These days everyone is talking about mindfulness. But what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is living life as it is happening in the moment, experiencing everything around you. A person who practices mindfulness is aware of their mind and their body. Mindfulness practices are important because they help to reduce stress and anxiety when life’s stressors happen.  

Psychology is not the only field that is exploring the benefits of mindfulness. Some of the other fields interested in this concept are medicine, neuroscience, education, and industry to name a few. Not only that, there are many apps that you can download on your phone or your tablet that focus on mindfulness. So, with all the attention being shined on mindfulness, does it actually work? Also, what are the benefits that people can experience if they were to practice mindfulness?  

Mindfulness allows you to observe your mind without judgement. Just watching the thoughts to come as if observing an experiment. By paying attention to your mind, it will help you to see where the stress, suffering, and pain are coming from. The greatest benefit to mindfulness is the opportunity to live life in the here and now and become more aware of ourselves both inside and outside.  

Mindfulness helps you to acknowledge life for everything that it brings, pleasure and pain, fear and joy taking them all in as experiences, because life is one big experience. Being able to pay attention to our mind can give you the direction that you need so you can feel better. How can we change something that we don’t know we are doing? When you are aware, you have options.  

Mindfulness can be done in two ways formally and informally. When a person chooses to do mindfulness formally, they schedule time during the day to sit, stand, or lie down and pay attention to their breathing, body sensations, their thoughts, and emotions. People who practice mindfulness informally bring awareness to different activities that they do during the day. Like becoming more mindful while you are eating, working, doing chores, and exercising. It just means being more present while doing different activities throughout your day. One of the goals of mindfulness is to live more in the present moment and focus on the task at hand instead of letting your mind wander into something else and getting distracted. Sometimes people like to reminisce about the past or worry about the future instead of keeping their attention on the here and now.  

To practice mindfulness, we can try box breathing. Box breathing can help you reduce stress and anxiety especially when life feels overwhelming. Box breathing helps to regulate your breathing and increase oxygen to your lungs. To start box breathing, make sure your feet are grounded. Imagine a box in your head and every side is a step. First, inhale deeply for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, and last pause for 4 seconds. You can repeat this process 7 to 10 times or until you feel calmer. Box breathing is beneficial and easy to practice in most places.  

Hopefully now you know what mindfulness is, the benefits of practicing mindfulness, and different ways that you can incorporate it into your life whether that is formally or informally. Try box breathing and let us know what you think.  

For more information, please check this resource:  

Stahl, B., & Goldstein, E. (2019). A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook. New Harbinger Publications, Inc.