Mindful Living with Asperger's Syndrome: Everyday Mindfulness Practices to Help You Tune in to the Present Moment

Based on his own life experiences, travels and meditations, Chris Mitchell reflects on how mindfulness practice can help people with Aspergers Syndrome (AS) with daily challenges including negative thought patterns, emotional and sensory issues, and navigating the social world.

This practical handbook provides advice and instruction on adopting a mindful way of living to help tune in to the present moment and each chapter provides step-by-step mindfulness exercises that allow individuals with AS to overcome obstacles through awareness. Included are breathing exercises, simple yoga stretches, sitting, standing and walking meditations, visualisations, and easy ways to incorporate mindfulness techniques into everyday activities such as eating, brushing your teeth or doing the dishes.

By teaching how to live mindfully moment to moment, this book gives people with Asperger's Syndrome the key to relieving stress, increasing awareness, and living a healthier and happier life.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Mindfulness in a Secular Context.

1. Asperger Comfort Zones: Bringing Asperger's Syndrome out of Automatic Pilot.
2. Changeability of Asperger's Syndrome: Impermanence within Asperger Traits.
3. Asperger's Syndrome in the Present Moment: Tuning the Effects of Asperger's Syndrome to the Present.
4. Mindful Movement: Acknowledging Physical Capabilities and Limitations through Simple Stretching.
5. Getting in Touch with Emotions: How to Be Mindful of your Emotions and Become Flexible Towards the Emotions of Others.
6. Recognising Body Language: Releasing Tension and Understanding the Body within the Body.
7. Managing Sensory Issues through Mindfulness: How to Notice when Autism-Related Sensory Issues Influence Thought Patterns by Opening to Them.
8. Obsessions, Habits, Fixations and Thoughts: Trapped or in Control?
9. Refreshing Asperger's Syndrome: Expanding Sensory Experience Through Practicing Mindfulness of Walking.
10. Steering the Raft through the Social World: You Can't Control the Social Flow, but You Can Adapt your Asperger's Syndrome to it.
11. Mindfulness and Quality of Life: How I Feel that Mindfulness has Enabled Me to Tune In to Here and Now Through Applying Equanimity.
12. Please Don't Rush: Finding Flow Here and Now.

Bibliography.

Useful Links and Contacts.

"Chris Mitchell has authenticity in terms of knowing Asperger's Syndrome from a personal perspective and from having himself experienced the benefits of mindfulness. Incorporating mindfulness in everyday life will have a positive effect on all the core characteristics of Asperger's Syndrome. Reading this book has the potential to be a life-changing experience for those who have Asperger's Syndrome."
- Tony Attwood, Clinical Psychologist and author