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How to find your mindfulness | Psyche Guides
Mindfulness And Your Daily Tasks
Mindfulness can be applied to any task, by paying your full attention and gentle interest.
Even the taste of your breakfast will be different if you pause and savour it. You can also pay attention to your body sensations, moods, thoughts as the day goes by.
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Mindfulness and simple knowing
Mindfulness is the act of being aware of our present experience in real-time.
Normally people start processing inside their minds what they experience, creating perceptions. At its core, mindfulness puts our attention towards the present moment, with kindness, empathy and interest. This continuous act of being in the present moment with interest is called ‘simple knowing’.
One Medicine Many Cures
Mindfulness can be practised to:
- Manage pain, anxiety, stress, or mood swings.
- Provide the body and mind an oasis of calm in between a hectic lifestyle
- Reduce suffering, distress and trauma caused by pain and depression, along with the negative emotions that come with life-threatening diseases.
The Space Inside Us
Mindfulness opens up a space inside our minds that helps us respond to outside situations with ease, instead of just reacting impulsively.
We become aware and are able to detect our default setting, which is our ‘driven-doing mind’, and catch hold of it before any impulsive reaction is acted upon. It also helps us arrest our cycle of negative thoughts.
Start Your Day With Mindfulness
Stop the rush of the mind from planning the day and simply take some slow, deep breaths.
While falling asleep at night, set an intention to ‘see’ the morning experience as soon as you wake up. As soon as you realize you are awake, notice the smells and sounds of the morning, checking up your mind, body, breath and energy levels. Do not rush towards the smartphone.
Mindfulness And Your Daily Tasks
Mindfulness can be applied to any task, by paying your full attention and gentle interest.
Even the taste of your breakfast will be different if you pause and savour it. You can also pay attention to your body sensations, moods, thoughts as the day goes by.
Reminding Yourself To Be Mindful
Mindfulness is more difficult than it sounds as our attention is gone in a few seconds from our intended focus point.
Take note of your daily habits and stuff you do without thinking, like checking your phone notifications, or washing your hands, and plant ‘cues’ in them to be mindful. Feeling the sun on your skin, adjusting your posture, or relishing your coffee are all acts of mindfulness.
Inevitable Challenges Of Mindfulness
Mindfulness may make you mistakenly assume that you are having lots of negative thoughts, but the reality is that now you are more aware and attentive to your thoughts and are able to register them.
Mindfulness can require some resilience, as you may be tempted to go back to being in a perpetual mind-sleep again when you are not completely conscious of yourself.
The DO-IT Formula For Mindfulness
The DO-IT formula makes us take any task, like eating a meal, going for a walk, or being with friends and family as a mindfulness practice:
- D: Directing oneself to be attentive.
- O: Observing the experience.
- I: Investigating one’s responses and reactions.
- T: Trying again.
The Mindfulness Technique
To help stabilize your attention and set you up on a higher frequency, you can start a formal meditation practice, setting aside just 10 minutes in the beginning:
- Adjust your body towards an alert and upright position.
- Close your eyes or lower your gaze, allowing you to concentrate.
- Bring your kind-hearted attention to the next few moments, being aware of the sensory experiences like touch, sound, sight, and smell.
Confronting Yourself
- As your mind starts to wander or gets distracted, and random thoughts related to the regrets, dreams and worries about the past or the future begin to flash before you, try to observe them neutrally as passing thoughts, without clinging to them.
- Do not resist, chase or pull away from your chain of thoughts, and try to recognize your moment-to-moment awareness.
- Apart from thoughts, you may find certain changes in the mood or other feelings bubbling up on the surface for you to explore.
- Be aware of the rhythmic breath of your body, from the tip of your nose to your chest/belly.
- Focus on any sensations that occur on your feet, legs or hands.
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Mindful Wakeup
First thing in the morning:
- Close your eyes and connect with the sensations of your seated body.
- Take three long, deep, nourishing breaths—breathing in through your nose and out ...
Mindful Eating
- Breathe before eating.
- Listen to your body and measure your hunger.
- Eat according to your hunger. You can more mindfully choose what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat.
- Practice peaceful eating. It’s not easy to digest or savor your food if you aren’t relaxed.
- If you don’t love it, don’t eat it. Make a mindful choice about what to eat based on what you really enjoy.
Mindful Pause
- Trip over what you want to do. If you intend to do some yoga or to meditate, put your yoga mat or your meditation cushion in the middle of your floor.
- Refresh your triggers regularly - add variety or make them funny so they stick with you longer.
- Create new patterns. You could try a series of “If this, then that” messages to create easy reminders to shift into slow brain.
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What mindfulness is
Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.
What meditation is
Meditation is exploring. When we meditate we venture into the workings of our minds: sensations, emotions and thoughts.
Mindfulness meditation asks us to suspend judgment and unleash our natural curiosity about the workings of the mind, approaching our experience with warmth and kindness, to ourselves and others.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
“Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally. And then I sometimes add, in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.”
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Use of mindfulness
The idea is that you actively pay attention to the moment, without judging. It helps the mind to revisit thoughts about...
Mindfulness as an effective treatment
There is clinical evidence for mindfulness-based cognitive therapy as a way to prevent depression and anxiety.
Mindfulness may be good for other psychiatric conditions including bipolar disorder.
There is also growing evidence that mindfulness is effective for chronic long-term health conditions.
Mindfulness can be overstated
Mindfulness is not a cure all. With all the hype around mindfulness it can sometimes be difficult to tell whether the information is quality-controlled and reliable. We need to be careful not to overstate it's usefulness.
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Mindful learning
It means cultivates insightful knowing rather than just a brain overloaded with information.
Mindfulness creates space to let new information in and to allow us to see how it rel...
Mindful Reading
It is a process of quiet reflection that requires mindful attentiveness, letting go of distracting thoughts and opinions to be fully in the moment with the text.
It slows down the reader and the reading—that alone changes the experience. It moves the reader into a calm awareness, allowing for a more profound experience and understanding.
Mindful Writing
Writing benefits from the capacities that mindfulness cultivates: being in the moment, even when remembering the past or imagining the future; not judging others and oneself while still exercising discriminating wisdom; holding multiple perspectives; being open to the new; and practicing kindness, compassion, and patience.
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Mindlessness
Mindlessness, or going on autopilot, can result in missing the good things in life or ignoring important information about relationships or health.
The antidote is to practice to pay more car...
Tips to practice Mindfulness
When starting a new activity
Start a meeting with 2 minutes of silence, your attention focussed on your breath. Or take a few mindful breaths before starting your exercise routine.
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Mindfulness
Knowing what triggers your anger
Emotions are made up of 3 components:
- physical (the way your body responds when you experience an emotion),.
- cognitive (the thoughts that go along with the emotion).
- behavioral (the things you do or have urges to do when you experience an emotion).
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Moving To A New Place
Moving is a great way to open up one’s mind and practice focusing one’s attention without the constant thought patterns.
Practising mindfulness frees our mind from thoughts about the old r...
Thinking of A New Beginning
As you unpack your stuff, use this golden chance to keep only the essential stuff and completely declutter your new home. Don’t hold stuff that keeps you tied to the past.
Do not be overwhelmed with the piled up work. Practice deep breathing, reflecting on the present moment and gratitude.