• Visit Dr. Penman’s website and connect on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Joe Sanok 00:00:00  You're someone with a vision for your practice, for your side hustle, and for your personal journey. But when it comes to establishing your path and how to get to where you want to be with your practice, things get a little messy. You're also someone who'd prefer to go in person instead of to groups and listening to everyone else's story. To me, it sounds like you could benefit from one on one consulting with our experienced practice of the practice consultants from 595 a month and up, you can work with a consultant that will give you more direction and practical, tried and tested tips matched to you and your goals. For more information, visit practice of the practice. Com forward slash apply. Again, that's practice of the practice. Com forward slash apply. This is the practice of the practice podcast with Joe Sarna session number 1176. I'm Joe Stanek, your host, and welcome to the practice of the Practice Podcast, where we help you build a thriving private practice that you absolutely love. And this month, we're digging into better mental wellness.

Joe Sanok 00:01:16  We want to improve our own mental wellness, help our clients mental wellness be able to just be better people in the world. And this whole month, we're talking with people that are digging into all sorts of different areas around that. And so in our very first episode, we looked at research and psychedelic assisted therapy. In the last one we talked about self-compassion, and today we're talking mindfulness. And so I'm really excited about this. I started I've tried to meditate for a long time. I've tried to be mindful it didn't click for a long time. And then, I started trying Sam Harris's, Waking Up app. And that was really helpful to just help me learn some of the techniques, to get to a point where I could just meditate and, you know, on a good week. I might do it four days a week. On a week when I'm just not paying attention to it, maybe I'll fit in one. But it's one of those things that I know that especially when things are stressful for me, has helped me return to being grounded and to return to a basic acceptance of just life, being busy, of life, you know, kind of going by and letting these thoughts maybe not run through as quickly.

Joe Sanok 00:02:21  So that's why I'm so excited about my current guest today, Doctor Danny Penman. And Doctor Danny Penman has a new book called Deeper Mindfulness, and he is a mindfulness teacher and bestselling author. He is co-author, with professor Mark Williams of Oxford University, of the 2 million selling mindfulness and eight Week plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World. This book is credited with popularizing mindfulness and is now prescribed across the UK's National Health Service for such conditions as anxiety, stress, depression and chronic pain. In 2014, he won the British Medical Association's Sorry, the British Medical Association's best Popular Medicine Award for mindfulness for health a practical guide to Relieving pain, reducing stress and Restoring Wellbeing. Co-written and his journalism has appeared in the Daily Mail, New Science, The Independent, The Guardian and Daily Telegraph. Danny, welcome to the practice of the Practice podcast.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:03:17  Oh, thank you for inviting me.

Joe Sanok 00:03:20  Yeah, I mean, I feel like mindfulness right now is something that most of our listeners have heard of, but you guys were doing this work well before it was popularized as much in Western culture.

Joe Sanok 00:03:31  How did you first get into mindfulness?

