Originating in eastern spiritual traditions such as Buddhism, mindfulness emphasizes a non-judgmental awareness of bodily sensations, sights, sounds, thoughts and emotions. Mindfulness had been incorporated into psychotherapy models such as DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) and is one of the cornerstones of a behavior therapy called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or ACT. There is growing evidence that ACT may be effective treatment for OCD symptoms.
There are a couple of ways in which mindfulness can help cope with OCD. First, passively focusing on distressing or disturbing thoughts may act as a form of exposure to feared obsessions. As you get used to simply noticing, rather than acting on feared obsessions, distress levels go down. This exposure can also eventually lead to less thought suppression, which further reduces anxiety. Mindfulness may also help you become less “invested” in your thoughts and help you to realize that a thought is just a collection of words or images and is nothing to fear in itself. This can help to reduce thought-action fusion; a psychological process that can make OCD symptoms worse
Developing mindfulness skills require practice and can be acquired through a number of different exercises. Most mindfulness exercises typically involve adopting a relaxed position (usually sitting in a chair with one’s eyes closed) while focusing on breathing. When attention invariably wanders from one’s breathing to thoughts or sensations, you are to acknowledge these thoughts and sensations, let them go and then non-judgmentally refocuses your attention on breathing. This is usually repeated for 20 minutes or longer. The point of many mindfulness exercises is to create a mindful state in which you are fully engaged in the present moment, without judgment or evaluation or looking to the future or past.
