Mindfulness
Mindfulness: How it Impacts your Wellbeing and How to Incorporate it into Your Everyday
What is mindfulness:
So, whether you’re a complete newbie to mindfulness or you’re a full blown mindful magician, you’ve likely heard about this concept, even peripherally, as it has been having quite the moment in the spotlight. For good reason too. Before we get into the benefits, I want to get straight to the basics of what mindfulness even is.
So, what is it you ask? Well, in short- mindfulness is the ability to be fully in tune with the present moment. In long, this means developing an awareness of where we are, what we are doing, and what our internal experiences are. Mindfulness is a mental state that allows for a calm acknowledgement, acceptance, and awareness of one’s thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations.
An important component of mindful awareness is the complete non-judgmental approach to your current experience, whatever that may be. It is the practice of acknowledging what you’re feeling, experiencing, and thinking without adding the judgment piece. This concept allows you to direct attention away from stress, unpleasant sensations or negative thoughts. If you’re still a little bit confused at how this is possible, it will (hopefully) come together in our how-to section.
Benefits to mindfulness from a wellness perspective:
Before we discuss ways to incorporate mindfulness into your day to day life, I want to share some of the reasons it has been such a hot ticket concept lately. Mindfulness’ benefits have the ability to touch each of the different spheres of overall wellness including physical, social, mental, and emotional wellness. Outlined below is a breakdown of just some of the pros to mindfulness.
Physical Wellness:
Helps to relieve stress
Helps to treat heart disease
Can lead to lower blood pressure, lower heart rate, and improved blood circulation which lead to an overall healthy heart
Can reduce and lessen the impact of chronic pain
Can lead to improved sleep through the increased production of melatonin
Shown to alleviate GI symptoms
Improve immune system functions
Mental Wellness:
Helps treat depression, anxiety, OCD, substance abuse, and eating disorders
Fewer depressive symptoms
Better working memory capacity
Reduced rumination
Greater ability to sustain attention
Increased cognitive flexibility
Increased information processing speed
Emotional Wellness:
Improved stress reduction
Less emotional reactivity
Enhanced self- insight and self-awareness
Improvement in the ability to disengage from emotionally upsetting situations
Increased self-kindness/self-compassion
Improved self-esteem
Improved relaxation
Increased empathy
Social Wellness:
Improves ability to respond appropriately in a stressful interpersonal setting
Increased ability in communicating emotions to a partner
Shown to aid in handling conflicts more effectively
Can improve relationship satisfaction
Deepend interpersonal connections
Increased ability in expressing oneself in social situations
Ways to incorporate mindfulness:
You’ve learned a bit about what mindfulness is and why so many people are touting its benefits. Now let’s talk about how to do it and ways to incorporate it into your day to day life.
Quick how-to:
Take a moment and pull all your focus into the present moment. For some, it is helpful to take a sitting position and to close your eyes. Set a timer, try this in small increments to get started.
Ask yourself the following: What do you hear? What are some things around you that you can see or touch? Do you smell anything? Where is your body touching the ground or the surface you are sitting on? What does that feel like? What is going on with my mind? What does it feel like for the breath to enter through the nose and exit through the mouth?
Bring the focus and awareness into the experience of breathing. Notice any pain or discomfort in the body. It is completely normal for thoughts to come and for judgments to follow. Bring attention to these thoughts and recognize the mind is wandering. The ability to recognize this sets the stage for the ability to move away from the thoughts and refocus on the present moment. Judgments may come about the fact that the mind has wandered. Don’t attach to those. Let those pass like leaves on a stream and notice them and then notice yourself pulling away from them and back into the moment at hand. After a few minutes the timer will sound and you will have completed your first mindfulness session!
Okay, try it! It will be hard to keep the focus on the present moment.That is completely normal. It is not a one and done skill. This is a practice that is cultivated through lots of practice. Mindfulness is often associated with meditation and yes, to meditate is to be mindful but there are countless ways to be mindful without having to meditate.
There are also some ways to incorporate mindful awareness into our everyday tasks:
While showering you can focus on the sensations of shampooing or the feeling of the bubbles and the smell of the soap. Brushing teeth can be a great time to bring the focus to your breathing and acknowledging the body movements required to get your teeth clean. Eating can be a great opportunity to notice the texture, smell, taste, and mechanics of the food at hand. Next time you’re cleaning, try and focus on what the senses are experiencing and what it is like to keep scrub the dishes clean. Moving your body is a great way to practice mindfulness as you can focus on your body’s cues and fully tune yourself into the sensations of your body. This can be done through low impact movement like stretching or walking or higher impact movement like running or boxing. The greatest tool at your disposal for mindfulness is always breathing. It doesn’t require any activity or equipment and is something always readily available to us. We can just take a quick moment or two and focus on our breathing and acknowledge the present moment.
There you have it! A quick beginners guide to what mindfulness is, some of its benefits, and ways to get started with your mindful practice. Good luck!