Why the Miracle of Mindfulness Can Impact Your Life?

One concept that has been getting all the rage recently is mindfulness. In this post, we shall explain what mindfulness is, how it can impact your life, and how you can be more mindful too.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness, in the simplest terms, is being focused entirely on the present and the senses around you. A mindful person displays these traits:

• Being hyper aware of the senses around them. Someone outside who is mindful may feel the wind against their skin, and also feel how their skin responds to it. A mindful person can tell objects apart from their distinct smells or by touching them and getting a good feel for the nuances of their textures. Someone who is mindful can pick apart the many sounds they hear. If they are listening to music, a mindful person can listen to the various pitches and instruments and give the song the best analysis possible.
• A mindful person isn't as worried about the past, because they cannot change it. They can learn from it, but regretting what they did or didn't do cannot change the past. A mindful person may not worry too much about the future as well. They can't predict what will happen in the future. It can change quite quickly, and no one can really be prepared.
• A mindful person knows how to regulate their thoughts. If there are negative, worrying, or self-defeating thoughts, a mindful person can let them go and realize these are not productive thoughts.
• A mindful person instead focuses on the present. What they are experiencing right now is the most important, and they are hyper aware of everything they do at all times.
• A mindful person is also meditative. They are one with their body, and as they do breathing exercises, they will feel the air going in and out, giving their body new life as it does so.
• Despite this, a mindful person knows there is a time to look to the future and criticize one's self, but by always worrying and always being critical, a person is doing nothing for themselves.

This summarizes the basic aspects of mindfulness. A mindful person has these traits and much more.

Mindfulness has its roots from Buddhism. However, in the past few decades, it's come to the West as a more secular concept. Everyone from every walk of life has discovered the benefits of mindfulness. It isn't another bunk concept, but instead rooted in science. People who are more mindful are able to accomplish more activities, and they can live longer, happier, and healthier lives more than someone who is not so mindful. It's not a miracle, but instead a scientifically proven way to be healthier.

So what are the benefits of mindfulness? How is someone more mindful able to live a healthier life? Let's discuss the benefits of mindfulness by explaining what mindfulness can treat and what it does to people's lives.

Benefits of Mindfulness

The benefits of mindfulness are quite vast, with many positive results being reported. Here are a few ways that mindfulness can change you.

Mindfulness Reduces Stress

Stress is not a bad thing necessarily. It's a response to danger. In the primitive times, stress motivated us to eat and survive. In the modern world, our bodies sometimes don't know the difference between real danger and an inconvenience. Because of this, we can be overloaded with stress, making it hard to accomplish our tasks. This fuels a vicious cycle of stress, and it can be hard to break.

Mindfulness helps by letting us realize that we can let go of our stresses. If there is a task to be done, fully focus on that instead of worrying about the future. If you procrastinated, do not worry about that, but instead focus on completing the task.

By being more mindful, you can reduce your stress and be more productive.

Mindfulness Reduces Anxiety

Anxiety can be debilitating. Mindfulness can be a tool to help reduce the symptoms of anxiety. You may have racing thoughts as well. But with mindfulness, it will help by giving you a chance to breathe and relax. Being mindful can help with your anxiety quite a bit. Of course, medications and other forms of therapy may be needed as well.well.

Mindfulness Helps With Depression

Chronic depression is hard to treat, and one may turn to counseling and medication. Another way you can fight depression is through mindfulness. Often, our depression is fueled by thoughts that keep us down. Mindfulness does not suggest that all negative thoughts are replaced with positive ones, only that we stay in the moment and experience what we feel currently. This won't be a magic treatment for your depression, but it can help.

Mindfulness Keeps Us Aware of Our Bodily Sensations

Sometimes, we should look to our bodies to see what's wrong with us. If you have an odd body sensation, mindfulness helps by allowing us to look at our sensations and seeing what the problem is. For example, you can do a body scan and feel the different parts of your body. This can also help you tell the difference between concerning sensations and just everyday bodily functions.

Mindfulness Helps Us Enjoy the World More

Many of us live on autopilot and we don't stop and sit down to think about how beautiful the world is around us. Mindfulness can involve the hyper-awareness of our world and the many things it has to offer. For example, mindfulness can involve you taking a nature walk outside and listening to the various birds, sounds of nature, and your own footsteps hitting the ground. Mindfulness can involve walking across the city and seeing the urban jungle through a new lens. Many of us take our world for granted, and mindfulness helps us get back that sensation.

Mindfulness Helps Us Be More Empathetic

Perhaps the best benefit mindfulness can give us is that we can be more empathetic. When we're mindful, we don't have any preconceived judgments about people. Instead, we look at everybody as equals and are open to whatever it is they have to say. Mindfulness can mean that you speak to people and listen, or it can involve you helping a person at the moment. If you want to be more empathetic, mindfulness can be the answer you need.

Mindfulness Can Make Us Live Healthier Lives

By being mindful, it can reduce our mental burdens, and this can cause us to be more physically healthy. In the end, mindfulness helps by keeping our brains sharp as we age and allowing us to be more physically limber. If you are mindful, you may be saving money on health care, and enjoying life more as you age. If you are sick, mindfulness does not cloud you with worry but instead teaches you to live in the moment.

How You Can Be More Mindful

There are many ways to learn how to practice mindfulness more if you want to get into it. Here are a few ways how.

Mindful Breathing

Since mindfulness stems from meditation, many forms of meditation have made its way into mindfulness. One such form of mindfulness is mindful breathing. This involves breathing exercises. You can use any breathing exercise, really.

Take a deep breath for a few seconds. Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Really stop to feel the breath coming in and out of you. Imagine the breath feeling you with energy. Any distractions around you or distracting thoughts in your head are no more. Mindful breathing can reduce your anxiety and worry, and keep you going.

Observing the World Around You

One of the best ways to be more mindful is to take a walk in nature and really observe what's going outside. Take a deep breath and look at how the trees move. Watch the bugs move through the grass. Hear your footsteps as they crunch through the leaves. Absorb nature in all of your senses. By doing this, you can be hyper-aware of the world and allow you to live a much more mindful life.

There are many other ways you can be more mindful, from performing a body scan to playing guessing games. If you need help going into mindfulness, there is another way you can do so, and that is to seek guidance from a professional.

Seek Help!

One way a counselor can help treat your mental illness is to teach you mindfulness. A therapist or counselor may implement different ways you can be more mindful, such as a body scan, analyzing the world around you, and being more open to being empathetic. If you are ready to be more mindful, talk to a therapist today and learn from them.