAM: And some people don’t know that letting it pass, letting the thought or emotion pass is an option.
ELI: I think it’s not obvious to know that thoughts and emotions, feelings can pass. It’s an experience that has to be developed over time. And that has to be cultivated over time through meditation, through mindfulness. And it’s very hard to actually believe it until you experience it. I can tell you 10 times, let it pass, let it pass. You have the ability to let it pass, but until you experience it, you’re not fully going to internalize it and believe it.
ADAM: Right. And it goes to what you were saying earlier about being more proactive, less reactive.
ELI: Exactly.
ADAM: Okay. That was a great exercise.
ELI: The next exercise, which I mentioned a little bit earlier is a more advanced breathing technique. Now, children and adolescents can engage in this. I’ve used it with especially adolescents and it’s been very effective. It’s called box breathing. And so what box breathing is essentially is the reason it’s called box breathing is because there’s four parts to it, like the four corners of a box. The first part is inhaling through your nose for four seconds. But where it gets a little bit more advanced is that we hold our breath after we inhale for another four seconds. Then we exhale through our mouth for four seconds and then hold again before breathing in for four seconds. Okay. Okay. And so we can go through that cycle a bunch of times. In reality, you can do it as many times as you need in order to feel relaxed. Some people will feel relaxed after one or two cycles. Some people might need to do 10 or even more, but you have to find what works for you. Okay. Okay. So we’ll start and just follow my lead. And then we’ll get to a point where we’re just doing it together without me leading the exercise. Okay. So let’s start with breathing for four seconds through our nose. One, two, three, four. Now hold for four seconds. One, two, three, four. Now exhale through your mouth for four, two, three, four. Now before breathing and hold again for four. Two, three, four. Let’s do it one more time. Inhale through your nose for four, one, two, three, four. Hold for four, one, two, three, four. Exhale through your mouth for four, one, two, three, four. And then hold again before breathing in for four, two, three, four. Now let’s do it one more time without my guidance just to get the full effects of the breathing exercise. Okay. So we’ll continue by breathing in. Now exhale and hold. And let’s try it one more time. For your nose.
SPEAKER_03: Hold.
ADAM: Exhale.
ELI: And hold.
None: Okay.
ELI: How are you feeling after this exercise? Good. Is it any different than the first exercise?
ADAM: The holding of the breath is interesting. There’s something about that tension between breathe, hold your breath, breathe, hold your breath that I find more regulatory for my system.
ELI: That’s my experience too is the holding of the breath makes the lightheadedness and the relaxation more pronounced. And I find it to be more effective. But again, it’s hard to say and what works for one person might not work for another.
So it’s great to have those two different options.
ELI: Another exercise that I especially recommend for children, but it can also be used for adults when they’re struggling with anxiety, when they’re struggling with emotional dysregulation, is a really simple technique, but can be highly effective. And it’s called the 5-4-3-2-1 senses exercise. Okay. So the way it works is we bring our attention to the five senses. First, we start with paying attention to five things that we can see. Then we bring awareness to four things that we can hear. Then three things that we can feel. Two things that we can smell and one thing that we can taste. Okay. Okay. So let’s put ourselves in a scenario where right now we’re feeling acutely distressed. And we’re not sure how to relax ourselves. We’re not feeling in the mood to do breathing. What can we do to ground ourselves, to bring ourselves more in the present moment using an exercise that’s more accessible? And so let’s try this together.
ADAM: And I just want to comment before we do. Sometimes when you bring yourself to the present, it’s impossible to harp on that thought or emotion you were harping on before you became present.
ELI: Exactly. And that’s ultimately the purpose of it is to immediately draw your attention outside of your body into the physical space that you’re in. It’s a distraction in some ways. Sure. And it can be really helpful, especially when someone is struggling, it can be a child like we said or an adult. So why don’t we go through this exercise together, Adam? Yeah. Let’s start with five things that you can see in the room.
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
ADAM: I can see the plant in the corner of the room. I can see the white cushioned panel behind you. I can see the glasses on your face. I can see the microphone in front of you. And I can see your coffee.
ELI: Great. Now let’s move on to the next stage. What are four things that you can hear?
