PA as time out from a focus on symptomology/negative life issues

A number of the participants described how PA provided them with a tool to either take time out from their symptomology or provided them with the time and space to work through their perceived negative thoughts.

Walking negative thoughts out of me

Tina provided a thorough and insightful example of the alterations in her thought processes by using her time to walk through these thoughts on a treadmill. In summary, the example she provided was when somebody had kicked the wing mirror off her car which was left on the street outside her house. She described how she was incredibly upset and became paranoid about people ‘having it in for her’. To make matters worse, when she reversed her car on to the drive, she drove into her neighbours fence. Tina described being at rock bottom and crying into her neighbours arms. Tina continued:

5.3.4.1 PA as time out from a focus on symptomology/negative life issues Walking negative thoughts out of me

Mind over matter Skill acquisition Being in the Zone

Environment

Presence of others

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I got in the house and I thought I just want to go to bed… then I actually got on the treadmill... I just thought I’ve had enough I get to the stage where I’m exhausted… so it’s either go to bed or get on the treadmill, so I got on treadmill ...and I’m walking away on treadmill when you start thinking about things and I stood there and I thought ‘why did I get myself into such a state it’s only a car, you know it can be fixed and so what if they just decided to cause you loads of problems’ and then I thought ‘well I didn’t knock fence down when I hit it like you know I were going 2 mile an hour’...but it sounds like you’ve hit it hard when it crashes in car, and I thought ‘well they were alright I didn’t have to rebuild his fence or owt and I just thought well he weren’t bothered cos’ all he said to me ‘were it’s only a bit of wood Tina’, so then I started thinking and all the time I were walking on this treadmill and I were thinking ‘why on earth were I getting myself all worked up about it, it’s nowt it can be fixed’ and after that my thought process changed completely, and I just thought ‘why, why did I get myself into a state, nobody else is bothered, and after I’d done it I felt quite alright and I weren’t upset no more and I thought it aint half as bad as what I thought it were (Tina).

This description demonstrated how Tina believed that walking on the treadmill helped her go from thinking ‘everybody hates me’ to ‘it’s nowt it can be fixed’.

I saw this as going on a journey, the beginning of this journey for Tina was ‘rock bottom’. It was as though from the outset of this journey she believed that there was only one direction that the walk could take her in and that was upwards.

Every step she took she was getting a step closer to finishing her journey, grinding each negative thought down. By the end of her journey the negative thoughts were reframed in a positive manner.

If Tina had not been on this journey, she described how she would have just gone to bed. It was perceived that those same thoughts would be ruminating, but she would be stuck in one place like her thoughts would also be stuck; the

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same thoughts being repeated over and over with no chance to escape. For Tina, going on this embodied journey allowed her the time to walk the thoughts out of her through the movement of her body. Tina was not focussed on time as her mind was absorbed in her thoughts and therefore time was not perceived to drag.

Mind over matter

For most participants, PA was used to distract from their thoughts and therefore undertaking a pre-reflective activity which required no conscious thoughts, such as walking was not sufficient.

Ann described how she used PA as an object of attention to focus on something other than her voices. However, for Ann, her voices were only faded, they did not disappear completely. It was like they were background noise that she managed to ignore if she focused on her ‘mission’ of completing the PA that she had set out for herself:

Well they’re there [voices] but you’re kind of on a mission, you go on your own mission like everybody does, like you’ll set a timer on your rowing boat like for five ten minutes or so and you will focus on doing that (Ann).

For Ann, setting the time on the rowing machine appeared to be important as she knew that if she focused her mind on rowing for those few minutes, she could mute these voices, the voices might still be there, but they could be put to one side.

Trains often go past the place in which I work, these can be distracting and irritating if I focus on them. However, if my mind is absorbed in a different task such as work, I hardly notice this noise, yet it is still there. For Ann, rowing became her focus rather than the voices. It seemed that this focus on a literal amount of time was important for Ann, because it was ‘real’ time, it was time spent doing an activity that is the same time as the rest of the population. For those 10 minutes she was experiencing time at the same rate as others.

