26 Feb 21 – Mindfulness

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are well and moving swiftly up the vaccination list.

Don’t worry if not though, because you know that Mindfulness thing that everyone’s doing, I was told that could help you stay calm until it’s your turn. I thought I’d give it a go, but then I listened to a podcast that, I’m paraphrasing, said mindfulness makes your brain smaller and thicker. That’s one thing I can’t afford to happen. Here’s a scan I had a few years ago.

But then this happened. I dropped my phone down the toilet. I had finished what I was doing but it wasn’t yet flushed and when I reached over for some toilet paper, the toilet roll hung paperless from its hook. The act of stretching caused one of those sharp pains in your neck that you know will make you look left like C3PO for a week. My amygdala exploded, which looked something like this:

What I could’ve done with at that point, so I didn’t have to pick my ears off the floor, was a smaller amygdala. Because, I’m told, that tiny little character sitting in your brain is the master of emotion and it likes to kick off. This leads me to believe my daughter is one giant amygdala.

The problem is, I know I was stressed when my phone plopped (pun intended) into the toilet, but I wasn’t impaled on the tusk of a woolly mammoth, like the good old days – so a little less fight or flight emotion would have been nice. And apparently, that’s where mindfulness comes in.

Sitting thinking of nowt, reduces the size of your amygdala and thickens your cortex to make you more empathic. So I fished my phone out and sat down until my brain got smaller and thicker. Didn’t take too long. Then I tested out my new tiny amygdala by phoning the insurance company. One thing’s for sure, when I eventually got through, the guy I spoke to was certainly into mindfulness, his brain was definitely small and thick.

Sorry, call centre person, didn’t mean it. However, I did discover that phone slamming isn’t what it used to be

That’s it once again. To finish, I tried to think of a mindfulness sketch, and I apologise in advance for this attempt, but that’s all I could come up with.

No need to laugh out loud.

Have a good weekend.

Take care and all the best,

Ian