ADAM: Well, I was just hearing the sound of your voice. Right now I’m hearing the sound of my voice and my headphones. I’m also hearing a whirring in the headphones. Could be related to the AC in the room. I’m hearing the tapping of your fingers on the table.
ELI: Okay. That’s great. Now three things that you can feel.
ADAM: I can feel my fingertips. My two hands are touching right now. I can feel my forearms resting on my legs. And I can feel my feet on the floor.
ELI: Perfect. Now what are two things that you can smell in the room?
ADAM: I’m going to reach for my tea. Perfect. Not sure if that was taste or smell, but I’m going to say both. I’m going to use that for both, my tea.
ELI: That’s perfect. I can also smell your tea. And the last one is you tasted one thing, which is your tea. Correct. I want you to reflect on this experience. How are you feeling right now in comparison to the way you were feeling right before going through this exercise?
ADAM: I feel wonderful right now. There’s no conversation happening in my head. I feel still. I feel calm. I feel good.
ELI: That’s great. And I think what you said at first that there’s no conversation in your head is one of the most important parts. This is a perfect exercise for getting outside of our heads, for getting outside of our minds and the anxiety that can be caused by our minds and throwing ourselves into the outside world and into our physical experience. Yeah, that was great. And so it’s a really simple technique. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 senses exercise. It could be used for all ages, but I highly recommend it, especially for children. They’re feeling emotionally dysregulated, feeling anxious, getting stuck in their thoughts. Now the last exercise that takes a little bit more time, but can be really helpful, is what we call visualization. This is another type of mindfulness that I enjoy practicing. And I use it in my private practice with therapy clients, especially because it can be really, really effective. I’m very excited for this. You’re the therapy client for today. Yeah. So this is called the relaxing, safe place visualization. Essentially what we’re going to do is we’re going to visualize a safe place. When we’re feeling very unsafe, very out of control of our bodies, it can be helpful to visualize the exact opposite of that and go to our safe space and retreat a little bit so that we can help regulate ourselves better and make better decisions in our lives. So you can close your eyes or keep them open, whatever you’re comfortable with, closing my eyes and make sure that you’re sitting fully straight with your feet on the floor. And I want you to start by taking a few breaths, deep breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth. And I want you to become aware of any tension in your body, any tension in your mind. And do your best to let that tension go. Okay. Imagine a place where you feel completely calm, peaceful and safe. It may be a place you’ve been to before, somewhere that you’ve always dreamed of going to, a place that you’ve seen a picture of, or just a peaceful place that you can create with your own imagination. I want you to vividly imagine being in that place. And I want you to look around in that environment that you’re in and notice the colors and the shapes. What else do you notice? Are there objects there? Are there other people? Animals? Are you alone? Is there nature in the environment? Whatever environment that you chose, you feel completely at peace and relaxed. Take a few more breaths in and out. And now I want you to notice the sounds that are around you, or perhaps the silence. Notice sounds that are far away or much closer to you. Notice the sounds that are really noticeable and the sounds that are more subtle. Be aware of all of the noise, all of the sounds in your peaceful and calming environment. Now take a few more breaths, exhaling all of the stress, all of the negative energy that you have stored in your body. And now notice any smells? Are there smells coming from your body? Smells coming from other individuals or other living things in your safe space? Are there smells coming from food, from trees, flowers, whatever is in your safe environment? Notice the smells that are coming from them. Take a few more breaths and then focus on any physical sensations, especially the ones on your skin, that you’re experiencing in your safe and calming place. You can feel the earth or the ground beneath you or whatever is supporting you in that place. Notice the temperature. Is it hot? Is it cold? Is it a medium temperature? Is there any movement in the air? Is it very windy? Is it still? And notice anything else in your environment that you can touch, that you can feel. Take a few more deep breaths, exhaling the last remnants of any stress, of any tension, and feel completely at ease and relaxed. Finally, notice any pleasant physical sensations in your body while you enjoy dwelling in this safe and comfortable space. Is there tingling in your body? Are there any movements in your body? You can even do a quick body scan, bringing your awareness from head to toe, noticing all the different parts of your physical body and how they feel. Now while you’re in this peaceful and safe place, you might choose to give it a name, whether it’s one word or a phrase that you can use to bring that image, that safe space back anytime you need it. You can choose to linger and to dwell in this space for a few more minutes, enjoying the peacefulness and the serenity, and you can leave the space whenever you want to, just by opening your eyes and being aware of where you are. We can slowly bring you back to awareness and bring yourself back to the present moment sitting here in this recording studio. You can feel the floor beneath your feet. You can feel the chair that you’re sitting on, the desk that’s in front of us, and slowly open your eyes when you’re ready. Welcome back, Adam.
