Mindfulness can help reduce stress, improve memory

By Claudia Lopez

In today’s society, we are so busy. There are so many things that we need to do and many things that we worry about. Many days we find ourselves either living in the future or the past. We think about the vacation that is coming next month or whether or not we handled a situation correctly yesterday.

By doing this, we are not living in the now. We may be missing out on important things occurring daily, or we may be too preoccupied to appropriately handle a situation. We have all been there. It can cause additional stressors in our life, and it can lead to unhappiness. Mindfulness is a tool, that if practiced frequently, can help reduce symptoms of anxiety, lead to greater satisfaction in relationships, improve memory, reduce rumination, improve ability to adapt to stressful situations and help manage our emotions.

Therapistaid.com defines mindfulness as a state of non-judgmental awareness of what’s happening in the present moment, including awareness of one’s owns thoughts, feelings and senses. The components of mindfulness include awareness and acceptance. Being aware of how you are feeling and what you are thinking as they happen and accepting those things without judging yourself is sort of like being a spectator and viewing things from the outside.

Below you will find a mindfulness exercise from TherapistAid.com that you can start practicing daily.

Use this exercise to quickly ground yourself in the present when you only have a moment. The goal is to notice something that you are currently experiencing through each of your senses.

--Five things you can see:

 Look around you and notice five things you hadn’t noticed before. Maybe a pattern on a wall, light reflecting a surface or a knick-knack in the corner of the room.

Therapist tip: Say these things out loud as you see them. As you get more and more practice you can learn to say them on your own.

--Four things you can feel:

Maybe you can feel the pressure of your feet on the floor, your shirt resting on your shoulders, or the temperature on your skin. Pick up an object and notice its texture.

--Three things you can hear:

Notice all the background sounds you had been filtering out, such as air conditioning, birds chirping, or cars on a distant street.

--Two things you can smell:

 Maybe you can smell flowers, coffee, or freshly cut grass. It doesn’t have to be a nice smell either; maybe there’s an overflowing trash can or sewer.

--One thing you can taste:

 Pop a piece of gum in your mouth, sip a drink, eat a snack if you have one, or simply notice how your mouth tastes. “Taste” the air to see how it feels on your tongue.

The numbers for each sense are only a guideline. Feel free to do more or less of each. Also, try this exercise while doing an activity such as washing dishes, listening to music or going for a walk.

Published in: https://www.mrt.com/news/health_and_wellness/article/Mindfulness-can-help-reduce-stress-improve-13189109.php

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