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Abstract

, among other things, negatively affect your sleep, increase your blood pressure, deplete your energy, and weaken your immune system.</p><p id="3d86">If only there was a way to short-circuit those negative thoughts from gobbling up more than their fair share of your brainpower!</p><h1 id="688d">Enter Mindfulness</h1><p id="9878">This is where mindfulness becomes so important. It’s a tool that you can use to train your mind to control the flood of thoughts. That neuroplasticity that made “worry” your brain’s default setting is the same quality that can be used to weaken that thought pathway.</p><p id="febf">But, (and this is a big but), in order to change a behavior, you must be conscious that you’re doing it in the first place. With mindfulness, the idea is that you practice being aware of your activity and just that activity; anytime your thoughts begin to escape, you develop an ability to corral them back together and not let them interfere with your focused intention.</p><p id="76b4">The effort takes practice and there are all sorts of ways that people are trying to bring mindfulness into their lives. <a href="https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/mindful_breathing">Breathing exercises</a> are popular, as are short, guided meditations available on any number of mindfulness apps. Personally, I love my yoga practice. It’s also a serious luxury and I consider myself fortunate if I can get to it once each week. For mindfulness, that’s not enough.</p><h1 id="afbe">Time Out?</h1><p id="f856">How are you supposed to squeeze time to practice mindfulness from an already loaded schedule? A five-minute guided meditation may not sound like much, but in the throes of the day, it can feel impossible.</p><p id="9261">There’s a solution for that. Remember that stashed detail from earlier? That mindfulness is simply awareness of the moment? Here’s the kicker: there is no hard rule on what that “moment” must be. In fact, it’s easier to focus when you’re engaged in an activity because you can harness sensory input.</p><p id="f248">Here are three daily activities — or rather opportunities — that are ripe for harvesting your mindfulness practice:</p><h2 id="d572">1. Housekeeping</h2><p id="b569">Housekeeping includes all those adulting 101 activities — dishes, cooking, vacuuming, dusting, pulling weeds, you get the idea. How many times has your mind wandered while folding laundry or some other rote activity? Daydreaming can be great and feed your creativity. However, the moment your thoughts no longer serve you in a productive way, shi

Options

ft your focus entirely to the task at hand. Hone in on the texture of fabrics, the scent, and even your folding technique.</p><h2 id="a8dc">2. Eating</h2><p id="2eff">Finally, an excuse to put a positive spin on that afternoon dark chocolate fix! Food is the perfect occasion to engage all your senses. In fact, <a href="https://thecenterformindfuleating.org/">being mindful while eating</a> has become a practice unto itself. Take in the aroma. Savor the flavor with small, purposeful bites. Notice the texture or mouthfeel of what you’re eating. How does the silverware feel in your hand? What sounds are you hearing? How is it making you feel? (Hopefully, pretty damn good.)</p><h2 id="a506">3. Exercise</h2><p id="dcd4">From neighborhood walks to a rigorous gym workout to trail running— exercise is loaded with opportunities to sharpen your focus. Have you ever walked your dog and became so lost in your thoughts you forgot you were even walking? In those moments, catch yourself and return to focusing on the sensations of the walk. How does the street feel under your feet? What colors are in the scenery? Sounds? Scents? If there was ever a time to “stop and smell the flowers” this is it, and you can’t do it if you don’t notice the flowers in the first place.</p><p id="c5f0">There is another angle to folding mental strength into your workouts. At one point during a particularly demanding (a.k.a. my muscle is going to spontaneously combust if this continues much longer) yoga pose, the instructor made a suggestion. Instead of filling your head with anticipation of when the pose would end, why not observe the discomfort much as a bystander would; accept it, and just patiently wait in the comfort of knowing it will end? Like all difficult moments in life, it passes. That advice was a game-changer for me. Practicing that acceptance and forgiveness in the face of self-induced physical and mental discomfort is migrating into my ability to weather other involuntary challenges.</p><h1 id="8438">The End Game</h1><p id="7c8a">At first, these mini mindfulness challenges may seem pointless in the face of the overwhelming physical and mental stress life throws at you. But that’s the point. Start small. Keep going.</p><p id="b80a">Practiced often enough, these negative feelings will become less overwhelming because you can control how you interact with them instead of the other way around. In doing so, you get to live and experience more of your life and all its rewarding, beautiful, and yes, formidable ups and downs.</p></article></body>

Head Games: Mind the Moment to Strengthen Your Health

And what to do when you’re too busy to bother

Professional athletes and musicians practice hours each day to perfect their craft.

Know what I’m practicing? Looking at my screen too much. Snacking on junk. Worrying about things I cannot control. Getting distracted. Procrastinating. Evidently, I’ve become quite talented at these things.

Why would someone practice habits that contribute to a decreased level of health and well-being? Answer: they aren’t doing it knowingly. Ignorance is bliss until it sabotages your health. To change emotional and physical behaviors, you need to develop the ability to recognize and objectively observe your thoughts as you are thinking of them.

