What Mindfulness can do for you

In recent years, you hear about Mindfulness on a regular basis. More and more scientific studies confirm that Mindfulness is beneficial for us in many ways. Therefore, today I would like to share with you what mindfulness is and how it can help us increase our level of well-being..

Mindfulness is the practice of mindfulness, but what does this really mean??

We can explain it with the following metaphor. Let's imagine a vase full of water to which we put an effervescent tablet. What about that water? It becomes cloudy and shaky. It fills with bubbles that prevent us from seeing the water. However, if we wait for the pill to finish, the water becomes clear again, allowing us to see what is behind the vase..

In this metaphor, the vase is our body. The pill everything that happens to us throughout the day (those stimuli that we received) and water our mental and emotional state. Therefore, when we receive stimuli that move us, our emotions and thoughts begin to hijack us, stirring the waters and not allowing us to see clearly..

With Mindfulness, what we are looking for is that moment of pause, so that the pill stops working and we can see things clearly again. That moment of pause that makes us aware of what is happening and prevents us from being hijacked by thoughts and / or emotions.

When we act while the pill is in action, we are reacting to what happens to us. A reaction that is automatic and is motivated by what we are feeling or thinking. On the other hand, if we take that pause, to let those emotions or thoughts settle, we are able to see clearly and act in a more convenient way, responding instead of reacting..

In mindfulness, we are the observer and the one who, at the same time, is in that process. The observer who is looking at the vase and at the same time seeing and feeling the effervescent tablet and the water.

Through Mindfulness practices, we extend that reaction time to become long enough to become a response or action..

Another thing that we achieve with the continued practice of mindfulness is, to expand our window of tolerance. But what does this mean?

Imagine a herd of zebras in the savannah. They are calmly drinking from a pond. Nearby is a lioness, ready to hunt. When he starts running towards the zebras, they run until they are out of danger. And then what do they do? They return to that peace and quiet that they had before. The danger has already passed for her, so they can "rest".

On the other hand, when we are activated by something that has happened to us and that has made us feel that we were in danger, it takes us a long time to return to that state of stillness because our emotions and thoughts hijack us.

With the practice of mindfulness, we increase that tolerance so that it becomes increasingly difficult to find ourselves in danger in situations that are not and also take less time to return to that state of calm.

We achieve all this thanks to the daily practice of Mindfulness exercises. There are two types of exercises:

1. Formal: What are those practices that we do in a meditation cushion or chair to train skills such as intention, attention and observation (without trying to change what we are observing)
2. Informal: They are those practices that we do in our day-to-day tasks in order to integrate Mindfulness into our lives.

Studies have shown that these practices have important benefits for our well-being, some are:

1. Stress reduction
2. Increase in the perception of positive events in our life
3. Healthier and more assertive relationships
4. Increased self-confidence
5. Higher productivity

We have always heard of being in the present, accepting things as they are, breathing to manage our emotions, etc. The Mindfulness is the tool that teaches us, how to do all this.