Have a mindful moment

The art of everyday mindfulness

There's a long list of proven benefits you get from practising mindfulness. So far, studies have shown that it can help to reduce negative feelings like anger, stress, and anxiety, and it can also help improve our ability to focus, cope with pain and overcome addictive behaviours. And the best thing about mindfulness is that its not difficult to do. We just need to remember to do it.
 
Practising mindfulness means focusing your attention fully on the present moment and simply observing (not judging or analysing) whatever is happening within you and around you, moment by moment. It’s about focusing on one thing at a time, and one moment at a time. This could be your breath, your surroundings, a task at hand, or even somebody talking. Every time you do this, even its only for a few seconds at a time, you’re practising mindfulness.
 
Focusing on one thing at a time goes against our normal habit of trying to multi-task our way through the day. For example, lets say you're about to have a cup of tea. Normally, you might sip at the tea while you’re still busy thinking about that problem you’re trying to solve, or that thing that happened the other day, or the message that just came through on your phone, whatever, your mind is elsewhere. You might barely even notice that you’re drinking tea because you’re too busy analysing, plotting, planning and thinking, thinking, thinking. It's like you're drinking the tea on autopilot. Now, let’s see how you could go about drinking that tea mindfully.
 
When you’re doing something mindfully, its helpful to imagine that you’re doing it for the first time. So, to start, you might imagine that the cup of tea in front of you is the first cup of tea you have ever seen. You look at the shape of the cup. You notice how the light reflects of the glazed, porcelain surface. Then you hold the cup, feeling the warmth of the tea radiate through your hands. You bring the cup closer and feel the steam on your face. Then you bring it up to your nose and inhale all its subtle scents, and… SUDDENLY YOU REMEMBER THAT THING THAT YOU HAVE TO DO LATER!
 
It’s normal to get distracted like this. After all, we can’t control what thoughts will pop into our heads from one moment to the next, but we can choose how we respond to those thoughts. So, you could jump back into your stream of thoughts and start plotting and planning how you will do that thing you have to do later, OR, you could just allow that disturbing thought to pass by without trying to block it out or change it in any way, and then simply guide your attention back to the tea.
 
You choose the second option and zoom back in on the cup of tea in front of you. You’re about to taste it for the first time now, so you bring it up to your lips and take a small sip. As the warm liquid washes over your tongue you focus on all the little taste sensations it triggers in your taste buds, and then how it slowly warms you up from the inside as it trickles down your throat and into your stomach. Then you notice the urge you get to take another sip, how you salivate a little in anticipation. You take another sip. You spend the next few minutes savouring every sip of tea you take. While you’re doing this, distracting thoughts and feelings keep popping up, but you just let those distractions come and go, and you keep guiding your attention back to the tea, again and again and again. And that’s it! You’re doing it. You’re practising mindfulness.
 
What? No glow of enlightenment? No levitation? How does doing something as simple as focusing on some tea give us all those juicy benefits the researchers are promising?
 
Let's break it down.
 
Firstly, when you're focusing on the present moment (drinking tea), it means you're not worrying about something coming up in the future and you're not thinking about anything unpleasant from the past. In fact, you're not doing much thinking at all. You're just drinking tea. So for those few moments at at time that you're focusing on the tea, you're giving your brain a little time out to de-stress and recharge.
 
Of course, thoughts keep popping up when you're practising mindfulness, but you just keep bringing your attention back to the present moment, back to the tea, again and again, and every time you do this, you're strengthening your ability to focus. It's like doing push-ups for your brain. The more you train and practice the easier it is to step out of your stream of thoughts and focus on whatever it is you need to focus on in your day to day life.
 
And that's all you're really doing when you're practicing mindfulness – you're stepping out of your thought stream. It's like you were sitting on a bench beside your stream of thoughts, just sipping your tea. When distracting thoughts and emotions and urges came bobbing along, you didn't try and block them out or 'fix' them. You just observed them as they came and went, then you turned your attention back to your tea. For this meditation, the tea was your anchor to the present moment. You used it to stop yourself being pulled back into your stream of thoughts. This is how practicing mindfulness can help you overcome addictive behaviours. You learn to resist being pulled in by unhealthy urges and cravings as they come and go, and each time you let them pass by without acting on them, they gradually become weaker and weaker until they eventually fade away altogether.
 
Practising mindfulness helps create a sense of distance between you and all your thoughts, emotions and impulses. It's like all those mental events get turned down a notch or two – thoughts feel a little less urgent, emotions feel a little less overwhelming, and urges and cravings feel a little less demanding. So when you're sitting on that little bench inside your head, you give yourself the space to choose how you will respond to these mental events, instead of just automatically reacting to them. In this way, mindfulness can help you to keep calm and carry on even in the most demanding situations.
 
And if all that wasn't enough to convince you to give it a try, studies have also shown that regular mindful meditation can actually shrink your amygdala. Remember, the amygdala is basically your brain's built in alarm that triggers the stress response at the first sign of trouble, so a smaller amygdala means lower stress levels, less anxiety, less anger and less fear. Mindfulness also causes changes to areas of the brain that are associated with improved self-regulation, self-control and better focus.
 
So how often do we need to practice mindfulness to get all these benefits? Studies suggest we need to put in at least 20 minutes a day to get the best results. That doesn't mean you need to start at 20 minutes a day. Maybe you only manage 20 seconds the first time you try. That's ok. Even if you only manage to step out of your stream of thoughts for just 1 second, that's a start! Maybe next time you will go for 2 seconds. Then 5 seconds, and so on and so on. Before you know it, you will be having little mindful moments all through the day.

SOURCES:

Mindfulness is about bringing your attention to the present moment

(Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4)"Mindfulness Training as a Clinical Intervention: A Conceptual and Empirical Review, by Ruth A. Baer"
  

You don't need to 'meditate' to practice mindfulness

Hick, Steven F. (2010), Cultivating Therapeutic Relationships: The Role of Mindfulness. In: Steven F. Hick, Thomas Bien (eds.), "Mindfulness and the Therapeutic Relationship", Guilford Press
 

Mindfulness can reduce anxiety, depression and help with impulse regulation

Siegel, D. J. (2007). "Mindfulness training and neural integration: Differentiation of distinct streams of awareness and the cultivation of well-being". Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2 (4): 259–63.
 

Mindfulness can help to quit smoking

Brewer, Judson A. et al. “Mindfulness Training for Smoking Cessation: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial.” Drug and alcohol dependence 119.1-2 (2011): 72–80. PMC. Web. 9 Sept. 2017.

 
 

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