How To Practice Mindfulness Today - [A Simple Guide Step by Step]

How To Practice Mindfulness Today – [A Simple Guide Step by Step]

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How to practice mindfulness in an effortless way, a simple guide for you to become happier and more present in your life. Here you will learn everything you need to know about how to practice mindfulness and stop living your life in autopilot.

Our schedules are packed, working extra long hours, answering work emails at night and on weekends.

Our children are bombarded with loaded school work on top of multiple extra-curricular activities.

We live in a society full of stress, anxiety, and over-commitment of time.

Mindfulness can be practiced by anyone (old, young and in between), anywhere and at any time.

That is the beauty of it.

Just a few minutes a day can work wonders on your mental, physical, and spiritual health.

What is Mindfulness?

The quality or state of being conscious or aware of something. A mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

In my own words, mindfulness is being aware at all times of what you are doing and your surroundings.

It is living the moment. It is a habit you need to develop, so it becomes deliberate.

Have you noticed that as you walk home sometimes you are so immersed in your thoughts you don’t even realize how you made it home?

Why is the Practice of Mindfulness so Important?

Research shows that meditation changes brain activities, and this mental shift decreases the negative effects of stress, anxiety, and depression.

With all the new technology at the reach of our hands, mindfulness is no longer “the ancient hidden treasure” of yogi and monks.

Mindfulness is practiced by millions of people in today’s world.

Due to its known benefits, many companies are adopting the practice of mindfulness in the workplace and making it available to their employees.

It is not surprising these companies are adapting this practical way of reducing stress as part of their corporate culture.

Some of the companies that offer mindfulness training are:

  • Goldman Sachs
  • General Mills
  • Apple
  • Nike
  • Google
  • Aetna
  • AOL Time Warner

Benefits of Mindfulness

1- Mindfulness Reduces Stress

benefits of meditation

According to a New York Times article, stress can make you really sick and it shows research and studies which prove that mindfulness and meditation practiced for 15 minutes can help you reduce stress in your life.

When you practice mindfulness, the part of the brain known as the amygdala is stimulated thus becoming smaller.

The amygdala is responsible for regulating emotions and for its role in stress.

Any time your out-breath is longer than your in-breath, you help to switch off your body’s stress response and
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
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2- The Practice of Mindfulness Helps Reduce Depression

Harvard researchers study how mindfulness may change the brain in depressed patients.

In 2015, 16.1 million Americans reported experiencing major depression during the previous year, often struggling to function while grappling with crippling darkness and despair.

practice of mindfulness improves depression
Functional MRI (left) showing activation in the amygdala when participants were watching images with emotional content before learning meditation. After eight weeks of training in mindful attention meditation (right) note the amygdala is less activated after the meditation training. 
Courtesy of Gaelle Desbordes
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3- Meditation and Mindfulness Reduces Anxiety

Research shows that the practice of mindfulness and/or meditation helps in reducing anxiety.

The positive effect that it has on our mental and physical states permits for more reasonable reactions and control of emotions to strenuous situations.

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4- Mindfulness and Meditation Lower Blood Pressure

The practice of mindfulness and meditation creates a calmness, a sense of peace and well-being.

By being more focused and more aware of emotions, you will be able to identify the triggers hence being proactive and take control.

The benefits of mindful meditation in lowering blood pressure serves as an alternative to popping pills, which give you nasty side effects.

5- Mindfulness Improves Memory Loss

A number of studies have found that mindfulness improves the cerebral cortex.

Which is responsible for functions such as learning, concentration, and memory.

The practice of mindfulness and meditation has proved to increase gray matter in the brain.

6- Mindfulness Regulates Emotions

Researchers from Michigan State University (MSU) found that mindfulness helps to control negative feelings.

If you’re a naturally mindful person, and you’re walking around very aware of things, you’re good to go. You shed your emotions quickly. If you’re not naturally mindful, then meditating can make you look like a person who walks around with a lot of mindfulness. But for people who are not naturally mindful and have never meditated, forcing oneself to be mindful “in the moment’ doesn’t work. You’d be better off meditating for 20 minutes.”
Jason Moser, MSU professor of clinical psychology 
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7- Mindfulness Improves and Makes Relationships Happier

Mindfulnes improves relationships

Because mindfulness helps us be more present and attentive.

We are so caught up with social media, work, TV that we are on autopilot and space out whenever our partners are talking to us.

What mindfulness does is helps you be more attentive and see the moment when you start to space out.

Furthermore, because the practice of mindfulness makes you affect the part of the brain that makes you more emphatic and compassionate.

Therefore it helps you understand your partner’s feelings and emotions better. It also allows you to be more empathetic.

Lastly, this will help you be more present, loving, and emotionally mature.

8- Mindfulness Improves the Quality of Sleep

Due to the relaxation effect of practicing mindfulness, you will have a better and deeper sleep.

