Mindfulness is one of the most powerful health and beauty techniques you can undertake. Simply put, it is the practice of being fully engaged with what's happening in and around your body, but at the same time withholding judgement. This is a long practice, but the benefits are well worth it.
BENEFITS OF MINDFULNESS
Better Sleep: We talked in a previous entry about the importance of sleep for both your mental and physical wellbeing. Poor sleep has a detrimental effect on your body's functions, your mind, your hair, your nails, and your skin. Practicing mindfulness is a good way to ensure you're getting the quality sleep you need.
Manage Stress: While better sleep is known to help reduce stress, you'll still experience stressful moments. Mindfulness helps you to be more aware of your thoughts and emotions while avoiding getting too caught up in them. This helps you think about and manage stressful situations in a more positive way. Being stressed has negative impacts on your bodily functions, hair, skin, and nails. Managing stress is a foundation of feeling and looking your best.
Pain Management: Studies have shown that a mindfulness practice can help with chronic pain. Mindfulness impacts how you feel and react to physical sensations as well as to promote the use of the neuropathways in the brain that manage pain.
Emotional Health: Mindfulness helps improve your emotional health. Part of the practice is to be aware of your emotions and to be aware of why you feel these emotions while not subjecting yourself to judgment. Be aware, learn, let go.
Improved Attention: Mindfulness helps us to be aware of the moment and to let go of distractions. You'll experience better attention spans and better focus.
Physical Health: A mindfulness practice has been linked to better blood pressure, better gut health, and a reduction in the harmful effects of stress and poor sleep.
Better Romantic Relationships: Couples who practice mindfulness have reported feeling better, "heard", more responsive to each other's needs, and more accepting of their partners' faults.
Stronger Immune System: Studies have linked mindfulness to better antibody response, better T-cell production (cancer fighting cells), more effective healing responses, along with the immune system benefits found with better sleep and less stress.
Addiction Recovery: Mindfulness practices can help break addictions. Being more aware of yourself can help identify addiction triggers and help you respond more positively.
Less Anxiety: A mindfulness practice helps us focus on what matters allowing us to think more clearly about what's really important.
Cognitive Improvement: Mindfulness can work your neuropathways keeping them active and building new ones. Studies have suggested that Alzheimer's patients can see a reduction in cognitive decline with mindfulness practices.
Fights Depression: Helping us stay in the present moment, mindfulness practices can help us be more aware of our thoughts, thoughts that may have been occurring subconsciously. Being aware of our thoughts helps us to deal with them positively, learn from them, forgive ourselves and those around us, and to let go.
Healthy Weight: Mindfulness practices help us to be aware of and manage cravings. When we are aware of our cravings, we can learn what triggers those cravings, this helps us make better food choices. Reduced levels of stress and depression can also help us maintain a healthy weight.
HOW TO PRACTICE MINDFULNESS
There are a number of ways to practices and many resources available. The main idea is to develop a practice that you can eventually bring into your everyday life, learning to be aware of and learn from your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. Start simple:
Choose a time that you can set aside each day, you only need about 5-10 minutes. Consistency is important to making mindfulness a routine.
Get comfortable, focus your attention on your breath. This is your anchor- use it to block out everything else and to keep your mind from wandering.
Follow your breath, focus on how it enters and leaves your body, the sensations you feel, the rise and fall of your belly
Notice thoughts and feelings as they come into your mind, just notice and acknowledge and return your focus to your breath. No need to analyze, just shift your focus to your breath.
It can be difficult to keep your focus on your breath, especially early on. Don't worry, it's natural. Avoid judgment and just keep returning to your breath
Other ways to practice mindfulness are:
Mindful Eating: This is a great way to practice staying in the moment. Take a bite as if it's the first time. Think about the texture, the taste, experience each flavor. You'll learn to enjoy what you eat better and become less prone to overeating
Mindful Breathing: Whenever you feel stress or anxiety, take a moment to follow your breath. Focus on the feeling of the air entering your body, how it travels, and how it leaves. This will help calm your mind.
Body Scan: This is something you can add to your daily breathing routine. Focus on a part of your body, think about what sensations you feel. Slowly work your way around your body taking time to reconnect and ground yourself with your physical self.
Mindful Movement: This is something you can do whenever you're moving, it's often included as part of a yoga practice but can be done anytime. Pay attention to how your body moves, how it feels to move, how each part is connected as a single whole. Connect this with mindful breathing and a body scan to really bring yourself into the present and to focus on what matters right now.
Slow Down: Take time as you go about your day to really experience what you hear and feel. Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings, but don't judge yourself. Acknowledge, accept, learn, and forgive.
Name Your Thoughts: As thoughts come into your mind, acknowledge them as what they are. As thoughts come, you can assign that thought as anxiety, happiness, sadness, grief, etc. This will help you learn what thoughts are the start of certain emotions and to deal with these emotions better.
IN CONCLUSION
Mindfulness is a long-term practice that has numerous benefits for the mind and body. It supports and enhances the wellness routines you already follow. Even starting with short practices will offer many of these benefits with effects becoming stronger as you grow in your practice.
Don't you deserve to feel and look your best?
Comments