What Is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is, “the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one's thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis.”
We think of it as the ability to be in the present moment, without attaching judgement or criticism to your experience.
Practicing mindfulness, requires a sort of switching out of auto-pilot and paying attention to yourself and others in a different way. Sometime we even refer to it as living more aware. You can be mindful about your physical experience, your mental state, and even your consumption habits.
Mindfulness doesn’t look a certain way. Instead, it feels a certain way. Let, go of the idea that you have to sit in lotus pose in order to practice mindfulness —or to reap all the benefits!
Why Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness leads to improved focus and ability to live in the moment, which increases feelings of happiness and contentment. It helps you to relieve stress and behave in ways more aligned to your values.
When you can be aware of how your thoughts appear and wash over you, without being swept away by them, you have the ability to choose how you relate to them. This gives you more freedom to select a response that fits you and the situation, instead of falling into old thought patterns, or mental holes that could be embarrassing, hurtful, or unskillful.
Mindfulness gives you the tools to become the calm voice of reason in the middle of chaotic situations. The person who has the ability to see the big picture and make decisions that are better for you (and others!) in the short and long term.
Benefits of Mindfulness
less anxiety, stress, and depressed emotions.
Mindfulness helps you recognize when you’re lost in worry about the future or ruminating about past. This helps you live more in the present, which can reduce feelings of anxiety, and depression.
Less Pain.
Mindfulness helps to change the way we pay attention to pain. Unlinking the sensation with the subjective judgement we place on it. Unpacking this combo seems to significantly decrease the severity of chronic pain especially when using a mindfulness program called Mindful-Based Stress Reduction or MBSR.
Improved memory and focus.
Mindfulness helps to improve your mood, your memory, your ability to focus, and your productivity. Helping you in all areas of your life.
More empathy and compassion.
Mindfulness helps to build introspection. It helps to create more space between your reaction and your response, which allows you to act with more empathy and compassion. Skills that are universally helpful in reducing conflict and acting more adeptly at work and at home.
Improved health outcomes: better sleep, better immunity, and improved wellbeing.
Mindfulness helps to improve your overall mental and physical wellbeing. Research highlights specific improvements in the quality and duration of your sleep, improved immunity, and decreased chances of developing lifestyle diseases. Here are 18 more Science-Backed Reasons to Try Loving-Kindness Meditation.
Getting Started: Mindfulness For Beginners
One of the best ways to build mindfulness is through a meditation practice. We find loving-kindness meditations to be especially adapt at building this skill because of it’s integrated approach of compassion building and strengthening your ability for focused awareness.
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How To Practice Mindfulness: Tips and Ideas
TYPES OF MINDFULNESS PRACTICES.
Mindfulness practices are essentially strength training for your brain. Helping to pave new paths of thinking, living and being — especially in the most chaotic moments of live. Similar to strengthening your physical muscles a mindfulness practice takes time. Most people start to notice the results in their personal lives within three weeks of daily practice. Others may notice the impact immediately.
1.Gratitude practice
A great introduction to a mindfulness practice is a daily gratitude practice. It helps you overcome the trained negatively bias we’ve all inherited and start to notice all the good things that are happening in your life.
Start by writing down eight things you’re grateful for every morning. Use the formula, I am grateful for _____, because ______. Being more specific and changing-up your responses daily can help you to switch-off your auto-pilot responses so you can get the most benefit. It is especially helpful to write down your gratitudes in order to engage other areas of your brain. Helping your new habit stick, faster.
2. Mantra Meditation.
A mantra meditation is the repeating of a certain phrase or set of phrases — either in your head or audibly — and being fully engaged as you express them. An especially helpful mantra meditation during uncertain times is a LovingKindness meditation. This meditation practice helps us to cultivate compassion, first for ourselves and then others. Compassion helps us feel more connected to others and can make difficult times feel more bearable.
3. Breathing Meditation
The concept of a breathing meditation is as simple as is sounds, but like most meditations it’s much harder to master — and that’s okay. It’s the nature of the mind to wander, and you’re practicing in order to improve your mindful muscle.
In this mindfulness practice, your focus of concentration is on the sensation of your breath in your body. Not the idea of breathing, but wherever you feel your breath the most in your body. The apex of the practice is when you notice you haven’t been paying attention and you bring your attention back to the breath.
Many meditation novices notice that their focus starts to wander within just one or two seconds. That’s okay! Remember, you’re building your mental focus and noticing when you’re not paying attention is a major part of the practice.
4. Moving Meditation
Moving meditations can come in multiple forms. Common examples include a walking or running meditation or a yoga practice. In these mindfulness practices your focus is on the sensations of the body as it moves through space. This practice can be especially helpful for those who may find sitting still to be difficult or are looking to incorporate more movement into their day.
5. Body Scan.
Body scans are a type of mindfulness building, that guides you through a series of intentional focus on certain parts of the body. Often they are accompanied by a gentle release of tension as you flex and then relax specific sets of muscles. Yoga Nidra, a specific type of body scan, can be an especially helpful if you have trouble letting go of tension or stress in the body, or if you have trouble falling asleep.
6. Forest bathing.
The goal of forest bathing is to become completely immersed in the experience of being in nature surrounded by a canopy of trees. There is no running in forest bathing. Instead you’re asked to take slow meditative steps as you focus on the specific sensations you’re experiencing. Again, it’s the nature of the mind to wander. Noticing when you’ve wandered off to fantasy land instead of being present in your experience is part of the practice.
An added benefit of forest bathing is the chemical release of phytoncide from trees that has been shown to provide a significant increase in boosting your immune system by increasing the number of white blood cells.
Mindfulness Meditation
All meditations help to strengthen your ability to be mindful, but mindfulness meditations are especially proficient in building mindfulness — hence the name. This type of meditation has you practice by being aware of all the sensations and thoughts that arise, without paying particular attention to any one sensation. In this practice, noting can be especially helpful in keeping your focus without having a particular anchor point as a concentration-based meditation practice, like a breathing meditation or body scan does. Learn more about meditation.