ADAM: Wow.
ELI: So how are you doing after that experience? What was that like for you? That was an escape. I’m not sure escape is the right word for it because sometimes people can think about an escape as a way of running away from our emotions and our feelings. It is a way of, in some ways, getting away from our emotions, but I think in a healthy and adaptive way rather than some other ways that we might cope with difficult emotions that are really not great for us. And what was the emotional experience that came with that imagery?
ADAM: The emotional experience was stillness, calmness, happiness. I felt a relaxing in my gut, which I guess is a spot where I keep tension when I’m stressed.
ELI: As an aside, the gut is very much connected to our emotional state. A requirement for having a healthy gut is having good mental health, feeling relaxed, dealing with our stress in a positive way.
And our gut can get really messed up when we’re flooded with negative emotions.
ADAM: Anything else you want to leave our listeners with before we move away from these exercises?
ELI: I think the most important part to take into account when it comes to these exercises and mindfulness in general is that mindfulness can be adapted to any single person with their specific needs. So we went through four different exercises today. There are dozens, even more than dozens of exercises that can be used in practicing mindfulness. And you have to find what works best for you. What works for you might not work best for your spouse or work best for your friend or for your child. Everyone has to make mindfulness their own and to take time to explore that.
ADAM: So we’ve talked a lot about the children themselves, the parents, and now wondering about schools and teachers, therapists, providers. What can they do to incorporate more mindfulness practices in a way that will be beneficial to special needs children?
ELI: There are a lot of resources out there for school-based mindfulness activities. I highly recommend looking into CASEL. CASEL is one of the more renowned school psychology websites with cutting-edge research on what’s most effective in a range of challenges when it comes to schooling and education. But they have some great mindfulness practices that you can use in the classroom. I also think it’s really important to have a school psychologist involved or a social worker that has experience with mindfulness, figuring out how to tailor mindfulness interventions to the classroom depending on the needs of the students, depending on the environment of the school, the age, range of the students, the socioeconomic background and what they’re capable of participating in. But there are many, many different types of mindfulness-based interventions that can be used in schools.
ADAM: And how does one assess if a person is making progress toward more mindful practices or with mindfulness practices?
ELI: Typically, the goal is for it to reflect in the way that we behave, to reflect in our actions. But that can take some time. And so having follow-up conversations over time, if you’re in a private practice and I’m seeing a patient, I might want to have conversations with them throughout the different sessions that we have after using mindfulness techniques to understand the internal impact that it’s having on the individual. Are they really experiencing the power of mindfulness? Are they understanding what the exercise is supposed to be doing? And then ultimately, how that can lead to changes in behavior, changes in, you know, reduction in stress, reduction in impulsivity and emotional dysregulation, reduction in inattentiveness. And so I think it has to be an ongoing conversation, whether it’s in a school, conversations with students in a classroom or individual setting, whether it’s in individual therapy, or whether it’s a conversation between friends, really going through the process and understanding how over time mindfulness can go from some technique that you’re practicing to a really life-altering experience.
ADAM: Excellent. Thank you. If you wrap up, where can our listeners learn more about your work?
ELI: You can reach out to me via my email, Dr. Eli Cramm. Eli’s E-L-I-K-R-A-I-M at gmail.com. My office number is 646-470-3660. And you can always reach out to me on LinkedIn as well. And I hope to have a website up in the next couple of weeks. We’re just working on that internally. Excellent.
ADAM: Eli, thank you so much for coming on our podcast to talk about the subject of mindfulness. You’ve been a great guest and I know our conversation here today will help others, adults and children alike to discover the benefits of mindfulness for themselves.
ELI: Thank you very much for having me, Adam. It was a pleasure.
ADAM: It’s been a pleasure.
None: Thank you.
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