Mindfulness, or the practice of focused awareness on whatever is happening in the present moment, has gained steam in the last few years as a powerful tool to help boost personal health and wellness. With so many things to do, to see and to take care of, it’s hard to find time to slow down and notice all that’s really going on in a single moment. However, there are numerous benefits to doing so, as the practice has been shown to significantly promote a better quality of life for those who conduct mindfulness practices in their own routines.
Here are several of the ways mindfulness can benefit you and your life.
1. Reduce Stress
When your body enters a state of stress and anxiety, it releases stress hormones that can cause your muscles to become tense, your brain to become cloudy, your sense to be on high alert and your ability to relax to become almost completely diminished. Experts such as D Gary Young recommend mindfulness practices, such as meditation, deep breathing or journaling, to redirect your attention to the present moment rather than events in the past or in the future that may have you feeling overwhelmed. Mindfulness can empower you to make choices in the present that will reduce preoccupations with worries that are simply beyond your control.
2. Encourage Stillness
When you’re nearly always on-the-go, it can be hard to stop and smell the roses even when you have the time to do so. Your brain can become nearly addicted to constant inputs, which can make it challenging for you to enter a state of calmness and stillness. When you’re not accustomed to stillness, it may even be uncomfortable.
Your brain needs moments of stillness, as it can’t function well with all the mental noise. Regular attempts at mindfulness, especially when you start slowly with practices just intended to relax your body and mind at first, can help you to get comfortable with just being.
3. Strengthen Neural Pathways
Like anything else, the more you repeat positive thoughts, behaviors and skills, the more solidified and habitual they become. Regular mindfulness practices can rewire your brain to respond more calmly in stressful situations or rely on positive pathways in your brain when things get tough. This not only makes it easier to deal with stress as it happens, but it makes it easier to manage stressful situations even before they begin to affect your mind and body.
4. Promote Self Care
It’s hard enough as it is to find time to do what you need to do every day, so for many people, self-care tasks get pushed down on their to-do lists day after day. Commitment to a regular mindfulness practice is also a commitment to self-care, as it encourages you to slow down and take a breather for the sake of your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. The more you practice these techniques, the better you’re likely to feel about the way you’re treating yourself.
5. Boost Physical Health
Stress is hard on your body, and it often results in a host of unpleasant physical symptoms. Mindfulness techniques are not only powerful mental tools to retrain your thoughts, but these techniques also benefit your physical health in a number of ways, too. Mindfulness techniques have been shown to lower your blood pressure, reduce muscle tension, reduce pain, improve your ability to fall and stay asleep and even treat some long-lasting health conditions.
6. Reduce Mental Health Symptoms
Mindfulness has become a popular strategy among professional mental health therapists to treat a variety of conditions and symptoms. The goal of any mindfulness practice is to reach a state of awareness and presence that encourages observation without judgment, which can be incredibly helpful to those with mental health struggles.
Mindfulness can help those who live with mental health conditions to react with acceptance and affirmation when they experience something difficult or painful, and provides tools to help guide their behavior in ways that better serve their wellbeing and livelihood.