A study published by JAMA internal medicine concluded that mindfulness meditation is a good solution to remediate sleep disturbances.

The constant stress of work and personal life, the use of electronic devices, phone, TVs, computers and not to mention the long commutes that are so in style right now in our society, have contributed to the new epidemic of “sleep deprivation“.

Lack of sleep is to be taken seriously.

It affects every single organ in our body, making us more vulnerable to diseases.

I know no one wants to give up spending time with the family or watching the latest on Netflix, but let’s not put our health at risk.

So let us take a few minutes out of our busy schedule and practice some self-care.

9- Mindfulness Increases Focus and Concentration

We live in a word where everyone is multitasking.

This lack of attention to detail leads to difficulty remembering crucial and important pieces of information.

beginner's guide to mindfulness

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10- Meditation and Mindfulness Promote Creativity

The definition of creativity according to Oxford is “the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.”

In open-minded meditation, our minds wander and that’s when creative thoughts come to life.

We have no judgment of thoughts, we see them go by and observe.

This process allows our creative juices to flow, ideas come as we pass no judgment to our thoughts.

Open-monitoring meditation (observing and noting phenomena in the present moment and keeping attention flexible and unrestricted) was far more effective in stimulating divergent thinking, a key driver of creativity.
Lorenza Colzato, a Dutch cognitive psychologist.
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How to Start a Daily Mindfulness Practice

There are two ways to practice mindfulness in your daily life:

  • Meditation (formal practice)
  • Everyday life (informal practice)

How do you practice mindfulness? There is no right way to practice mindfulness.

The practice of mindfulness is hard at times, but yet is pretty simple.

Let me give you an example so you can understand better what I mean.

It is like when you start working out at the gym.

It is very simple to go to the gym and sign up, but it gets harder to create a habit and go to the gym every day.

BUT you know that sacrifice and effort are going to be worth it.

Do not get discouraged, starting a mindfulness practice may seem difficult and time-consuming, but it’s not.

You have lived your entire life in autopilot. It is just like training your muscles at the gym.

With mindfulness practice, you are training your mind.

Meditation (Formal Mindfulness Practice)

mindfulness guide

Step 1: Don’t Set Expectations

By setting expectations you become attached to the goal.

If you don’t meet your expectation there is a great chance that you will get disappointed.

With disappointment comes lots of negative emotions.

With the practice of mindfulness, as you become more adept and confident, you will see that you start managing your daily life’s expectations more easily.

You will consciously start to notice when a situation that frustrates you arises and you will be able to start finding solutions instead of reacting with negative emotions.

Step 2: Find a Quiet Place

Look for a comfortable place that is quiet and that brings you peace and happiness.

Just relax and sit or lay comfortably. This will be your place, your “me” place.

You can use this space at any time of the day.

That is the beauty of mindfulness, that it can be put into practice at any opportunity you get.

Step 3: Start with Just 10 Minutes a Day

Start with 10 minutes a day.

As you start to get the hang of it, you can start increasing the time.

Do what feels right. Go at your own pace.

Remember this journey is about you, and you only.

Close your eyes and start by focusing on your breathing, the sound of your breaths, the feeling of your chest rising and sinking with each breath, the air coming in and out.

Step 4: Just BE

If your thoughts start to wander, let them be, don’t judge.

Then come back and bring your focus back to your breathing.

You will notice you will start feeling more relaxed.

It is like you are the spectator of a show.

You are watching your own movie.

You are the WATCHER of your thoughts and perceptions without judgment or emotions.

Step 5: Don’t Give Up

How to meditate

Our minds are going to wonder all the time.

It happens, we are curious beings.

Be kind and just redirect your thoughts back to the task at hand.

You will see as time goes by and you keep practicing mindfulness it will become easier and effortless.

How Can I Practice Mindfulness in Everyday Life?

Just be aware of what you are doing at the moment you do it.

For example, if you are eating, take the time to eat and enjoy the food, the way it tastes, the textures when you bite and eat it, how it starts feeling your stomach.

Lots of times we eat while on the phone or while watching TV and we are not paying attention to it.

This is what I call “being on autopilot”.

If you are watching TV and eating, you are paying attention to the show you are watching and just going through the motions of eating.

Let’s be more mindful and enjoy the little things in life.

15 Ways to Practice Mindfulness Everyday

Ways to practice mindfulness
  1. When you wake up.
  2. While having your cup of coffee or tea
  3. While brushing your teeth
  4. While you take a shower/bath
  5. When you step out of the front door
  6. While walking
  7. In conversation
  8. While seated at your desk (posture)
  9. During your daily commute
  10. During your breaks
  11. While eating
  12. When you wait in line at the store
  13. While driving
  14. When working out at the gym
  15. Before you go to sleep

Are you ready to increase your ability to cope with life’s challenges? Found this mindfulness simple guide helpful? Share it and spread the word.

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