Dr. Danny Penman 00:03:33  Well, mine's, quite an odd and a painful story as to how I first came across it. I used to be a very keen paraglider pilot, and, I used to. I mean, it was pretty much every week you'd find me somewhere over southern England flying my my paraglider. And then one day I was flying over a range of hills called the Cotswolds and it was absolutely perfect day. But I was flying along right on the edge of the hills and my canopy collapsed. and I tumbled headlong into the hillside below. I fell initially about 70ft. I inflated the canopy and then it collapsed again. And, then I slammed into the hillside at high speed, and luckily I landed on my feet. But unluckily, the lower half of my right leg was driven through the knee and into my thigh. so I was absolutely smashed to pieces. So I was lying there on the hillside, completely unable to breathe. And I was genuinely thinking, you know, I felt as if I was, like, wrapped in cotton wool.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:04:58  Everything was really hazy. And I simply could not breathe. I just wondered. These. My final moments. It was very dispassionate thought. I just remembered very clearly. And I suddenly thought, no, I've got to get a grip. I've got to take control of this situation. And then I as I tried to do that, I was hit by the most unimaginable pain. and, you know, I it was just an awful situation. And suddenly I remembered a form of meditation that I'd learned when I was about 16 or 17 years old. And it was a very simple breathing meditation. And I'd used it over the years to, cope with the usual stresses and strains of life exams, work situations, you know, the normal things we all go through from time to time. Typically, I would meditate Tight for over a short period of time. 20 minutes maybe. for a few days, the situation would resolve itself, and then I'd just stop doing it. And somewhere along the line, I'd heard that meditation was good for pain relief.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:06:16  So in absolute desperation, I used it to try and control this unbelievable pain I was experiencing and this very simple breathing meditation. You know, I just took control of my breath and astonishingly, the pain began to recede. It was like as if it becomes separated from me in some way, and it allowed me to cope with the situation, to call for an ambulance, for example, and generally just, you know, keep things together long enough for an ambulance to arrive. And then I spent a month in hospital and I had three major operations, And I had what's known as a tailor spacial frame fitted to my leg. And this was an extraordinary device. It looked straight out of the Middle Ages. It was, 4 or 5 concentric rings around the outside of my leg, titanium rings, and there was 16 wires and bolts that went from one side to the frame through a fragment of bone and out the other side. And this allowed the surgeon to move the bone, fragment the fragments of bone around inside my leg so that they could heal optimally.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:07:35  And this was this is about 15 or 16 years ago. So it's actually a relatively new technique. Then it was it had come out of the experimental stage, but there's only a handful of hospitals around the world that use this technique. So I was kind of slightly a guinea pig, really. much to my surprise, you know, I managed to control the pain through these meditations. Very simple breathing meditations. and I managed to reduce my painkiller intake by about two thirds, and, I was quite often offered anti-anxiety medication and antidepressants, and I successfully just said, look, you know, I'm dealing with this in my own way. you know, I think it's entirely reasonable to feel very unhappy and anxious and a little bit stressed in this situation, so I'm just going to get through it. So I did lots and lots of daily meditations and much to my surprise, my healing rate sped up enormously. So much so that I was I had this frame removed from my leg after five and a half months.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:08:56  Initially they said I would have the frame on my leg for 20 to 24 months and, but my, my body healed so fast and so well that, you know, they removed it in a third of the normal time, a quarter of the normal time. And, you know, I put this down in large part to, the to the meditations because it allowed my body to just heal at the optimal rate. Because if you're highly stressed, depressed or anxious, this really impacts the body's healing mechanisms. So, as if my body was released to just get on with with what it did best, you know? Yeah. And then eventually.

Joe Sanok 00:09:39  As I hear that, you know, like, the audience knows that, you know, since October of 2022 and I got salmonella in Mexico. I've been dealing for the last over two years at this point, with different like, I've had three emergency surgeries from kind of what that did to my gut and my bowels and like, there's just like, all these different, like, types of therapies that I've been in.

