WHY MINDFULNESS IS A SUPERPOWER
Mindfulness has grown in popularity in the past decade and for good reason. It’s a very powerful tool for bettering our holistic health; mind, body, and spirit. Sometimes, however, it’s hard to sort out current trends with verifiable evidence about the health or lifestyle interventions that you adopt throughout your life. This post is intended to offer you some clear insight on the efficacy of mindfulness, how to use mindfulness in your day-to-day life, and why it actually has the power to change your mind completely. Let’s dive in…
HOW EFFECTIVE IS MINDFULNESS?
The American Psychological Association has conducted over 200 studies on mindfulness, clearly linking the practice to significantly reduced stress, anxiety, depression, pain, and even addictions. Mindfulness practices have also been linked to increased physical health through decreased symptoms of fatigue, chronic pain, and increased immunity strength. That’s a lot of benefit for a single practice. If you would like to see any of those results in your own life, mindfulness is a super accessible and free way to get started on creating a healthier and stronger reality for your mind and body.
HOW DO YOU PRACTICE MINDFULNESS?
Mindfulness can be practiced in a number of different ways. Mindfulness is essentially a way to retrain the brain to prime your whole system for health, as opposed to stress. It is well known that the more stress you are under, the worse your health outcomes. The good news is that mindfulness provides us the opportunity to discharge stress and reroute our neuropathways toward health and vitality. The more you focus on being present to the moment, breathing out the stressors, and adopting a mindset of positivity for your life, the stronger your brain pathways for emotional regulation get.
Practically, you can begin mindfulness through guided meditations, yoga, breathwork, mindfulness-based therapy, somatic exercises, or simply being in nature. There are countless resources online to get you started with a mindfulness practice. The key is to let go of judgement about any thoughts that come up, accept what you feel or think as it is, and then redirect your thoughts and breath to the present moment. Adopting a gratitude practice and refocusing on what you want to feel as opposed to what isn’t working are fabulous antidotes for stress, anxiety, and depression and are central to the practice of mindfulness. You can do all of that in under 5 minutes from the comfort of your home, so why not get started now?
WHY INCORPORATE MINDFULNESS INTO YOUR LIFE?
In addition to the reasons listed above, it provides you a moment to center yourself and slow down. We are all moving a mile a minute throughout our lives but intentionally taking time out of our day to get present with ourselves has been proven to increase focus, attention, and clarity of mind. It also decreases physical and emotional distress and helps us clarify our goals. Taking the time to think about how you want to feel, truly has the power to shift your entire reality, if practiced consistently. It sounds simplistic because it is but it is also extraordinarily powerful. Don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself!
RESOURCES
If you’d like additional resources on mindfulness and manifestation, I’d encourage you to look into the following tools. Please note that all links are affiliated with Bookshop, meaning I get a commission at no cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase through the links below.
The Wakeful Body: Somatic Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom
The Universe Has Your Back: Transforming Fear to Faith
Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence
Mindfulness Cards: Simple Practices for Everyday Life
I really do hope that you take a moment today to mindfully get present with yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings. I hope that you find one thing to acknowledge gratitude for and see if you don’t just feel a little lighter after this small, short practice. It’s one of the most powerful resources for me personally but also in my practice as a therapist. I hope you find it to be beneficial as well.
Rachael