Mindfulness might seem like a gimmick.
These days, plenty of people use the term in different contexts, so it can be challenging to understand what it means or how it impacts us.
But the fact is, mindfulness isn’t a gimmick. We simply need to understand it better.
To that end, we’ve put together this piece for you. In it, we’ll share our definition of mindfulness and how it can benefit your life.
Let’s dive in.
What Is Mindfulness?
At its core, mindfulness is a state of mind. It’s about existing at the moment, clearing your mind of thoughts, and attempting to look at things objectively. Mindfulness is a state of existence, free of emotions, worries, and frustrations. It’s an art of observing, trying to understand what you feel, and simply being in the here and now.
The great thing is, mindfulness is fluid, much like water. It can assume many shapes and can come to us at the most unexpected of times. If a person cuts in front of you during rush hour, mindfulness would be to let it go and not feed negative thoughts. If you’re worried about something, mindfulness could be to take a couple of minutes to breathe deeply and free your mind of negative thoughts. If you’ve had a stressful day, mindfulness would be to take a step back, clear your mind, and stop the feelings of dread, even if temporarily.
It’s difficult to attach a single description to mindfulness simply because it isn’t one thing, but many. But regardless of how you see it or attempt to develop it, mindfulness offers many physical and physiological benefits for us. Let’s see what these are.
How Mindfulness Can Reduce Your Stress And Boost Your Productivity
According to an official definition, anxiety is “a feeling of unease, such as worry or fear, that can be mild or severe.” The truth is, we all experience anxiety from time to time. We worry about people close to us, our jobs, meeting deadlines, and more. There is no shortage of things to keep us up at night.
Anxiety can also range in severity. For example, you might feel a bit anxious about something that’s way into the future. But as the event draws near, anxiety steadily climbs and can become debilitating.
The good news is, we don’t have to be victims of anxiety. Through mindfulness, we can lower anxiety and prevent it from impacting our lives negatively.
As we practice mindfulness, we become more present and induce a state of relaxation, which can help us think more clearly, see things more objectively, and put many worries to the side. This would allow us to reduce our anxiety, sleep better, and make more productive decisions in our lives.
For better or worse, we are subject to our emotions. Young or old, man or woman, astronaut or a grocery store clerk, you are a person who feels happiness, sadness, anger, despair, and every other emotion known to humans.
Of course, this isn’t a bad thing. Feeling is living, and life would be much different if we didn’t have emotions. The problem is, we can sometimes fall victim to our emotions, which can cloud our judgment, lead to poor decisions, and prevent us from thinking clearly.
The good news is, practising mindfulness allows us to become calmer, more present, and better able to control our emotions. As a result, we can think more clearly, look at things objectively, and make better decisions.
Try the following:
The next time you’re angry and about to make a rash decision, stop and try to clear your head. For example, take a drive in your car, go for a walk, or simply get a good night’s sleep. You can even try to meditate for a while and induce a state of relaxation. Then, approach that problem and see if your initial decision was the right one. In most cases, giving ourselves some time and being mindful changes how we approach decision-making, often for the better.
Acute stress can be beneficial. It sharpens our senses, fills us with energy, and allows us to escape life-threatening situations. The problem is, we live in a fast-paced world where stress is the norm. These days, many people suffer from chronic stress, which we should combat and try to eliminate.
Chronic stress is a state of prolonged unease that brings about physical changes in the body and can lead to health issues down the road. Most notably, it can lead to mental disorders and cardiovascular disease.
Mindfulness has an interesting relationship with stress. For one, practising mindfulness can bring a state of relaxation, which lowers stress. Second, mindfulness can elevate our mood and make us more optimistic, which would allow us to handle future stressful situations better. And third, mindfulness can improve emotion control, which itself plays a role in how we react to situations, perceive our environment, and deal with stress.
Plus, as we discussed above, practising mindfulness is excellent for bringing clarity, improving our thinking, and gaining perspective. All of these are beneficial in the battle against stress because they allow us to tackle problems with grace.
While nuanced and difficult to understand, depression is a condition that can be cured. We can also reduce our risk of getting depressed in the future.
For the longest time, people have seen mindfulness as an effective tool in the battle against depression.
According to some experts, mindfulness is amazing against depression because of the impact it has on our emotions. Specifically, mindfulness allows us to control our feelings and step back from intense negative emotions like fear, anger, loneliness, and inadequacy.
Mindfulness allows us to recognize these emotions as they occur, examine them, understand where they come from, and provide us with the tools we need to make a change. In other words, mindfulness equips us with better-coping mechanisms that allow us to face difficulties with a calm state of mind.
Conclusion
Mindfulness is sometimes challenging to grasp and apply to our lives. With the many definitions and suggestions for going about it, people often feel confused and overwhelmed.
The truth is, incorporating mindfulness into your life doesn’t have to be challenging or scary – in fact, it shouldn’t be. For example, it can be something as simple as signing up to our Gold Package and following our mindfulness coach Namaste J. Her amazing content and ways to become mindful allow you to be in the moment, relax your body and mind, reduce stress, and improve your focus.
Coach Michael
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