Relieving yourself from stress, anxiety, and pain are probably some of the reasons that would have attracted your attention towards meditation. But if you aren’t getting the benefits of traditional meditation, then you might not be in synchronization with that meditation technique. However, that doesn’t imply that you cannot incorporate meditation in your life at all. You have another option with you and, i.e., mindful meditation. You must be wondering what is mindfulness meditation, how does it work, and why is it important. Don’t panic. We are going to answer all your questions in this article. Just keep yourself focused on what is being discussed here.
What is mindful meditation?
It is a special meditation technique in which you don’t have to quite your mind completely. In this technique, you need to have better control over it, and as a result, you can have a calmer and less stressed mind. The main point behind this meditation technique is to focus on what is going on in the present. You’ll have to divert your attention to something that is going on at a particular moment rather than wandering in the past or future. But it does not necessarily have to be something going on in front of you. Yeah, this gets a bit weird and confusing, right? Don’t worry. We are going to explain this aspect of mindful meditation in the next sections.
How does mindful meditation works?
In this meditation technique, you need to keep your mind on the present events. It could be in the form of enjoying the people around you. You can even keep your focus on your breathing while doing mindful meditation. Similarly, enjoying creative imagery in your mind can also be one of the ways of exercising this technique. You just need to have control over your mind while practicing it.
Purpose of mindful meditation:
By following the above-mentioned ways to practice mindful meditation, you are actually controlling your mind. You are making it sure that you are handling your emotions and thoughts and not letting them control you.
Why is mindful meditation important?
Here are some of the benefits that you can get by practicing mindful meditation. These benefits will indicate the importance of this technique.
1. Manages Pain:
By exercising this meditation technique, you’ll be able to understand your pain. Although you cannot avoid it as it is part of life, you can definitely have more control over it and live a better life. A life in which you’ll know how you can minimize the pain, both the physical and emotional one.
2. Creates Better connectivity and focus:
Mindful meditation allows you to have a better focus. By learning how to focus, you can easily divert your attention to the important things in life. This can allow you to have better connectivity with your loved ones. You can converse with them in a more appropriate way.
3. Lowers Stress:
Through mindfulness meditation, you can lower the overall stress level. Thus, you can avoid the diseases and other problems associated with it.
4. Reduces noise in the brain:
If you are indulged in overthinking, then practicing mindfulness meditation can help you reduce your noise. You exercise, bringing back your thought process to hat you are focusing on the technique again and again. So, over time, you’ll experience, that extra noise in the form of thoughts and chatters would ultimately stop.
5. Ensures peace:
Peace is different from to be quiet. It is to remain calm in every situation. By practicing this technique, you can keep your mind at peace, which can also be helpful in enhancing productivity.
6. Improves physical health:
Mindfulness meditation is not limited to mental health; rather, you can also enjoy physical health if you master this technique. Lower level of stress in itself leads to lower health issues. So, you can expect to avoid heart diseases, reduce the chances of gastric diseases, and improve the quality of sleep. Not to mention that each of these dimensions leads to more physical benefits.
7. Improves mental health:
The problems in a relationship, lack of productivity, eating disorders, depression are some of the diseases that you can face with a disruptive mind. Using mindful meditation can reduce the chances of all these problems, and you can enjoy better mental health.
Daily mindfulness activities:
After knowing what is mindfulness meditation and other details about this technique, we are going to share some activities that you can use for practicing this meditation technique. This meditation technique doesn’t require you to set aside a specific time where you’ll have to bind yourself in isolation. This technique is much easier in this context that you can practice it while performing your daily activities and tasks.
Additionally, we don’t want you to be too harsh on yourself. In the start, your mind will definitely wander back to your thoughts rather than staying in the present moment. Every time, you realize the wandering of your mind, you need to retune and bring it back to the present smoothly. Don’t panic over the wandering thoughts. They are common and are expected to be managed nicely.
Here is a list of daily activities that you can use for exercising mindfulness meditation.
1. In the bed:
When you get up in the morning, it is the best time to practice it. You can take out 5 minutes to understand what is going on around you to the present moment. For that, you don’t need anything specific, the sound of the fan, birds chirping or breathing activity can be kept at the center of focus.
2. Breathing:
One of the most ignored activities that we do every second is breathing. We take it for granted and often miss the fun that breathing can bring for us. Inhaling and exhaling require a lot of movement in organs, so we can easily notice it and keep track of it. By practicing mindfulness in the real sense, you can even have better control over your breathing habits. It can help in removing your stress, and obviously, the general benefits of mindful meditation would come along.
3. Brushing your teeth:
This is another activity that we perform on a daily basis. But most of the time it is performed in much hassle. Although, being hasty in brushing your teeth, don’t save you any time, but that is how our daily activities are tuned. So, you can try and change this routine. Try and notice the movement of the brush or enjoy the sound of water rather than planning for the entire day within those 2 minutes. Believe us, the two minutes of practice can eventually make you adept in controlling your thoughts.
4. Washing dishes:
Even if you don’t live alone, washing dishes is the time that you can spare yourself in solitude. Why? Mostly the other family members are busy watching TV or talking to each other. So, you can easily indulge in performing mindfulness meditation. In this case, you should be concentrating on the bubbles, and foam formed by the dishwashing liquid and the sound of dishes when they bang with each other in the sink. By concentrating on what is happening in the present, you cannot only learn mindfulness meditation, but it can also help you in relieving stress.
