Mindfulness: What it is and how to practice it every day
By Naturale Bio
It is one of the most searched and used words – sometimes even inappropriately – in recent years: “ mindfulness ”, a complex concept contained in this English term. But what is it and what does it really mean?
This approach to existence has ancient roots in the Buddhist religion and in Zen practices, but it was codified in the 70s in the United States by a scientist, the biologist Jon Kabat-Zinn .
Kabat-Zinn gave an official definition: Mindfulness is the mind's ability to be totally aware, lucid and immersed in the present moment , without any kind of judgment on the moment itself or on oneself.
Being able to practice the mindfulness , therefore, would mean being able to live each experience as it presents itself, without superstructures, fears or prejudices . We should not remain anchored to the past, to the memories that that situation evokes in us, nor project expectations towards the future and the results of that action or context.
Living the famous “ here and now ” with gratitude, objectivity, awareness and fullness. Simple? No, not at all, but certainly an interesting and positive perspective to live your life to the fullest.
Mindfulness, between Buddhism and Behaviorism
The human mind is naturally inclined to to correlate facts and events , emotions and sensations, both positive and negative, creating complex superstructures.
In this sense, every memory, gesture, sound, smell, that we feel at a precise moment, triggers a chain of reactions in the brain linked to the past and of desires and expectations towards the future .
The Buddhism has, among its conceptual bases, the very desire to stop this "stormy sea" of thoughts and desires: by managing to extinguish desire, one would be able to control emotions, in particular by containing or eliminating pain.
Here's why The concept behind mindfulness has its roots in Buddhist principles : being immersed and fully aware of the present moment means forgetting all the frills, all the anchoring of that moment with our past and all projections about the future.
Desire is cancelled, as are every type of objective, goal, fear, or “ transfer ”: this should, therefore, make us happy, because we exist one moment at a time, without conditioning.
Mindful meditation and mindfulness
One of the Buddhist practices that implements mindfulness is the so-called " conscious meditation ": it is a moment of recollection where the individual focuses exclusively on breathing , a deep, diaphragmatic breathing technique.
Of course, there will be moments of distraction when the mind will spontaneously start to “think”: you should not be alarmed or judge yourself (no “I can’t do it, I’m not capable, it doesn’t work, I keep thinking, I keep getting distracted” etc.), but simply start focusing on your breathing again. Little by little, it should become easier and easier.
Applications of mindfulness in psychotherapy
This meditative technique has also had various applications in the therapeutic field, as has the mindfulness approach itself. In practice, the therapist encourages the patient not to analyze his thoughts and feelings – as in traditional psychotherapy – but to distance himself from them, to deprive them of their power.
Thoughts and emotions are seen as something additional and extraneous, while we usually tend to believe that we “ are our thoughts and beliefs ”: on the contrary, thoughts, fears, beliefs, goals, are all things that we “ have ”, that characterize us but do not define us. We are not our fears, we are not our emotions, we simply have fears and emotions: this is the cornerstone of mindfulness-based therapy.
There would even be scientific evidence at the neurological level of the well-being generated by mindful meditation on the body : lower inflammatory indices, lower production of stress-related substances, reductions in anxiety states and many others.
How to apply the principle of mindfulness in everyday life
It may seem like a complex issue, but in reality, it is possible to begin to approach this life perspective in a simple way, in small daily actions.
Let's take a concrete example: a small gesture like preparing and enjoying a healthy breakfast is often ruined by a thousand interruptions and negativity that we impose on ourselves. Watching the news on TV, scrolling through social media on your phone or, worse, starting to read work emails very early in the morning in front of our coffee: it's wrong.
Let's take a moment of awareness and enjoy a colorful acai bowl or a slice of cake, we savor every flavor, we pay attention to every texture, we deeply inhale the good smell of our coffee, we feel the warmth of our home, the comfort of clean clothes… when was the last time we paid so much attention to these little things?
The same principle can be applied to any moment of the day:
- enjoy a 10-minute walk with the sun on your skin during your lunch break, lifting your head to admire the bright blue of the sky;
- notice the softness of our dog or cat's fur as we pet it;
- listen with attentive ear to the very particular and recognizable sound of the voice of our loved ones;
- perceiving the space and weight of our body when we lie down in our comfortable bed at night…
Mindfulness is the first step towards another dimension of life, closely connected and incredibly important: gratitude .
If we can be aware enough of the beauty of every single gesture and event, even the smallest ones, in our daily lives, we will have many reasons to be grateful and happy with what we have, instead of focusing only on fears (the past) and dissatisfaction (projections about the future).
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