

It is a mental state that you achieve by focusing on your mental awareness and on the present while accepting your feelings and thoughts. “Mindfulness” is an Eastern concept and a noun. It can enhance your relationships, your career, and everything else in your life so that you can live a life you love. Being mindful is something we can all do regardless of the day or what we’re doing and can have major influence on how we show up in the world. Mindfulness is a crucial component of what IIN calls primary food, which consists of everything that feeds your life off your plate, such as your career, relationships, physical activity, and spirituality. Seek out nature as much as you can and observe it closely. You can even pull up beautiful photos of nature online. Look out the window and see the trees swaying in the breeze or step outside for a brief walk during your lunch break. Going on hikes to watch the sunset is nice, but you can still experience the mindful benefits of nature almost any day. There is something awe-inspiring about nature that easily quiets the mind. If you’re not sure where to start, feel your own heartbeat or the rise and fall of your breath. Linger over a delicious bite of food as you taste it, appreciate the smell of essential oils, gaze at the interesting views of your daily commute, touch someone in a loving and appropriate way, and hear the murmur of sounds outside your window. Your senses offer constant invitations to mindfulness because they’re always attentive to the stimuli of the present moment. You’ll gain more insights and form a deeper bond. Whenever you're in conversation, aim to pay closer attention, make eye contact, and ask questions to fully take in what the speaker is saying. How much of what others say do you think really gets through? How often do you find yourself consumed with thoughts or seeking distraction while someone else is speaking? Listening is a great anchor to mindfulness. You can close your eyes and take a deep breath, look more thoroughly at the space around you, or simply check in with how you’re feeling at the moment. Use those moments as triggers for tuning in.

Whether you’re waiting for a train, are in an elevator, or at your desk waiting for a slow web page to load, our days are filled with moments of waiting. You’re also more likely to recognize when you’re not being mindful and shift your awareness.

By simply making the commitment to be more mindful, you prime your mind for being more attentive and aware of what’s going on around you. This may sound obvious, but intention is everything. How you can apply mindfulness to everyday life Decide to be more mindful It’s also a continuous endeavor, meaning that life’s circumstances make it hard to maintain for extended periods of time, so it’s important to regularly refocus our attention when it wanders.Īs for its benefits, according to the American Psychological Association, empirical evidence suggests mindfulness helps reduce stress, improve focus and working memory, lower emotional reactivity, increase cognitive flexibility, and improve relationship satisfaction, to name a few. It takes some measure of self-reflection to recognize whether you’re being mindful or not. It means not being on “autopilot,” going through the motions of life without a clear connection to what you’re feeling or doing. In essence, it means being aware of and attentive to what’s going on inside and outside of your body. “Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally,” explains Jon Kabbat-Zinn, the creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Mindfulness has entered our everyday conversations in a powerful way.