5. Cleaning:
It is a burdensome activity. It will remain as it is unless you start living in the present moment and enjoying what is going on. The noise of a vacuum won’t irritate you if you’ll feel the rhythm by putting your focus on it. Similarly, the other items of cleaning would reveal their purpose on holding, but all you need to do is concentrate and live in the present moment.
6. Cooking:
If cooking food is your responsibility, then you can even use it as a medium to exercise mindfulness meditation. Enjoy the sizzling sound of onions in hot oils or notice the colors of the flame. We bet that you wouldn’t have noticed the beauty in the flame of your stove. It is not too late. You can still have a look and enjoy this activity.
7. Eating:
Usually, we eat with the television on or mobile phones in our hand. Such a practice does not allow us to enjoy our food fully. We often swallow big bites and take big water gulps. People who don’t have such entertainment going on are often too busy even to have their food. This is why they take a quick meal break.
You can easily convert this daily activity of yours’ to the mindfulness meditation. All you need to do is to focus on what you are eating. You’ll be better able to feel the taste and manage the size of the bites. Moreover, you’ll also be able to eat proper portions for a healthy lifestyle. You can concentrate on each bite, the number of times you chew and feel the food moving down your throat. All such things can help you in practicing the technique. The best part is if you choose “eating” as the daily activity when you’ll practice mindfulness meditation, then you’ll get at least three time slots for that, i.e., at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
8. Driving:
A wandering brain during driving can be dangerous. Although, we all tend to take this risk and think about our day ahead or the things that we have forgotten home, wouldn’t it be better if we would concentrate on the road, the way we are driving and the driving itself?
By putting a deliberate effort in controlling our minds and thoughts, we can actually try to enjoy the ride and the vehicle, people around us, and the things in our surrounding. Try clearing your mind when you drive next time. You’ll clearly see a difference. Even the impact of traffic and the stress caused because of it will be particularly reduced.
9. Walking:
While you go on a walk, you can practice mindfulness meditation. Enjoy nature around you. Chirping birds, greenery, and your own pace of walking can provide you with enough activities to concentrate on. These are usually some of the activities that you don’t focus on normally. So, it might be difficult for you in the start, but gradually you can learn to have fun while enjoying your present moments.
10. Book reading:
You might be thinking that book reading is an activity that requires your attention or wants you to be living in the present moment. But we have seen people who have difficulty in concentrating and they can start their thought process in between the reading.
In order to pacify your mind, you’ll have to try to read the book and keep the image in your mind related to the book. With a visual image going on in your mind, you’ll be able to enjoy the book in a better way, and obviously, the benefits of mindfulness meditation would also be achieved along with the ability to exercise it in the long run.
11. Completing homework:
Whether you are a student or an employee who has a lot of office work to manage off time, you can exercise mindfulness meditation and complete your work efficiently. In the start, you can set a time in which you’ll put continuous deliberate effort for concentration. In this time, you’ll observe your productivity to increase by manifolds. For the rest of the time, you can use this increased productivity to motivate you for living in the present and concentrating on the task.
12. Talking:
Our general motive behind talking is to answer back. We don’t listen to others for understanding or absorbing the beauty of words or the conversation going on. Because of this, we face a lot of communication issues. But this is not the only drawback of listening for talking back. You also ignore the beauty that the linguistics hold in. Additionally, if the topic is not interesting, your brain starts providing you with interesting points to think about. In all this situation, if you’ll decide to talk or communicate with others by focusing on present only, you’ll be exercising mindfulness meditation, and the benefits of using it will definitely be unending.
13. Watching TV:
TV is one of the biggest distractions that we can provide our mind with. The use of mobile phone, talking to others, eating, etc. are amongst the prominent activities that we tend to perform along with our favorite series. Because of all this noise, our brain cannot focus on the colors of great scenery or the beauty of the story going around.
Through mindfulness meditation, you can spend meaningful time even when watching the TV. You’ll be able to enjoy the picture quality and sense wonderful script.
14. Sitting:
Sitting around in your free time will make you think about your past or future. Mostly, judgmental thinking is also part of this simple thought process, which affects your mental health in a negative manner. You can switch this negative activity to a positive one by restricting the judgment about people or things. You just need to focus on observations, and you’ll be able to see the difference.
If you are thinking that it would be difficult for you to notice something when you have nothing else to do, then try using this technique. We assure you that once you’ll start noticing things around, you’ll be able to find a lot of things that were previously ignored.
15. Exercising:
Again, another daily activity that we love to do with music on or our favorite television show being broadcasted. We tend to choose these complimentary activities to fish the workout quickly, and actually, it helps in finishing your workout. However, you can’t bring peace of mind while exercising with music on.
So, you must try to exercise with a conscious effort to pacify your mind. You can concentrate on your movements or your breathing while you inhale or exhale.
Bedtime:
This is again one of the activities that can provide you a way to relax your mind. Going for a haphazard end to the activities like reading a storybook to the kid, making the bed and winding up everything, you need to be calm and enjoy what is going on around you rather than panicking. It will help you in pacifying the situation a lot earlier than you would do otherwise.
Conclusion:
Unlike the general perception of meditation, mindfulness meditation can be performed at any time while doing any of the activities. The only prerequisite for mindfulness meditation is to live in the present time and observe what is going on. So, you can easily perform it while on the bed, doing the daily home chores, or office work. Starting this activity with a few minutes daily can help you in achieving numerous benefits. Moreover, your brain will automatically train itself to exercise it for the longer spans over a period of time.
Try practicing it today and share your experience with us by commenting below.
