By ALANA RAYMAN
Beach resident Nancy Leach has recently released her latest book, The Mindful Boomer: Skills for Aging and Dying.
A Toronto psychotherapist with degrees in teaching and psychology, Leach is also a mediator, yoga practitioner and former director of the Hope Spring Cancer Support Centre in Waterloo.
She is also the author of the book The Body Means Well.
Leach said The Mindful Boomer is a guide for Baby Boomers who are entering their senior years on how to benefit from mindfulness.
“Baby Boomers will tell you that sometimes it feels more like rusting as chronic conditions make themselves known and felt,” said Leach of learning how to deal with the aging process.
She said that through mindful meditation, people can learn how to manage stress, anxiety and aches and pains associated with their aging bodies.
Just a few hours a week of quiet reflection can have significant mental health benefits, she said.
Studies using MRIs have shown that just eight minutes of mindful meditation training can shrink the area of the brain that triggers the “fight or flight” response that leads to anxiety and depression, said Leach.
The Mindful Boomer offers guidance on how to teach yourself to sit right, how to breath, notice the environment and be in the present.
“Each of us is unique, something might work for one person and something might work for another,” said Leach. “The single most important thing is you have to feel safe, you have to like where I’m coming from and the type of therapy that I give.”
The Mindful Boomer provides 15 guided meditations to help readers strengthen consciousness, sensory clarity and mental columns of composure.
It can also help people come to peace with themselves, their pasts and their relationships with others, she said.
“I practise mindfulness because it makes me feel more alive. I don’t want to walk around in a daze.” said Leach
For more information on The Mindful Boomer and Leach, please visit https://themindfulboomer.ca/
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