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Being Mindful Contributes to Overall Health
Mindfulness-based stress reduction Mindfulness became popular in 1979 when Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn created the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program. Dr. Kabat-Zinn, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, developed a systematic approach designed to help people suffering from high levels of stress or chronic illness. The program increased participant self-awareness and proved successful; many medical facilities and clinics around the world use MBSR.
An online eight-week program that focuses on paying attention to the present moment is available at https://palousemindfulness.com/MBSR/week1.html.
How does mindfulness work?
When you are paying attention to what is going on around you instead of operating out of habit, it becomes easier to focus. When you are paying attention, it is easier to remember what you have done. If you are living in the moment, creativity improves. Work can become easier if you are only concentrating on the work at hand and not thinking about what will happen later or what happened yesterday.
What are the benefits?
• Helps you have an attitude that contributes to a satisfied life. • Makes it easier to enjoy the simple pleasures in life as they occur. • With a focus on what is happening now, you are less likely to get caught up in worries about the future or regrets about the past.
How can mindfulness impact health?
• Helps relieve stress. • Helps lower blood pressure. • Helps manage pain. • Helps improve sleep.
Ways to practice mindfulness
Basic mindfulness. Find a quiet place to sit, relax and just think about your breathing. As thoughts come to your mind, allow them to come and go without judging them. Then refocus on your breathing.
Body sensations. Start at one end of your body and become aware of each part of your body. Feel the sensations in each part of your body, and then move on to the next.
Sensory. Sit quietly and become aware of all you are experiencing with all of your senses: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. Become aware of each sensation, experience it and let it go without judgment.
Emotions. Allow your emotions to be present, but don’t judge them. Then let them go.
For online mindfulness exercises, click here.
Mindful eating
Mindful eating is simply paying attention to what you are doing. It means sitting in a chair at the table. Think about the food that you are about to eat. Think about your hunger, and the foods you will consume to satisfy your hunger. Think about how much food you need to satisfy your hunger.
Take only what you need. Eat slowly. Feel your hunger subside. If your mind wanders to other things, bring yourself back to the table and your food.
Practice this exercise every time you eat. This includes the tasting that you do as you prepare a meal. It also includes snacks that you pick up at the convenience store when you are buying gas.
People who eat mindfully eat less, because they are paying attention to what they are doing.
“Life consists only of moments, nothing more than that. So if you make the moment matter, it all matters. You can be mindful, you can be mindless. You can win, you can lose. The worst case is to be mindless and lose. So when you’re doing anything, be mindful, notice new things, make it meaningful to you, and you’ll prosper.” —Psychologist Ellen Langer, in Harvard Business Review interview
References 1. University of California, Berkeley. Greater Good Science Center. n.d. What is mindfulness? http:// greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/mindfulness/definition. 2. HelpGuide.org. n.d. Benefits of mindfulness: Practices for improving emotional and physical well-being. https://www.helpguide.org/harvard/benefits-of-mindfulness.htm. 3. Harvard Business Review. 2014. Mindfulness in the age of complexity, March. https://hbr. org/2014/03/mindfulness-in-the-age-of-complexity.
© 2019 by The Curators of the University of Missouri, a public corporation
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