Joe Sanok 00:10:01  And it's like, you know, I've mostly viewed meditation as being primarily like, there's not a lot of pain with, with my medical stuff going on, but I've primarily viewed it as emotional, that like, you know, if I'm going to have a really busy week or, you know, go into mediation with my, my ex or something like that, that it helps me stay emotionally grounded. the idea that maybe that could also have those physical changes, like, I know that your new book, that just came out, so deeper mindfulness, deeper mindfulness, kind of goes past where you guys went, where you and Mark went with mindfulness and eight week plan, that that you've spent this time doing extra research, you know, analyzing. can you talk specifically about what you're seeing in the research around kind of physical changes based on meditation and maybe the research isn't there? But for me, just personally, that sounds like an interesting area to, to start with, to dig into. Yeah, well.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:11:01  Mindfulness in the broadest sense, but especially, courses or programs based on mindfulness based cognitive therapy or MKT are at least as good as, medicine or counseling for the treatment of the worst forms of anxiety, stress and depression. You know, there's a massive body of research now showing that that's the case. and, you know, it's it's we always say it's at least as good as but, you know, there's a lot of research saying it's the best form of therapy out there. And for me, the most important thing in the world is to get these ideas out to as many people as possible. because for too long, a lot of this initial research was done in the, in the 90s and early noughties. is obviously academically based. It was all built on the work of, John Kabat-Zinn. the Mathematical Center. He was the first one, really. He weaponized it, as it were, for the treatment of, stress, and then came along with mindfulness based cognitive therapy and built on that work and kind of modified it mostly for depression.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:12:18  And for us, it was very important to find out, you know, is he is it possible to actually, improve on these techniques or, you know, what was special about what is special about mindfulness that makes it so effective? And it turns out that mindfulness and actually all forms of counseling, teach you that, just step back from your thoughts is called metacognition so that you learn to see, distressing states of mind as, as, like, clouds in the sky. You know the sky remains, but these dark clouds appear. And what tends to happen is, you know, we get wrapped up in the clouds and don't see the sky, for example. in technical parlance, it's known as decentering. So your stop being wrapped up in your own internal mind state and begin to see your thoughts, feelings, and emotions as more transient. You know, they might reflect accurately what's going on in the world, in the world and in your mind and in your body. Or they could be just transient, you know, literally wait a few moments and, a different state of mind, will appear.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:13:43  now, that sounds slightly flippant, as if I'm saying somebody who's suffering from depression just needs to pull themselves together, you know, develop a stiff upper lip, you know, and get a grip of the situation. But actually it's just really an insight into how the most effective treatments work. You know, it's this process of decentering, that you don't associate too closely with one particular thought that appears in your mind. And what this allows you to do is if you have a negative thought, for example, that will trigger more negative thoughts and states of mind and and body as well. So you end up in these vicious downward spirals. But if you can mentally step back from them, that gives you a lot more control over the situation. You know, you don't become quite so enmeshed in your unhappiness. And, you know, it's just extremely effective.

Joe Sanok 00:14:45  So how do you apply that to, you know, it could be one of many situations in our world. It could be, you know, the environmental changes through global warming.

Joe Sanok 00:14:54  It could be political turmoil. It could be. I mean, all sorts of different things that you could pick pick your pick your pick your, things that's freaking you out. and a lot of those are genuine concerns, you know, I mean, when you look at research around, like, say, global warming, there's big concerns there when you look at, the ways that nations interact with each other, there's genuine concerns that, you know, people's rights are being taken away or things like that. How do you apply this way of looking at negative thoughts as clouds, when there's also things that are genuine concerns, and it could even be in your own family, genuine concerns like an ailing parent or things like that. So how do you mesh the real life experiences and worries of people with a lightness of mindfulness?

Dr. Danny Penman 00:15:42  Well, it's really about effectiveness. if global warming is something we need to be concerned about, there are a great many things that happen that actually you do need to be concerned about and you need to deal with them.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:15:57  But if you let the negativity consume you, you will not make good decisions. what concerns me most about global the global warming debate, for example, is it's a serious problem. It is starting to be dealt with. but I'm very concerned that people are so worried about it that they end up in a state of chronic anxiety and depression about it, and that is not a good state of mind to be in, because you're not going to be effective. Do you know what I mean? If you're paralyzed by indecision or unhappiness, you will not be as effective as somebody who goes, yeah, this is a problem. We need to deal with it. And this is how I am going to deal with it, because everybody can play a part in even the biggest and most difficult problems like global warming. And so the way I see it is, it's like. strategic acceptance of the situation. So if you imagine if you're a general that's involved in a vicious war, the battle is not going in your favor.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:17:06  you could get depressed about that, or you could take mentally take a step back, assess the strategic situation, accept the terrible situation, and then you can make plans for how you can turn the situation around. So mindfulness gives you that that kind of acceptance. So it's acceptance rather than resignation. Resignation bad. Acceptance. Good.

Joe Sanok 00:17:32  It reminds me of how, kind of famously, Winston Churchill during World War Two would have his non-negotiable afternoon nap that it's like, if I'm going to go to war and make good decisions, I need to have a nap in the afternoon. And I think about how most people, if they were in charge of that many people, if they were in charge of that much strategy during World War two, how difficult that would be to even take a nap. And that idea that to be your best self, you need to be grounded. You need to be able to make good decisions. not in like, a mental tailspin.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:18:04  Oh, absolutely. I mean, I personally think we all work far too hard.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:18:11  we get wrapped up in our own troubles and the troubles of the workplace, and that stopped stops us being from effective as well as being unhappy. Of course.

