With a quick internet search, you can find a helpful seven to ten step list for developing a mindful approach to nearly anything in your life.
A mindful way to…
- Lose weight
- Reduce stress
- Improve business success
- Recover from addiction
- Raise kids
- Be happier
- Recover from depression
- Cope with anxiety
- Manage pain and chronic illness
- Enhance sports performance
The possibilities are endless. We are truly in the midst of a mindfulness revolution.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is an innate part of being. Any time you literally stop to smell the roses or truly enjoy every bite of watermelon on a hot day, you are being mindful. Whenever you allow yourself to feel your sadness without distracting yourself with your smartphone, you are being mindful.
There are many ways to define mindfulness, but at its core it means to be fully present with whatever you are doing or experiencing without overwhelmed by external events or conditions.
It’s a practice of bringing your attention back to the present moment. While mindfulness is innate, it can be learned and improved as well, often through the practice of meditation.
It has its roots in Buddhist teachings, but it is a secular practice. Mindfulness is often credited to Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, who recognized the power of meditation to help reduce stress and developed an eight-week program called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in the 1970s. He also created the Stress Reduction Clinic and Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as, “a means of paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmental.”
Does Mindfulness Really Help?
Whether or not mindfulness is effective depends on your goals for learning about the technique. Scientific research into the effects of mindfulness and meditation has only been going on for a few decades, but here are a few key areas in which mindfulness has been shown to improve people’s lives:
Stress
Thanks largely to John Kabat-Zinn’s medical background, there has been a growing body of evidence supporting the effectiveness of mindfulness for reducing stress. Additional studies have supported Kabat-Zinn’s initial findings.
Learning and Memory
A study at Harvard showed that meditation can increase gray-matter density in the hippocampus and decrease gray-matter density in the amygdala. It’s one of the first studies to show how meditation changes the brain for the better. These changes support better learning and memory functioning and lower stress levels.
Anxiety
Research from Massachusetts General Hospital, Bender Institute of Neuroimaging and Justus-Liebig University in Germany showed that mindfulness training can be effective in alleviating General Anxiety Disorder.
Post-Traumatic Stress
Researchers from University of Michigan demonstrated that mindfulness techniques could be helpful to combat veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress.
Depression
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) has been shown to help prevent depressive relapses and reduce the dependence on antidepressant medication.
Addiction
Drawing from MBSR and MBCT, a new form of addiction treatment called Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) has been developed at the University of Washington to help individuals recover from addiction. Initial research shows the program has been effective in lowering the risk of relapse.
Chronic Pain
Pain is a subjective experience, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. One study showed that after four-days of mindfulness training, pain-unpleasantness decreased by more than 50%.
Sleep Problems
MBSR has been shown to lower sleep problem scores but research suggests that ongoing mindfulness is needed for these effects to continue.
Eating Disturbances and Weight-Loss
Mindful eating, or paying attention to the colors, smells, textures and flavors of what you are eating, may be able to help individuals who want to lose weight or who suffer from disordered eating such as binge eating. This is often one of the first exercises you do in an MBSR course.
Focus
Mindfulness is a way of training your brain to focus. Developing this skill can have significant implications on academic performance and sports performance.
Decision Making
A study from INSEAD and University of Pennsylvania suggested that a simple 15-minute mindfulness meditation could help individuals make better decisions and avoid typical sunk-cost biases.
Some of these studies have been criticized for their small sample size or lack of follow-up, but gradually research is becoming more robust. Developments in technology, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which can measure brain activity, are helping add credibility to research findings.
Get Ready to Meditate
Everyone defines happiness and success differently, but research suggests there are enough positive benefits to give mindfulness a try. When selecting a program or a new technique to learn, it’s important to evaluate the experience of the instructors and your goals to make sure it’s a good fit. With the rise of mindfulness – it’s approximately a $1 billion business in the US now – you should be able to find a high-quality mindfulness instructor in your area.
Wrapping It Up
Training your brain to focus and be mindful has lots of good benefits. Try it today for a minute and work your way up to 5 minutes at a time.
