Mindfulness brings Awareness to Thoughts, Sensations, and Emotions
Mindfulness is about noticing. Noticing your breathing. Noticing how your emotions manifest in your body. "The essence of mindfulness is just tolerating experiencing sensations that come into your body, other than trying to get [them] to stop immediately," Jeff Bostic, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Georgetown University, says.
You can think of mindfulness as a state of mind, an ability, and a practice. It can be traced all the way back to the early teachings of Buddhism. There are many different mindfulness exercises to achieve this state: from paying attention to the sound of ringing bells to visualizing foods and smells. Other exercises gently push practitioners to acknowledge what makes them fearful and anxious and accept that these emotions are just a normal part of life.
Mindfulness has an immediate intuitive appeal in a world that's more distracting and fast moving than ever before. There's an entire academic journal, Mindfulness, devoted to its study. And a recent sketch on Sesame Street had the Count teach Cookie Monster how to concentrate on breathing to reduce stress.
Researchers form fields ranging from neuroscience to psychiatry have been fascinated by mindfulness. According to Bostic, mindfulness attenuates the more evolutionary primitive areas of our brains - the amygdala, the brain stem, etc. - the areas that provoke us to fight, be frightened, or flee, and turn up activation in our frontal lobes, the reasoning center.
Mindfulness is thought to have wide-ranging effects, from lessening depressive symptoms to reducing anxiety and helping to deal with chronic pain and trauma. There are studies that find mindfulness reduces the levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Neuroimaging studies have shown increases of brain matter density in regions linked to learning and memory. And some behaviorists find increases in working memory and decreases in mind wandering.
Two easy ways to experiment with Mindfulness: 1- Diaphragm breathing - close your eyes and focus on breathing through your diaphragm and less through your chest. In through your nose for an eight count, out through your nose for a ten count. Start small with two minutes and try to work your way up to ten minutes. Try to keep you mind empty, focus on your breath and relax!
2 - Visualization - In a seated or lying down position visualize something that makes you feel calm. Notice all the things about this thing, its shape, color, curves, the background surrounding it, smell it, feel it, etc. Imagine following this imaginary thing to a pleasant place where you feel relaxed, comfortable and safe. Allow yourself to enjoy being there and relax as fully as possible. You have one minute to enjoy this place and it is all the time you need. Remember that you carry this peaceful place inside you and you can come here and visit any time you wish.