Joe Sanok 00:18:28  Listen, I didn't take insurance in my counseling practice because I had no idea how to handle it. The process of accepting insurance outside of a group practice can be tough, but most people looking for mental health care want to use their benefits to pay for sessions. If you're like me and you feel a little scared about taking insurance, or you just want to make it easier on yourself and you're interested in seeing clients through insurance, alma can help. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates. They also handle all the paperwork from eligibility checks to claim submission and guaranteed payment within two weeks. Plus, when you join Almah, you'll get access to time saving tools for intake scheduling, treatment plans, progress notes and more in their included platform. It's going to make it so much easier for your team, so you can spend less time on administrative work and more time offering great care to your clients.

Joe Sanok 00:19:21  Visit. Hello alma.com/jo. That's hello alma com slash Joe to get started. Now if we're looking at so we have a lot of people that probably have done work around mindfulness and maybe are teaching their clients around that. what else is the research pointing to and what are kind of some best practices that we could employ?

Dr. Danny Penman 00:19:46  Well, the best practice is, I believe kind of short and simple ones. So, you know, ten, 20 minute practices focused on the breath or the body. a far more effective if you do them on a daily basis or five, six days a week, then going to a retreat once a year and meditating ten hours a day, you know, or even trying to meditate for an hour a day. I mean, those are all ideals, you know, these are that would be great to do, but people don't. None of us really live in that world where we can take that amount of time off each day. So it's the micro practices really that are most effective.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:20:30  So stuff like if you're going into a difficult meeting or situation, you know, just for a few moments, closing your eyes, focusing on the sensations of your feet on the floor or the sensations of the as in your chest as you breathe in and out. just doing that for a few moments in a stressful situation. Can, you know, clarify the mind enormously and prepare you to deal with a difficult situation. And then maybe every hour or so, just closing your eyes and doing a practice for a minute or so, just a very simple breathing practice and, you know, maybe start the day with a ten minute practice or end the day with a ten minute practice, or when you come home from work. It's those small practices that are so powerful when you repeat them on a daily basis, you know?

Joe Sanok 00:21:30  Yeah, that idea of kind of doing it on small steps in the right direction. yeah. That's what that's what our whole January series was about. It was called Even Better Year, and it was the idea of small steps in the right direction.

Joe Sanok 00:21:42  Do it consistently. you're going to see more results from that than New Year's resolutions like you typically give up on by February 1st.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:21:49  Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's very daunting for many people. The idea of meditating for 45 minutes a day in one block. You know, there's not many people who have that time available. So it is far more productive to just say, right, how much time do I have available? And it might only be ten minutes, or it might be half a dozen points in the day where you can spend a minute. You know, it's those tiny practices, and it's also things like savoring the little moments of every day, you know, cups of coffee, really tasting the coffee or the tea, or if you're eating chocolate, whatever your favorite foods are, really focus on the sensations and the tastes and the textures. You know, it's what makes life worth living. It's those little tiny things and we just lose lose track of them.

Joe Sanok 00:22:48  Yeah. Recently I've been trying to when I'm either like doing the dishes or folding laundry kind of things that a typical single parent would be like, man, I don't want to do this.

Joe Sanok 00:22:59  do you just think about, okay, these are clothes that are going on my kid's backs. They're keeping them warm. They're allowing them to play and not get hurt, or these are dishes that they are going to eat off, or I'll eat off, or friends or a host and, like, just allowing myself to try to be appreciative or not even appreciative to just realize that the reason that I have dirty dishes is because I have meals, and the reason I have dirty clothes is that we have clothes. And just allowing myself to kind of sit in that a little bit more for you personally, like, what is your meditation practice look like now? And maybe, you know, how has that changed over the last 20 years or so?

