Mindfulness

For three years, at the beginning of each term I would get an email offering to join mindfulness classes. So this term I decided to give it a try and see what those classes will bring. For those who never heard of mindfulness, it is set of exercises including meditations which aim at understanding of your mind processes by which it promises to reduce stress and increase mental resilience.

How has been the course led? Each week (five of which I have already gone through) we are assigned a chapter from the course book Mindfulness by Mark Williams and besides that several meditation and mindfulness exercises. The book is really interesting as it gives scientific evidence for some of the things happening in our brains, which I, natural scientist, find very compelling. So if you ever get the chance to read this book, try to read at least a few chapters and see if you find that interesting too.

Now you might be wondering what the exercises are about. One of the main aims of mindfulness is to train your concentration. I am sure you know those hectic moments when you have a lot of tasks to finish as well as some personal problems and you don’t know what to focus on first. Well, at those moments you concentrate on your thoughts and those thoughts trigger other thoughts and you get into the spiral of hopelessness. To get out of the spiral, mindfulness serves as one of the tools. Instead of focusing on your thoughts about past and future you need to focus on what is happening at the moment. What a lovely sunny day, how chilly it is today and so many birds chirping! You just concentrate on what is around you.

If after reading this article so far you feel like trying it but don’t know how, I’ll give you two small exercises, with which I began, and you can see if it helps. First, you can try to focus on your breath. How many times in past week have you realised you were breathing? See! I bet zero is the most common answer, yet if mind feels full, then shifting your concentration onto breath can ease it a bit. Second, you can try to analyse your “autopilot”. How often do you pay attention to automatic things such as dressing up, brushing your teeth or putting on shoes? You usually don’t and once you are finished you realise that you put on two socks of different colour. So if you want to be a bit more mindful, give yourself a week-long challenge and try focusing for example on brushing your teeth. Maybe you will find something interesting or funny.

I really wonder what the three remaining weeks of mindfulness classes will bring to my life. So far, I must say, they had only positive impact. Similarly, I also wonder, how many of you, readers of this blog, will remember mindfulness and when feeling hopeless (and I hope this will not be often), will remember one of the exercises I mentioned and try them. I hope they will help you.

 

 

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