Does mindfulness even work? A therapist's top mindfulness techniques to try and why
I feel like we've all heard about mindfulness a lot lately, almost as if it is some sort of fad. But this could not be farther from the truth — mindfulness is a practice that has been around for over 2,000 years and it’s really not going anywhere. It’s a practice that I bring into sessions often with clients an something I try to focus in my own every day life.
What is mindfulness? And why is everyone talking about it?
Mindfulness is the practice of staying present, in the moment, focusing on the here and now. Given the current climate in the world today, it’s not necessarily a surprise that mindfulness is becoming the latest fad or trend. During the past year, everything has felt completely out of our control — we can’t visit friends and family as we usually do, and most of us are locked in our homes, there are countless ways we may feel powerless.
Through practicing mindfulness, we begin interacting differently with our environment and we gain a deeper understanding of ourselves. Mindfulness is a great tool to focus on your daily life.
Mindfulness has benefits outside of just staying present.
Stress reduction and prevention
That’s right, not only does mindfulness help with stress reduction in the moment, practicing mindfulness can actually improve how you handle and deal with stress in the future.
Think about the times you’ve felt stressed and you just went to sit down — your mind is constantly running and feels like it just won’t shut off. Mindfulness has been proven to help reduce that inner “chatter” that you have in your mind during times of stress. The practice also helps you become more in tune with you body through recognising where you feel stress in your body.
When you’re able to reduce your stress through mindfulness, you’re more likely to use it in the future during stress periods. And the more you do it, the more likely you will be practicing mindfulness before you feel stress to begin with.
Decrease in rumination
Rumination is just a fancy word for when you’re thinking the same thing over and over again. It’s when there’s that one thought that seems to be playing on replay constantly. A great example of rumination is when a song is stuck in your head — no matter what you do, it seems to be playing on a loop in the background of your mind.
Rumination also has a more negative side than just having an annoying song playing in your head — you can ruminate on negative thoughts about yourself, the future, your situation, other people, etc.
Mindfulness encourages and helps develop self-awareness. The more you focus on your thoughts and work on staying in the present moment, the less rumination you will experience.
Decrease in negative emotions and emotional responses
Mindfulness is the practice of being in the present, in the here and now, and increasing your self-awareness. All of these aspects of mindfulness have been shown to decrease negative emotional responses in people.
Through self-awareness, you increase your understanding in your emotional responses to any given situation, making you in control, not your emotions. Through this consistent self-reflection, you can better regulate your mood, leading to a decrease in negative emotions.
Improvement in physical health
Mindfulness has surprising benefits on your physical health, including managing chronic pain, encouraging healthy eating habits, improving your quality of sleep, and even heightening your immune function.
Mindfulness helps you unpack and handle your feelings around your physical health, helping you stay present and not move into catastrophic thinking (worst-case scenario thinking).
You can also practice mindful eating, which includes paying closer attention to your hunger cues and learning how to eat slower. Just like with becoming more mentally self-aware, mindfulness can help you become more self-aware of your physical body.
Improves relationships
If mindfulness helps reduce stress, improve your sleep, and help manage negative emotions, it would come to no surprise that all of this can improve your relationships. However, mindfulness can also help increase your empathy and compassion towards others around you. These two skills are incredibly important for strong, positive relationships, and through practicing mindfulness, you’re strengthening those skills.
In what ways can you practice mindfulness?
Mindfulness can come in all shapes and sizes. When you think of mindfulness, you probably quickly think of meditation. However, it does not need to be meditation at all!
If you don’t like meditation, give one of the following a try:
Mindful writing — journal! Try to focus on how you’re feeling while you are writing, focusing on the current emotions and reflecting on them. Or, practice mindful journalling with gratitude.
Focus on your five senses — list out all the things, in your head or out loud, that you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell.
Go for a mindful walk and bring no distractions. Keep engaging your senses and pay attention to what you see, hear, smell, feel.
Practice yoga or exercise. There is no better way, in my opinion, to stay in the present moment than exercising. This is a time where you are forced to pay attention to your body and how you are feeling in the moment to avoid injuries, take advantage of it.
How can you make mindfulness a part of your every day life?
I’m going to risk sounding like a broken record, but a great way to start practicing mindfulness is putting it into your routine. Pick a regular time for your practice and dedicate at least 5 minutes to up to 30 minutes of your time on your practice.
Be sure to practice in a quiet space, free of distractions. This will just help encourage you to focus on practicing mindfulness and keep you in the present moment.
Find a comfortable place to practice. Not only do you want to be free of distractions for a set amount of time, you want to also feel both physically and mentally comfortable with where you are practicing your mindfulness.
Mindfulness is all the rage right now in the mental health community, and for good reason. There are countless benefits that practicing daily mindfulness has and these benefits go beyond just for your mental health.
It can feel intimidating to introduce a new thing into your routine, especially when times already feel so challenging on their own. However, if you can find 5 minutes of your time to dedicate on focusing on the present moment, feeling connected with your body and your mind, you’ll see the benefits quickly.
If you try introducing mindfulness into your daily routine, I’d love to hear about! Leave a comment and let me know what worked for you and how you’ve seen improvements!