Dr. Danny Penman 00:23:38  I, a time now, I actually tend to do more of those shorter practices. when I was recovering from my flying accident, I would actually do a number 3 or 4 times a day, a very sustained practices of 30 or 40 minutes. Now, I tend to really pay attention to what's going on in the world around me.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:24:04  I've got two young kids, and I walk my eight year old son to school every morning, and I really look around me and point things out to him and engage in conversations so that we really connect. and then on the way home, I might just drop in at a park, sit on a bench and focus on the sounds that are going on around me, the sounds of the city. And you'll often notice small, unexpected things like birdsong in the middle of a city. You know, things you don't expect. And I now, because I'm writing hopefully a new book. I will write in this sound strange 56 minute blocks. Right? So I set a timer for 56 minutes. When that 56 minutes is up, I will then meditate for a few minutes. make a cup of coffee and come back and do the same again. And, you know, I will then try and fit in a longer practice at the end of the day, the end of the working day. and I just find that it fits in more easily with, with my lifestyle at the moment.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:25:17  because it's very important that any practices that you do are kind of consistent with your overall life, you know, because otherwise it's just going to fall by the wayside, you know, and I think it's so important to be kind of kind towards yourself, because if you're constantly criticizing yourself for not practicing enough, or for long enough, you just hitting yourself with a stick for no real reason, and that will kick start a whole negative chain of thoughts. And before you know it, ten 20 minutes, maybe hours have slipped by and actually you could use that time to meditate instead, you know? So, always be kind to yourself. Always understand why you can't meditate in one particular moment, you know, and just kind of gently resolve to yourself that, yeah, I'm going to do this at 3:00 this afternoon or 5:00 or 8:00, whatever it is, you know, give yourself be kind to yourself and give yourself permission to do it for 10 or 20 minutes later in the day.

Joe Sanok 00:26:24  yeah. For me, it's finding what's easy and then kind of builds momentum where I enjoy it, where it's like, oh, that, that felt good.

Joe Sanok 00:26:34  Like, what can I do? So that idea of doing ten minutes here or 20 minutes there, or going into a tough situation and saying, okay, I'm going to do it in this situation, to find those micro moments. you know, it reminds me of a research study on vigilance decrement. that was at the University of Illinois. And they looked at, you know, what, the impact of a one minute break every 20 minutes on students. And they gave him this, like, super boring task of having four digit numbers that they had to find, like, you know, they're just sitting at a computer for an hour looking at four digit numbers. it's super boring. So the amount they paid attention at the beginning was better than how they paid attention at the end. So they had vigilance. The amount we pay attention decrement going down. Whereas then with the second group, what they did is at the 20 minute mark, they gave them a one minute break and no screens, no TV, no magazines, just like a one minute break to stand up.

Joe Sanok 00:27:28  And then at the 40 minute mark, they did the same thing and they found there was zero vigilance decrement at the end of that time. And so even just thinking about from a productivity standpoint, our brains need these breaks. Our brains need to to have this disruption, to have us just think about something different. I mean, the amount of times I've done a Sudoku puzzle and been stuck, like there's no obvious numbers here, and I walk away and come to it the next day and it's like, oh my gosh, that seven was just sitting there. And they're like, yeah, why did I not see that? And it seems like, you know, what's interesting about doing so many of these types of interviews is, you know, there's there's kind of the side of like, say, mindfulness, which you've researched and wrote about, and then there will be other things that it's almost like it's talking about the same thing that happens in the brain, which might be flow state. It might just be like our default mode network.

Joe Sanok 00:28:18  It might be, you know, just there's all sorts of words that we can use for it, but that it's just saying like, how are we just like more content with ourselves? How are we able to live life and say we get to be human? We have these intrusive thoughts that come and we're not going to judge those, but we're also going to not let them just stick around like a bad roommate. and just how do we just allow ourselves to experience being human for good and for bad, and to have a lightness around that? how does that sit with you hearing that?

