Here at Tranquil Inside, we’ve discussed mindfulness as a practice for coping with anxiety a number of times. So, I thought it’ll be great if we know and write about what is mindfulness. When and where Mindfulness started, and What are the effects of mindfulness on you. We’ll go through this one by one below.
What is not Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is not the process of practice or the process of doing something. When we say practice mindfulness we mean that you try being present in a moment. We don’t mean to say that focus on some specific thing. Mindfulness is not related to emotions, happiness, or sadness, but being mindful can affect them in surprising ways. You can feel better and more calm by practicing mindfulness but it’s not guaranteed in any way. Mindfulness is just being present, noticing and feeling everything that’s going around you without judging it. It is not focused on your breath, that’s a way of doing meditation. Though feeling your breath can be a part of it.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness, in short, is being present. Being present in the current moment without judging anything. Just noticing the thoughts that are going through your mind in the present moment. Mindfulness helps us in living fully, rather than altering our emotions. It doesn’t Reduce. remove. increase or decrease emotions in your brain. It just helps you relate closely to those Feelings which can help you take care of them better. Mindfulness is knowing the way you are and the way you feel.
A brief history of Mindfulness
People are practicing meditation for thousands of years. They are practicing it in Hinduism and Buddhist religions from the last 2500 years. It has existed for a very long time benefitting civilizations of the east. And in the last 50 years, the practice started moving towards the west. Mindfulness was practiced by religious and non-religious people alike. Most western teachers of mindfulness learned about mindfulness in Hindu or Buddhist traditions from the east. Some people also argue that Judaism also used to practice mindfulness. It should not be only reduced to Hinduism and Buddhism. This article is not to argue which religion started mindfulness first. But we’ll focus on the Hinduism and Buddhism religions here as this is the most common place people start learning about mindfulness.
Hinduism and Mindfulness
Let’s talk a bit about the Hindu religion, Hinduism is said to be 4000 years old and some people claim that it’s the oldest religion in the world. Though it’s very tough to check the history which is that much old so no one is sure about the age of the religion. Hinduism was not a single religion, instead, it combined a lot of tribes and religions throughout history in order to come under the umbrella of Hindu. That’s the primary reason Hinduism has so many gods. People belonging to Hinduism respect other religions as there were a lot of gods in Hinduism which came from other tribes. Mindfulness is intertwined in the Hindu Religion and its old Vedic writings which were written 2500-3500 years ago contain rituals of Vedic meditation and yoga.
Buddhism and Mindfulness
Western mindfulness practice is usually taken from Buddhism though. The Buddhist religion is spread in India and Nepal and it started in 500 B.C.E. Siddhartha Gautama started the religion who came to be known as Buddha later. Buddhism has mindfulness as a big part of their culture, rituals, and religion. These days Dalai Lama is an individual who’s thought to be an enlightened teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. Mindfulness these days are more involved in Buddhism then Hinduism though. And as Western mindfulness coaches often learned meditation and mindfulness from Buddhist coaches in the east, Western mindfulness is highly indebted to Buddhism.
Benefits of Mindfulness
Mindfulness is beneficial to both the mind and body of a person, it can increase the quality of life for you and help you cope with illnesses. It can give you added resilience for the tough events in your life. And a better focus on doing and working on things to make your days productive.
Improves your day to day life
Mindfulness can help you enjoy that ice cream more than you ever did, it can help you in feeling the things that you do and enjoying them. When you’re present in the current moment, you appreciate the things that you have. You become more affectionate towards your friends and you become a more calm person. You tend to observe more details about everything. When you’re mindful you don’t worry about the future or the past. You just live in the present and enjoy it. By focusing on the present, you can also become a more productive person at work. You are able to solve puzzles and find solutions much easier as you’re focused on the things that you’re doing. As you’re more calm and affectionate, you’re able to form deep connections with people more often.
Mindfulness can improve physical health as well
Mindfulness can help you from eating junk food and give you more will power when you’re trying to achieve something. It can give you control as you’re more aware of what you’re doing. Physically it can help you relieve stress, treat blood pressure issues, reduce chronic pain, and help with some gastrointestinal problems. Mindfulness helps in the treatment of depression, eating disorders, anxiety, substance abuse, and OCD. As these have a direct impact on your physical health too. Keep in mind that these are not the direct effects of Mindfulness. But are side effects which happen to you when you practice being mindful over a span of a few weeks or months.
Reduces emotional reactivity
Mindfulness can help you gain the cognitive ability and reduce emotional reactivity. it can help you focus better on a task if you meditate. A study (Ortner et al., 2007) suggests that people who meditate was able to focus better on a picture then the people who did not meditate, The study ranged from one month of meditation to years of meditation and showed upsetting images to all the subjects. People with meditation experience were able to get back to focus very quickly after looking at the upsetting image than the people who did not have cognitive experience.