Mindfulness for Men Course Wrap Up

Congratulations, you’ve completed our Mindfulness for Men Course!

It takes considerable effort and commitment to practice mindfulness, and you are well on your way to incorporating mindfulness into your everyday life.

Mindfulness helps us become more aware of our thoughts and emotions, how they interact, and how they can affect our actions. By developing this awareness, we can also recognize the impermanence of our thoughts and emotions, which can help to reduce their intensity.

Mindfulness allows us to step back from our thoughts and emotions, without fighting them and getting stuck in negative spirals. We notice, acknowledge, then consciously decide what we want to do.

And even if/when we get too caught up to remember to step back from negative thoughts or emotions, we don’t get upset with ourselves – we don’t react to our reactivity. Instead, we notice, we learn, and we continue to grow. 

Mindfulness empowers us to cultivate the inner strength needed to stay composed and resolute in critical situations, even when faced with danger or grappling with unsettling thoughts and emotions. It fortifies our resilience, preparing us to face life’s challenges head-on.

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SUMMARY AND RECAP

Here’s a quick review of what we’ve learned. This page can serve as an index to bookmark in your browser and quickly reassess lessons and practices whenever you need. 

Lesson 1: Anchoring our Attention

Lesson 2: Body Awareness

Lesson 3: Stepping Back from Difficult Thoughts

Lesson 4: Developing Emotional Resilience

  • Explored the concept of responding to our internal experiences, whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, with equal interest and non-reactivity (equanimity). 
  • By cultivating equanimity in our daily lives, we increase our capacity to respond to difficult moments or situations in more skillful or appropriate ways, helping us to feel a greater sense of well-being, resilience and control over our lives. 
  • Guided Practices: Equanimity Practice
  • Daily Practice: Moment of Challenge Practice, Mindful Pause
  • Weekly Practice Sheet

CONTINUING YOUR PRACTICE

Depending on the pace you’ve followed, this may be your fourth week of mindfulness practice. Hopefully, you will have seen a difference in your mood and ability to handle intense thoughts and emotions. 

Mindfulness courses that have shown to be effective in research studies are typically eight week programs, so we invite you to continue to explore your mindfulness practice. This could look like:

  • Repeating the same four week cycle to further solidify your skills, and bring skills learned in later lessons to earlier guided practices. 
  • Choose your favourite practices to start doing regularly on a daily basis or a few times a week. 
  • Choose one guided practice per day, as well as one everyday practice, such as mindful walking.

Remember that mindfulness can be brought to any moment or activity – you could choose your own adventure, bringing mindfulness to a new daily activity each week. 

Mindfulness Therapy Programs 

For those of us who prefer more structure, it can be helpful to practice along with a mindfulness program, or in a community with other meditators, locally or online. Here are three evidence-based mindfulness programs for managing our thoughts and emotions.

Workbooks can be purchased from local or online book sellers, or may be available via your local public library.

  1. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT): For prevention of depression relapse and treating mood disorders.
    • Workbook: “The Mindful Way Workbook” by John Teasdale, Mark Williams, and Zindel Segal
    • Introduction to MBCT: The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness, by J. Mark G. Williams, John D. Teasdale, Zindel V. Segal PhD, Jon Kabat-Zinn
    • Learn more: Centre for Mindfulness Studies (Canada), UCSD Center for Mindfulness (US)
  2. Mindfulness-Integrated Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (MiCBT): For anxiety, depression, chronic pain, substance use, stress, relationship stressors, trauma, etc.
    • Workbook: “Mindfulness-integrated CBT for Well-Being and Personal Growth” by Bruno A. Cayoun
    • Learn more: MiCBT Institute
  3. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR): For general stress, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, etc.

NEXT STEPS

Mindfulness is a powerful and versatile tool for managing our thoughts and emotions. However, having other tools at our disposal helps us be even more prepared to handle difficult circumstances.

Check out these HeadsUpGuys Courses, which can help you develop a flexible and versatile range of strategies for effectively managing your mental health across a wide range of situations:

MANAGING ANGER AND IRRITABILITY

Man standing at group event

Anger is one of the few emotions many guys actually express, but it often done in a way that is destructive for ourselves and those around us.

This course, which includes interactive exercises, will equip you with the tools and strategies to effectively manage your anger in healthier and more constructive ways.

4-Part Course (15-30 min/part)

REWIRING NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

Asian man with short hair

Mental health issues can really mess with our heads.

Cognitive restructuring is a powerful technique that can help us take control of our thoughts, emotions, and overall mindset.

This course includes interactive exercises and examples that make it easier for us to apply these techniques in our everyday life.

4-Part Course (15-20 min/part)

Acknowledgement
Course content was developed by Dr. Andrea Grabovac and Hannah Marsh, in collaboration with the HeadsUpGuys team. Meditation practices are led by Dr. Thomas Stark.