Dr. Danny Penman 00:28:47  Well, I think that is completely and utterly true. I mean, the thing to remember about mindfulness is its benefits accrue over the days and the weeks and the months and the years. you know, you can meditate once and whilst you're doing that meditation for a very short period of time, afterwards you will feel calmer, you know? but each day that passes your brain, the software in your brain really rewires itself so that that calmer, more tranquil state of mind sticks around for longer and it's easier to attain as well.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:29:26  So you can try and rush it. Or you can just say, look, this is this is a long term project. Today is the day where I begin to improve my life. I'm not making radical changes, but each one is a tiny step. And, you know, when I look back in a week, I'll notice some improvements. when I look back in a month, in a year or five years, you know, you will notice very significant improvements. And that's the most important thing in the world is to realize this is it's a long road. it sounds like a cliche, but, you know, you just it's just you have to make baby steps forward and then look back and you realize how far you've come.

Joe Sanok 00:30:09  So awesome. Danny. the last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?

Dr. Danny Penman 00:30:18  Meditation is the most effective, virtually the most effective treatment that's been devised for anxiety, stress and depression. And, you know, I luckily learned in school, I really wish everybody could learn it in school as well.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:30:34  but if you're 80 years old, you can still learn it today.

Speaker 3 00:30:38  So awesome.

Joe Sanok 00:30:39  Well, if people want to get your book, if they want to connect with you, where should we send them?

Dr. Danny Penman 00:30:43  the best is where I house all of my free to download and stream meditations, which is frantic. Worldcom. That's frantic Worldcom. have a little look around. You'll see the resources section. and all the meditations from all of my books are there and start simply do something like the chocolate meditation, which is all a always a favorite, and breathing meditations, breath and body meditations. They're so simple to do, you know, just download them streaming and whatever you do just, just today, just go and do one of them and, you know, take that first step because it really is it's an amazingly effective technique. So it's frantic. Worldcom.

Joe Sanok 00:31:33  Danny, thank you so much for being on the practice of the practice podcast.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:31:38  That's that's fine. I mean, I just, you know, I will talk about this forever because I just think it's so important that people learn these techniques.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:31:46  I'm a bit of an evangelist for them.

Joe Sanok 00:31:48  Yeah. Well, thanks so much for being on the show.

Dr. Danny Penman 00:31:50  Thank you.

Joe Sanok 00:31:57  And you know, in my own life, those small steps in the right direction, have personally been more my way of approaching things. there's times when I'm energized. There's times when I have new ideas. Let's run full tilt towards it. And I think that's important to you to have those bursts of energy, but also to realize, you know that phrase that I first heard Gary Vaynerchuk say, I don't know if that's where it originates, but, you know, he said people overestimate what they can do in a year, but they underestimate what they can do in a decade. Now, having had this podcast for over a decade and this website, to just see how there were times when I just wanted to give up, it felt like, is anybody listening to this? Like, what is why isn't this catching on more? And as we see people join our memberships, as we see people do consulting with us and then come back years later.

Joe Sanok 00:32:45  It's like that just like, okay, we're going to kind of keep our head down and just keep doing good work. to me, that also applies to the betterment of our health, of our minds, of the way that we approach the world. so this month we're talking all about having better mental wellness, excited about the guests that we have coming up. if you missed Marketing Month, that was last month. So, it was all about marketing. Tons of awesome interviews. You're going to want to go back and check out. and so also, if you need a website, we have a new partnership for one of our preferred providers. They're not a sponsor. There's just someone that we've got to know that a lot of you need websites. If you head on over to session sites that session cities.com. So session sites.com/joe you'll get a discount on that. They can get your website switched over in about 14 days. It's pretty amazing what they're doing over there. So session sites.com/joe thank you so much to alma for being our sponsor today.

Joe Sanok 00:33:38  You know I wish alma had been around when I had my private practice. I had no idea what I was doing. That's why I didn't take insurance. But if alma had been there, I would have. And there's no reason that as a clinician, you should be spending hours on paperwork to bill for insurance or not knowing for sure that you'll get reimbursed for sessions with your clients. If you're interested in seeing clients through insurance but don't want to navigate the process and paperwork on your own. Alma can help. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates and a guaranteed payment within two weeks. Visit. Hello, alma. Com slash Joe. That's. Hello, al McCombs Joe, to get started. Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have an amazing day. We'll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band silence sexy for that intro music. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered.

Joe Sanok 00:34:34  It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers or guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.