In this IIL inclusion & diversity lecture Phil Toogood and Dr Clara Seeger will introduce mindfulness as a way of cultivating greater mental balance through establishing a new baseline of sanity beyond our habitual mental tendencies to be either task-focused or to fall into our default mode of rumination, obsessive thinking and mind wandering.

Phil and Dr Clara will outline addiction to stimulation and obsessive doing and illustrate, by way of neuroscience, the functioning as well as the limitation inherent in our brain’s executive centre. This part of the brain is involved in the task-positive network, i.e. wen we are consciously working on a task. It is energy-intensive and fatigues easily, shedding a new light on excessively long working days. Subsequently they will explain what happens in the brain when we are not focused on a specific task. We tend to ruminate, mind wander, fantasise, catastrophise, etc, often with a negative flavour. This is the baseline for most people and is called the Default Mode Network in neuroscience, a network that has been associated with several pathological mental conditions (Alzheimers, ADHD, etc).

They will then talk about mindfulness and its neural correlates as a difference mind mode, which has been associated with numerous health benefits for practitioners. Rather than being focused on obsessive doing or compulsive thinking, this practice engages the brain in a different way, its focus on ‘being’ rather than doing. The lecture will conclude with a guided mindfulness practice that can be practiced any time in order to cultivate a new, healthier baseline of the mind.

By the end of this lecture members will have gained an insight into:

• The perils of productivity: the limitations of our executive brain and the dangers inherent in working against your brain
• Why switching off is not always restful: the risks of a mind let loose
• How mindfulness can help us overcome the dysfunctions of our habitual mind and how to practise it