How to Start Practicing Mindfulness

Demystify mindfulness and take steps to implement the practice into your daily life.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the process of observing thoughts and sensations, good or bad, with compassion. A relatively simple concept, the benefits of mindfulness are wide-reaching and can extend to almost any situation. Mindfulness in daily life leads to increased emotional intelligence, meaning our ability to practice self-control and better relate to others, as well as more inner peace and harmony.

Much like meditation, the health benefits of mindfulness are extensive. Mindful awareness helps us reduce stress in the moment and in general, which leads to increased physical and mental well-being. Other benefits of mindfulness, according to the American Psychological Association, include supporting therapy and reducing anxiety and depression by helping to retrain our ability to practice resilience. 

So what is the difference between mindfulness and meditation? There are a lot of similarities in that they are practices that help you focus on sensation without judgment or expectation. Mindfulness, however, can be practiced at any time. It is not limited to seated or walking practices in which you orient to the present moment and meditate to the exclusion of all other things. You can be mindful while cooking, reading, studying, and spending time with others, or practicing an intentional mindful meditation.

The Science Behind Mindfulness

Research on mindfulness and its effects on the brain is growing. Mindfulness has a marked impact on stress levels when practiced regularly, according to JAMA Internal Medicine. Mindfulness practices have been shown to reduce cravings for those suffering from addiction, according to researcher Judson Brewer, and reprogram our brains for more adaptive responses when we are under extreme pressure. 

Mindfulness leads to a variety of mental health improvements, including reduced anxiety and depression as well as increased focus. The concept of mindfulness is to bring attention back to the breath and bodily sensations or even thoughts whenever the mind wanders, so it is adept at retraining the brain to respond with presence.

Getting Started with Mindfulness

Mindfulness Meditation Basics

To practice mindful meditation, you get the benefits of meditation and mindful awareness by focusing on sensation and paying attention to the mind's patterns in a designated space and time. 

Setting up a meditation space to begin this practice can help, though you do not need complete silence or the perfect conditions. Mindful awareness is being with what is without judgment, which means distractions can be excellent mindfulness training.

Everyone is different, but as a meditation instructor, I've noticed that for beginners, guided mindfulness meditations are helpful. As you get into more of a routine, unguided meditations may be a way of experimenting with the practice on your own. 

Simple Mindfulness Exercises

If you are looking to incorporate mindfulness practice into your life, but you don't know where to begin, the three following exercises are great ways to kick off a new or deepened practice:

• Breathing exercises in mindfulness can be extremely beneficial when working with difficult emotions.
• The STOP meditation helps you to practice mindfulness in the moment, even when you don't have a lot of time. 
• Body scan techniques are mindful practices in which you pay attention to bodily sensation by beginning at the toes and moving up the body systematically until you reach the top of the head. The entire practice is simply noticing what you feel and practicing both compassion and awareness. You may feel numb or lack of sensation in a certain part of the body. That is okay! Simply note the sensation or lack and move on. 
• Mindful walking is a lovely practice to combine with forest bathing. It is an opportunity to simply pay close attention to your steps as you walk slowly and with focus on every nuance of the movement and breath. Forest bathing as a practice is taking mindful walking to the woods, where you can also tune into the harmony of nature and how your body interacts with the smells, sounds, textures, and other sensations.
• Mindful eating is often practiced at the beginning of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training. It is an opportunity to take a small piece of food, such as a raisin, and allow it to rest on the tongue with awareness and total attention. As you chew and consume the raisin, you pay attention to sensation. (When I was new to this myself, I went through a few raisins before I was able to do this, so be patient the first time you try mindful eating.)
• Yoga and Qigong can be wonderful moving meditation practices that help to process emotions and reduce stress through attention to the body's movements. Specifically, look for slower and more pose-focused yoga, such as hatha, kriya yoga, and yin, rather than the more aerobic styles.

Incorporating Mindfulness into Daily Life

Creating a Mindfulness Routine

You can choose a regular time to practice mindfulness, but more often, it is easier to set a time to focus on intentions or check in with your progress every day. At the beginning of the day, for instance, you could make the goal to be mindfully aware of one pleasant sensation during your daily commute or in a team meeting. Combining mindfulness with daily activities changes how you experience life, allowing for a richer and more present interaction with others.

Overcoming Common Challenges

Distractions during mindfulness practice are inevitable, but I invite you to welcome them. They are opportunities to practice compassion and awareness. Maintaining consistency in practice can be difficult initially, but remember that you can always practice right now if you forgot yesterday. The beauty of mindfulness is that there are no rules aside from radical presence and compassion. 

To practice mindfulness right now, let's try an experiment with coming to the present moment.

Sit down and allow yourself a nice, deep breath. Focus on the way the breath feels entering your nose or mouth and how it fills the body. Allow the exhale to be slow and steady, noticing any small deflation in the stomach or lungs.

With awareness, take two more breaths like this, paying attention to the sensations above all else. If you'd like, close your eyes and continue the practice, focusing on the inhalation and exhalation, gently guiding your focus back to the breath and sensation as it wanders. Even just a few minutes or a few breaths can do wonders.