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Learning a skill also appeared to distract some of the participants from their voices. Mike used a variety of PA to help with different aspects of his illness. He found that boxing was the best for distracting away from his voices, but he attributed this to the fact that it was a skill that he was just learning:

I think it’s because you’re thinking whilst you doing it, when you’re running your legs just move naturally, but I’m just starting learning... thinking right fast as you do it (Mike).

Being in the zone

When a person was totally absorbed in the activity there was no conscious effort to ignore the voices it was something which happened as a consequence of the activity. I saw this as being like the concept athletes describe of ‘being in the zone’. Like these athletes in ‘the zone’ the participants in this study were completely absorbed in their activity, they were completely focussed on their goal, making it unlikely that distractions would put them off, there was no attention on their body.

As I say the hardest part I’ve got is combating and beating these voices and the more intense something is the less impact they can have (Tom).

Being in the zone appeared to be different for each person, for some it was the environment which helped them to become absorbed, for some it was the presence of others and for others it was being involved in a competition.

However, if an activity was not fully absorbing, time appeared to drag.

For Tom walking in nature was what he found thoroughly engaging:

A voice I would be having a bad time with in my head, but when I was walking and out in nature things calmed down, the rhythm…I don’t know what, something inside told me it was the right thing to do, the rhythm of walking it’s….. my mind was racing at 100 miles per hour where’s walking slowed things down, took time to look around see what was going on in

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nature, took the smallest details watching the bees collecting pollen and things you just get lost in the moment (Tom).

The rhythm of walking appeared to be important to Tom. This slow constant rhythm was in stark contrast to his mind which was perceived as working extremely fast, something which he was trying to fight and slow down. Tom viewed that his mind was separate from his body, his mind was racing, but his body was able to walk slowly and rhythmically. He viewed that it was this movement of the body that was able to slow his thoughts down. The rhythm was constant unlike his mind. Of equal importance to Tom was the nature around him, it was through observing this that he was able to ‘get lost in the moment’

suggesting that he was unaware of literal time.

On occasions, participants described how being part of a group was easier to become absorbed in the activity, but only if others were positive around them:

Once you get there you get a physical lift, you get wrapped up in the excitement, it is rather exciting especially if you’re winning, so yeah I think group activities are easier to participate in rather than...solitary ones because you’ve just got your own thoughts (Tom).

It was as though being surrounded by what he perceived as positive people impacted upon his own thought process, he could sense that other people were enjoying it and he got ‘caught up’ and ‘wrapped up’ in these emotions. Tom also described how the competition of football enabled him to get lost in the game. I perceived this to be that he was totally immersed in the game. He was functioning on a pre-reflective level where the task in which he was engaged absorbed his attention, and there was no focus on his body or his voices. For Tom, being engaged with others helped him to be absorbed – he was dancing like no-one is watching yet others were surrounding him.

These participants described how they were in the zone and how actual time became unimportant, there was no focus on this time. This is what I perceive time to feel like when time is described to be ‘flying by’. However other

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participants described how if they were not engaged in PA, time spent doing PA was a laborious effort and time dragged:

I’m doing just over two miles and yeah it is a bit boring because you think two minutes to go you know what I mean and when you think about it, 40 minutes like that and you think how much longer? And you put all your CD’s on that you want like, and you get a bit fed up of that after a bit don’t you, and you think orgh god how much longer - 2 minutes to go and by the end you think am I done yet? (Tina)

It appeared that if the mind was focussed on the actual time, the participant was not fully absorbed.

The concept of dance like no-one is watching was a discussion about how a number of the participants managed to use PA to take time out from their voices. For some, it was a deliberate process where they used the time spent in PA to enable them to focus the mind elsewhere or to alter their thought process.

On other occasions, I have described participants being in the zone. This is where the participants described being so absorbed in an activity that it was as if their voices did not exist. They were able to undertake PA without the watchful eye of their voices. They were absorbed in an activity where the voices were not watching: they were able to dance like no-one is watching. When participants were completely absorbed in a task there was no consideration of time. They were absorbed in the present, with no thought for the future or past. However, on the occasions where participants were not fully engaged in PA, their thoughts often turned to the future and how much longer they still had to conduct PA until they reached their goal. On these occasions PA was seen as a chore, but the participants kept going as they were determined to achieve their goal.