Mindfulness :
Here is a concept that we hear about regularly, we can wonder what it is exactly and how is the fact that practicing mindfulness can help us live better every day.
It is to these two questions that I want to answer in this article.
The question we are asking ourselves today is: what is mindfulness? According to the definition, mindfulness is the awareness that arises when we intentionally and non-judgmentally pay attention to the experience of the present moment. In other words, mindfulness is being fully present to what is happening. This is the opposite of what we often do, because often our body is present, but our brain is elsewhere.
For example, I am playing with my children, but I am thinking about what I am going to do next, I am talking to someone, but I am thinking about what I am going to say to them next rather than really listening to them. Mindfulness is about having your head in the same place as your body.
I think that this practice is not something new, it's just that in the last few years it has become more democratic. It used to be mostly practiced by people with a very advanced spiritual practice. Today, it is practiced by people like you and me, in the context of meditation, contemplation for the formal practice, or simply in everyday tasks for the non-formal practice.
Why is mindfulness becoming more and more popular?
Some people will see it as a fad, but if we look beyond our prejudices, if we look at much more factual things, we see that mindfulness has beneficial effects for those who practice it. We know today, for example, that mindfulness is very effective against depression. Studies conducted in different countries show that in people who have had depressive episodes and are not taking antidepressant treatment, an eight-week approach to mindfulness meditation reduces the risk of relapse by half.
Personally, the practice of mindfulness that I do on a daily basis allows me to reduce stress, improve emotions, mood, empathy, self-esteem, coping skills and social skills. What can also be noted is that the regular practice of mindfulness allows us to get out of the automatic pilot mode. It allows us to make more appropriate, more conscious responses to external events. When we live our lives without any mindfulness, we tend to react to external events. And when we live our life in reaction, this reaction is often instinctive, impulsive, guided by our archaic brain which only aims to keep us alive and which sees the world as a permanent danger.
Mindfulness practiced regularly is really interesting, because it allows us, in my opinion, to be less often and less strongly in reaction and therefore more in creation. It allows us to stop reacting all the time to be more in an adapted response, and it is our whole life that can be favorably impacted. Finally, mindfulness allows us to be more efficient, because it trains us to be more present and therefore more focused. Our brain tends to resemble a monkey jumping from branch to branch, from idea to idea, it will quickly disperse even in a task that requires concentration. The more we practice mindfulness, the more we slow down the jumps of our little mental monkey, and then it is easy for us to concentrate on a task.
If you too are convinced of the benefits of mindfulness, if this article makes you want to take advantage of all these benefits, but you don't necessarily know where to start, I invite you to do this exercise: Stop what you are doing for a moment and focus on your senses for a few minutes. Observe what is going on around you, pay attention to the noises you hear, the smells you smell, give your full attention to what is going on and observe it through your senses for a few minutes without judging what you perceive.
So, it may be difficult and your mind may be racing. Don't judge that either. If you notice that you are going back to your thoughts, just come back to your senses and resume the experience. I wish you a nice experiment.