Mindfulness gives you that power, but it takes practice. No time to spare? Cheer up, my friend! Your day is already filled with opportunities to exercise your mental muscles. Once you learn how to spot these moments, you’re on your way to strengthening your emotional and physical health.

Body + Brain

In order to recognize opportunities to practice mindfulness, you need to know what mindfulness is … and isn’t. Forget sitting around and chanting or floating through every waking moment feeling serene (goals, though). Mindfulness is simply the state of being fully aware of where you are and what you are doing.

No judgment. No analyzing. Just full immersion in the moment. That’s it. (Stash this detail, we’re going to return to it.)

Here’s the rub. Scientists talk about this concept called “brain plasticity.” That is, your brain is capable of changing throughout your life, that your synapses can strengthen or weaken based on how often or little that they’re used. When you repeatedly fill your mind with anxiety-inducing thoughts and ruminations on your stress, you’re unknowingly strengthening these pathways.

Make no mistake. Your thoughts really do affect your physical health. Chronic stress and anxiety can, among other things, negatively affect your sleep, increase your blood pressure, deplete your energy, and weaken your immune system.

If only there was a way to short-circuit those negative thoughts from gobbling up more than their fair share of your brainpower!

Enter Mindfulness

This is where mindfulness becomes so important. It’s a tool that you can use to train your mind to control the flood of thoughts. That neuroplasticity that made “worry” your brain’s default setting is the same quality that can be used to weaken that thought pathway.

But, (and this is a big but), in order to change a behavior, you must be conscious that you’re doing it in the first place. With mindfulness, the idea is that you practice being aware of your activity and just that activity; anytime your thoughts begin to escape, you develop an ability to corral them back together and not let them interfere with your focused intention.

The effort takes practice and there are all sorts of ways that people are trying to bring mindfulness into their lives. Breathing exercises are popular, as are short, guided meditations available on any number of mindfulness apps. Personally, I love my yoga practice. It’s also a serious luxury and I consider myself fortunate if I can get to it once each week. For mindfulness, that’s not enough.

Time Out?

How are you supposed to squeeze time to practice mindfulness from an already loaded schedule? A five-minute guided meditation may not sound like much, but in the throes of the day, it can feel impossible.

There’s a solution for that. Remember that stashed detail from earlier? That mindfulness is simply awareness of the moment? Here’s the kicker: there is no hard rule on what that “moment” must be. In fact, it’s easier to focus when you’re engaged in an activity because you can harness sensory input.

Here are three daily activities — or rather opportunities — that are ripe for harvesting your mindfulness practice:

1. Housekeeping

Housekeeping includes all those adulting 101 activities — dishes, cooking, vacuuming, dusting, pulling weeds, you get the idea. How many times has your mind wandered while folding laundry or some other rote activity? Daydreaming can be great and feed your creativity. However, the moment your thoughts no longer serve you in a productive way, shift your focus entirely to the task at hand. Hone in on the texture of fabrics, the scent, and even your folding technique.

2. Eating

Finally, an excuse to put a positive spin on that afternoon dark chocolate fix! Food is the perfect occasion to engage all your senses. In fact, being mindful while eating has become a practice unto itself. Take in the aroma. Savor the flavor with small, purposeful bites. Notice the texture or mouthfeel of what you’re eating. How does the silverware feel in your hand? What sounds are you hearing? How is it making you feel? (Hopefully, pretty damn good.)

3. Exercise

From neighborhood walks to a rigorous gym workout to trail running— exercise is loaded with opportunities to sharpen your focus. Have you ever walked your dog and became so lost in your thoughts you forgot you were even walking? In those moments, catch yourself and return to focusing on the sensations of the walk. How does the street feel under your feet? What colors are in the scenery? Sounds? Scents? If there was ever a time to “stop and smell the flowers” this is it, and you can’t do it if you don’t notice the flowers in the first place.

There is another angle to folding mental strength into your workouts. At one point during a particularly demanding (a.k.a. my muscle is going to spontaneously combust if this continues much longer) yoga pose, the instructor made a suggestion. Instead of filling your head with anticipation of when the pose would end, why not observe the discomfort much as a bystander would; accept it, and just patiently wait in the comfort of knowing it will end? Like all difficult moments in life, it passes. That advice was a game-changer for me. Practicing that acceptance and forgiveness in the face of self-induced physical and mental discomfort is migrating into my ability to weather other involuntary challenges.

The End Game

At first, these mini mindfulness challenges may seem pointless in the face of the overwhelming physical and mental stress life throws at you. But that’s the point. Start small. Keep going.

Practiced often enough, these negative feelings will become less overwhelming because you can control how you interact with them instead of the other way around. In doing so, you get to live and experience more of your life and all its rewarding, beautiful, and yes, formidable ups and downs.