For thousands of years, people belonging to different cultures and communities have practiced meditation to understand the meaning of life and their relationship with other humans. By doing so, they hope to find peace from their sufferings and ultimately gain insight. This rumination, also known as mindfulness, is the key to reducing stress and finding true happiness.
While studying the benefits of mindfulness, researchers have concluded that paying attention to our current situation and experiences without any judgment can indeed help us live a happy and healthy life.
In this article, we will shed light on the various aspects of mindfulness – its meaning, practice, and benefits.
What Is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is known as the basic ability to be fully aware and present of where we are and what we are doing. It is the practice of consciously directing all of your attention to the current moment and accepting the situation without making any judgments. No matter how far we drift away in our lives, mindfulness will always be there to pull us back to where we are supposed to be, what we have to do, and how we feel. If you want to completely understand what mindfulness really is, a good idea is to first try to experience it.
How Can You Practice Mindfulness?
Eat Mindfully
Life has become so busy these days that eating has become something done in passing. When was the last time you truly appreciated a meal? Try to slow down a little to practice mindfulness. Instead of ordering take-out or munching on fast food, prepare food for yourself and eat purposefully. Don’t use your phone or be prone to other distractions while eating. Truly appreciate each bite and make the most out of the moment.
Meditate
Meditation is the art of mindfulness. The stillness and silence you experience will diminish your stress and increase your happiness. You will naturally teach yourself how to go deeper into the stillness and silence every time you meditate. It takes time to shut out all of the distractions and control your breathing, but you will eventually connect with your mind and experience relaxation.
Spend Time Outside
You don’t have to wander off too far to experience mindfulness. You can simply go to the park or take a walk around your neighborhood. If you have nice trails or green spaces in your surroundings, they can make the best way to connect with nature and retreat. Observe everything – what you feel, hear, see, smell, and sense.
Engage In Physical Activities
It is easy to be mindful when we are engaged in something we enjoy. Physical activities, such as sports, will use your body and mind simultaneously and will help you maintain focus. You will eventually learn to carry that mindfulness to other areas in your life.
Connect with Your Senses
Your five senses – taste, smell, touch, sight, and sound – are your pathway into the present moment. When you wander off in your thoughts, your ability to pick up on your senses weakens. Take a pause to soak up everything around you. Whether it is the smell of coffee or the soft grass under your feet, take a moment to absorb and connect to everything.
How Can Mindfulness Help Lead a Healthy Life?
Mindfulness involved constantly diverting our attention to the present moment and focus on what is happening. Mindfulness teaches us to be quick in response to whatever happens in our current situation. The practice helps to reduce our daily stress, depression, and anxiety while improving our thinking ability and memory functions. People skilled at mindfulness are able to perform cognitive tasks and disengage from emotionally upsetting discussions.
You can ultimately your master flexible thinking ability and improve your relationships with other people. All of these factors contribute to a healthier lifestyle, making you appreciate everything without passing on critical judgement.
Studies have proved that mindfulness also helps to increase intuition, insight, and morality. Mindfulness improves our immune system by allowing us to free ourselves from distractions in life. The world has transformed rapidly, and there are too many sources of data and information, such as social media, TV, radio, etc. Our brains are exposed to new information each day; mindfulness helps us maintain our focus amidst all the information and enables us to engage quickly. We can cope up with the demands and needs of life without getting distracted, thus, leading to a healthier and happier lifestyle.
Benefits of Mindfulness
Improves Physical Health
Mindfulness helps to improve physical health in many ways. For instance, it can treat heart disease, relieve stress, reduce chronic pain, lower blood pressure, alleviate gastrointestinal difficulties, and improve sleep.
Reduced Rumination
Mindfulness reduces rumination and allows the mind to stay focused on the present. People who practice mindfulness experience less rumination and lower levels of depressive episodes. Moreover, reduced rumination allows for better working memory and the ability to sustain and filter out information efficiently.
Stress Reduction
Mindfulness substantially reduces the levels of stress through cognitive therapy. Different therapies based on mindfulness are useful in changing the affective and cognitive functions that underlie various clinical problems.
Boosts Memory
Improvement in working memory is another benefit of mindfulness. Research has shown that people who meditate regularly have better working memory capacity compared to those who don’t.
Better Focus
Mindfulness allows you to have better focus and control over your life. You can easily distinguish between tasks that are important and unimportant. Moreover, you can limit distractions and maintain focus on your priorities.
Less Emotional Reactivity
Mindfulness decreases emotional reactivity and helps people disengage from emotionally unpleasant or unhappy situations. This way, your emotions do not cloud your judgment, and you make decisions based on logic.
MAGICHIVE PODCASTS ON MINDFULNESS
There are many mindfulness videos and audios on the internet. You can access many special FREE mindfulness practice sessions from Subha Parthasarathy from Magichive, Bengaluru at the following links –
Spotify : http://bit.ly/themhpodcast
Apple Podcast: http://bit.ly/magichive
Google : https://bit.ly/33Da0qe
Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3y06x33
Conclusion
Mindfulness helps us remain in a state of total awareness. It is a mode of processing information and living every moment to the fullest without judgement. Mindfulness is considered to be one of the most important elements of living a healthy life as it is a treatment for many mental and physical challenges and diseases.
