What exactly is mindfulness?
In general we can define mindfulness as a state of mind, based on the ability to live fully present, aware of where we are in life and what we are doing now, without being overly reactive or overwhelmed by what's going on around us.
Many people have mistaken the goal of mindfulness meditation to be a tool to suppress and control our feelings. Perhaps having certainties and having an idea of what is unhealthy in life, has helped us to feel more safe. In modern society it’s so common, that we always try to find a solution for everything in the shortest time possible.
The one issue with this kind of behaviour is that we can't apply restrictions on the turbulent emotions and thoughts we have, without exploding.
In addition it is not unusual for people to compare mindfulness with meditation, maybe due to the similarities in some exercises; or just because nowadays spiritual guides, yoga and healthy habits are becoming so popular so fast, but very few people really know what these consist of and how to put them in practice.
Wikipedia
"Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one’s attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment, which can be developed through the practice of meditation and other training."
Kabat-Zinn, in Purser, 2015
"The awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally."
Thích Nhất Hạnh
"To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is."
Benefits of mindfulness
How many times we overthink about the bad staff happened in the past, as relationships, grades or what we did wrong?
And how much anxiety we put on ourselves, by worrying about the future and things we don't have control over?
The last two years have been very difficult, wondering when this pandemic will be over, dwelling on being limited in making plans for the future and the loneliness some experienced, all affected our mental health. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2020 estimates that pandemic has an association with increasing major depressive and anxiety disorders.
Professor emeritus Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder and former director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, helped demonstrate that practicing mindfulness can bring improvements in both physical and psychological problems as well as positive changes in health and lifestyle.
So, here are some of the reasons you should start practicing mindfulness right now!
1. It helps reducing stress and emotional reactivity.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, stress can become a chronic condition if the proper steps to manage it are not taken. It can cause chemical changes in the body and it may also lead to mental health problems. To face this problematics, psychological scientists have found that mindfulness influences positively brain structures and activity in brain regions associated with attention and emotion regulation. In this way people become less likely to react with negative thoughts in times of stress and are able to focus on the present and less likely to worry about bad events over and over.
2. It affects positively our physical well-being.
According to a 2017 review of studies, mindfulness exercises can help with weight loss and lead to improvements in eating habits, being more likely to keep the weight off. In addition, mindfulness practice can help reduce chronic pain, improve sleep and alleviate stomach issues.
3. It enhance your performance at work.
Researchers have found that faced with a relentless flood of information and distractions, our brains try to process everything at once, increasing stress and negatively impacting our performance. ONE SECOND AHEAD: Enhance Your Performance at Work with Mindfulness (Palgrave Macmillan; November 2015) demonstrates that it is possible to train the brain to respond differently practicing mindfulness every day, to increase focus and to rewire your brain to enhance presence, patience and kindness.
4. It reduces anger rumination and depression.
Rumination is defined as a non-adaptive coping strategy in which uncontrollable and repetitive thoughts with a negative connotation appear and focus on the negative mood, its causes, meanings and consequence. Forgiveness is considered by psychologists to be very important to exit the anger cycle. Mindfulness can help with this by offering a non-judgmental and a perspective-taking mindset. It is important to fight rumination because it is also related to depression, they have in common the flow of negative thoughts as: "What’s wrong with me?" "I don’t think I can go on" "I'm a loser". Mindfulness can redirect attention away from these ruminative thought streams, becoming really aware of what we’re doing while we’re doing it, “starving” bad thoughts of the attention they need to keep going.
5. Being satisfied in relationships.
A person’s ability to be mindful can help acquire the capability of responding well to stress caused by relationships and improve the skill in communicating one’s emotions to a partner (Barnes et al., 2007). Mindfulness is associated also with the capability to express oneself in social situations (Dekeyser el al., 2008) and it may support relationships satisfaction (Barnes et al., 2007; Wachs & Cordova, 2007).
How to practice mindfulness
Before revealing the tips to finally start your journey to become a mindful person, you need to know three important pillars in mindfulness practicing:
1. Your mind will wander.
At first is normal to catch your mind wander: that day you had a tough day at work and you can’t stop thinking about that, but also your to-do list pisses you off and, as if that wasn’t enough, you recall some bad experiences from the past also affecting your present life.
That’s why it is important to redirect your attention back to your breath, training your mind to be less reactive and increasing your ability to concentrate.
“Meditation begins and ends in the body. It involves taking the time to pay attention to where we are and what’s going on, and that starts with being aware of our body”
2. Your judgy brain will try to take control.
Sometimes we all tend to blame ourselves for mistakes and decisions we made and then we judge these thoughts popped up in our head. This impact our self-trust and lower our motivation to do things.
Through mindfulness we practice investigating our judgments and we can learn to choose how we look at things and react to them, by recognizing the sensations they might leave in your body, and letting those pass.
3. It is not a universal remedy.
A Clinical psychologist warns that mindfulness is not suitable for some specific patients. Dr Christina Surawy affirms that “MBCT isn't suitable for patients who are in the grip of a drug or alcohol dependency, as they won't be able to fully engage with the therapy. Also patients who are recently bereaved may find MBCT too overwhelming.”
Moreover, a mindfulness teacher and a PhD researcher in psychiatry at the University of Manchester enunciates that negative experiences generally divide in two categories: One is a natural emotional reaction to self-exploration, the second is an extreme reaction to the intense experience this tipe of meditation might create.
“What we learn through meditation is to explore our experiences with an open and non judgmental attitude, whether the experience that arises is pleasant, unpleasant or neutral,” she says.
How to prepare and exercise
Mindfulness requires practice and it can be cultivated through proven techniques, different from one another.
We can practice them:
Seated, walking, standing and moving
Short pauses in everyday life
Merging meditation with sport, yoga or other activities.
1. Breath in, breath out. Feel the flow of the breath
2. Pay attention to all your senses. For example notice the taste, texture, color of food
3. Empty the mind. Take a few moments to be still,
4. As soon as the mind wanders, bring it back to your Breath
5. Non-Judgmental. Listen
6. Be aware of every Daily Activity. Driving, texting, reading...
7. Go outdoors. Walk around in nature
8. Forgive yourself for every negative thought
9. Be grateful. Say thankyou to nature, people, things, God (if you believe)
10.Go easy on yourself. With time, you will see the progress!
Try this mindfulness podcast!
Approaching this topic, I was trying to understand what the hell it consisted of and where I was supposed to start.
I was searching for sources to help me become more mindful and to relief my anxiety, become more aware of myself and what really was important for me and my health.
If you are on the same road I was two years ago, I really suggest you to listen to this podcast in which you can find some enlightening articles from medium.com, read by a calm voice which will guide you through the discovery of mindfulness.
Mindfulness in voce podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/47eG4dJiq1CqOZFOrgJubb?si=b5cbf2f8c0b342f1
Ciao lettori! mi prendo la libertà di rivolgermi direttamente a voi e dirvi che spero il mio primo post vi incuriosisca e soprattutto possa essere utile anche solo a un* di voi.
Vi chiedo anche di farmi sapere le vostre impressioni e i vostri preziosi consigli, nel caso vogliate suggerire l'argomento del prossimo post, scrivetelo pure nei commenti!
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