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MINDFULNESS

Put simply, mindfulness is a simple technique used to focus ones awareness on the present moment, both internally and in the external world around you, while calmly acknowledging and accepting ones feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations.

 

Mindfulness allows you to be able to identify, tolerate and reduce distressing and painful thoughts, feelings, memories and sensations from a safe and secure position of knowing that you are in the present moment. We spend so much time thinking over stuff that happened in the past, or worrying about things that may happen in the future, that often we actually forget to appreciate or enjoy the moment. Mindfulness is a way of bringing us back to experience life as it happens.

 

The physical body is always present. It’s the mind that wonders. We are never NOT in the present moment – we just lose track of that fact quite often. Have you ever driven to work and realised you don’t remember driving there? Have you ever eaten and realised afterward that you hardly tasted the food? Have you ever forgotten someone’s name as soon as you heard it? Many of us live on auto-pilot. We go through the motions and don’t pay attention to what is happening in our lives right now.

 

If we can be aware of our thoughts, its easier to accept they are just thoughts and let them go knowing they don’t have to affect us. Being mindful gives you back some sense of mastery over our thoughts/feelings, instead of feeling that you are being pushed around by them.

 

HOW CAN MINDFULNESS HELP ME?

 

When you’re mindful, it can:

 

  • Help clear your head and slow down your thoughts

  • Help you be more aware of yourself, your body and the environment

  • Help flick the switch back to the smart parts of our brain to put us back in control of our emotions, enabling us to choose a more appropriate response in the workplace and relationships.

  • Enable you to take a step back and consider alternative perspectives rather than simply reacting to events and using the least intelligent area of our brains to make decisions.

  • Help individuals manage conflict and communitation more effectively

  • Help develop the inner resources that will help us navigate through difficult, trying, and stressful situations with more ease, comfort, and grace.

  • Slow down your nervous system and heart rate

  • Increase the brain's ability to repair itself and grow new neural connections.

  • Help you to concentrate and focus on the task at hand

  • Help you cope with/relieve stress and relax

  • Help you improve sleep

  • Help manage depression/anxiety

  • Help you to be less angry or moody

  • Help to improve memory and learn and solve problems more easily

  • Help you to be happier and emotionally stable

  • Improve your breathing, circulation and immunity

  • Help increase our emotional intelligence, specifically empathy and self regulation.

  • Help you to cope with pain.

© 2017 for Alexis Hamer

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