It has been almost 1 year since Covid-19 was first discovered in Wuhan, China, and began to spread to many countries along with the holiday season at the end of 2019. The number of victims has continued to increase throughout the day. Everyone in this part of the world dissolves in uncertainty. Not only about physical health, but this pandemic definitely also affects mental disorders. Losing jobs, closed schools, parents who have to take on an additional role as mentors when their children undergo online learning activities, etc. Anxiety, stress, and depression lurk many people around us or even ourselves.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness, meditation for mind and mental health, was an ancient practice then developed by Thich Naht Hanh and Jon Kabat-Zinn is a doctor from the University of Massachusets. Mindfulness in general is a state of mind that focuses on recognizing what is being felt in the moment, without going through judgment. In terms of mindfulness, train our focus to the moment that is happening right now, trying to accept and recognize all thoughts, emotions, and any physical feelings. Not dragging on with past memories and not constantly daydreaming about future desires. Mindfulness, unite body and mind, is the energy that helps us know what is happening right now, accept it, and work towards finding solutions together.
As in the current pandemic state. Getting out of this pandemic is a fraction of a percent impossible for now for individuals, agencies, or the large scale of a country. But how to make peace with the new life of this pandemic era, side by side with rules that can at least be a measure of protection for us. Get out of the normal life we used to live, to become a new normal.
The benefits of practicing self-awareness are towards a healthy balance between our body and soul, which can be described in many positive aspects, which include:
🍊 Improve thinking skills and sharpen memory.
🍊 Developing brain nerves to improve focus
🍊 Increase metacognitive awareness or think about how we think, become more aware and care about one's abilities.
🍊 Reduce anxiety, stress, to improve how to manage emotions.
🍊 Increase our sensitivity to social relationships.
🍊 Build a relationship with yourself, both physically and emotionally.
🍊 Reducing loneliness, increased compassion and patience so that we will make life more meaningful and grateful.
Mindfulness will consciously bring our attention to experiences of how our thinking works. Awareness of sensory experiences, such as listening to sounds around us. We can also focus our attention on automatic bodily processes, such as breathing, eating, drinking, etc. All of this will train the mind to become better at recognizing feelings and thought patterns that may have been overlooked, so that we can better understand ourselves.
The mindfulness training pattern will not necessarily be directly connected to our body and soul, but it needs repetition so that everything can be focused, it takes patience because this is a process that takes time. Mindfulness practice itself varies from person to person, depending on which activity a person feels the most about.
The following are mindfulness training techniques that I have quoted from the Mindfulness Indonesia web page that might be put into practice.
• 4-7-8 breathing exercises (pull 4 secs, hold 7 secs, exhale 8 secs)
• Walking meditation: try to stop thinking, and focus on what it feels like to physically walk. Try to take the attention away from your mind and focus on your body.
• 5 senses exercise (name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste).
• Place your attention on a specific part of your body. When you've done that, try to shift your attention to different parts of the body.
• Finally, think about the various emotions you have felt at different times. How does that emotion feel physically? What prompted the emotion?
Mindfulness for me personally, is a way to be wiser in addressing life's problems, to help ease my thoughts, what can be resolved and which side requires me to make peace. Learn to ignore things that are not really important, so they don't accumulate in your mind. Mindfulness makes us more aware of what is happening right now, builds productivity, and makes us mentally healthy.[]
