WEYBURN - A member of the Primary Care team based in Weyburn for the Saskatchewan Health Authority led Weyburn Rotary members through a meditation exercise, showing how “mindfulness” can be a boost to one’s mental and physical health.
Sara Irwin, who works with Mental Health and Addictions staff in Weyburn, spoke to the Rotary Club recently, and noted this department has seen a 300-per-cent increase in requests for assistance from the public during and following the pandemic.
She noted that resocializing for some people has been very difficult as they or their family gets back into activities or sports teams.
In the last couple of years, Irwin has been the team leader of the Community Recovery Team in the southeast, which has been helping people, with staff including an occupational therapist, mental health therapist and a peer support worker.
Mindfulness and meditation is a part of dialectic behaviour therapy, she explained. “We work with people whose behaviour is very, very distressing,” she said, noting the term dialectic refers to two co-existing states, where a person can feel both happy and sad.
Each team member has different skills to use, she said, such as the occupational therapist, who can help people who have physical dysfunction along with mental health issues, such as having difficulties walking and talking.
“Across the province, community recovery teams have different people. Some teams have a psychologist, for example. It depends on what you got funding for and who you can hire in your area,” said Irwin.
She notes she also leads a mindfulness class online in the southeast, with around 50 people enrolled currently.
“They can just chat if they want, or if they don’t want to turn their camera on, that’s fine too,” she said. “We don’t have 300-per-cent more staff, so we have to figure out how to help people.”
“I do mindfulness meditation, which is the first thing we do in behaviour therapy,” she said, describing mindfulness as “the ability to experience sensations as they are, and feeling things in your body and slow down your thoughts, like when you’re thinking of what you want to get done or haven’t got done. If you don’t control your mind, your mind will control you. You need to be able to understand.”
Many people have the fallacy that they can do two things at the same time, she said. “We think we can multi-task where in reality it’s very difficult for us to do that.”
She pointed out as an example, many people will get lost in doing daily tasks, not paying attention to the details, such as driving somewhere in town, and then realizing they can’t remember how they got there.
“Paying attention to the details is basically what mindfulness is. It’s being mindful in the moment, and enjoying the moment,” said Irwin.
