Why Mindfulness is Essential for Good Mental Health

Mindfulness. If you haven’t tried it yourself, you’ve at least probably heard of it. It’s widely discussed in the media; by influencers, bloggers, and there are countless books on the variety of mindfulness techniques a person can do. But what exactly is it? And why is it essential for good mental health? In this post, we’ll take a look at the mental health phenomenon that is mindfulness. We’ll also look at the number of benefits it can have, including reduced anxiety levels, increased productivity, and improved physical health.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is simply the act of being completely in the present moment. Distractions may come and go, including unwanted thoughts, outside noises, or physical sensations such as an itch or ache. However, the most important aspect of mindfulness is simply recognising these distractions before immediately bringing yourself back to the present moment. By doing this regularly, you’ll eventually be able to practice mindfulness for longer increments each time and find it easier to return to the present moment whenever you experience a distraction.

Benefit: Reduced Anxiety Levels

For people with anxiety, practising mindfulness can provide a welcome escape from their anxious thoughts and tendencies. Since mindfulness requires a person to be completely present, anxious thoughts are recognised but are not dwelled on.

Practising mindfulness also allows people with anxiety or high-stress levels to purely focus on one activity, with a reduced risk of panic attacks or focus on unwanted thoughts. For example, mindfulness doesn’t have to be practised during meditation; although this is a great method for some people, others may find it incredibly difficult to stay focused. Instead, someone may choose to practice mindfulness when doing a mundane or routine activity, for example, washing the dishes. While doing this activity, practising mindfulness would involve focusing solely on the five senses to do with the activity. What can they smell, hear, taste, feel, see? 

While mindfulness isn’t a substitute for mental health support, it is a great way to reduce anxiety and overall stress levels.

Benefit: Increased Productivity

Have you ever tried to focus at work or on a task you need to get done and find you just can’t stop procrastinating or overthinking? Mindfulness may be a helpful solution here. Essentially, practising mindfulness regularly trains your brain to get used to returning to the present moment when it becomes distracted during a session. As mentioned earlier, through practising mindfulness regularly, you’ll become a lot more accustomed to focusing on one task, which can mean great things for your general productivity levels!

Although it may at first seem counter-productive to focus on something like mindfulness when you already feel like there are a million other things you could be doing, over time, you’ll find that even just 5-10 minutes of mindfulness practice a day can make a huge difference.

Benefit: Improved Physical Health

Although mindfulness is purely mental based, there are several physical benefits as a result of regular practice. Believe it or not, mindfulness can help to reduce blood pressure as well as ease chronic pain! What’s more, mindfulness is great for regulating sleep, including helping those with insomnia and other sleep issues.

Psychological pain is very closely linked to physical pain. Through regularly practising mindfulness and reducing your overall stress and anxiety levels, you’re also a lot more likely to see an improvement in physical pain.

Benefit: Improved Listening Skills

Ever been in the middle of a conversation before realising you’ve completely zoned out of what the other person is saying? This is the opposite of mindfulness. Since mindfulness practice involves being completely in the present moment, this allows people to take what they’ve learned during their mindfulness sessions and apply it to everyday situations. One such situation is during conversations.

Through using mindfulness techniques and practices during conversations with others, you’re making way for increased empathy, improved relationships, and deeper compassion for others, not to mention overall increased listening skills!

Ultimately, there are many benefits of practising mindfulness, including reduced anxiety and improved physical health. However, it’s important to note that mindfulness should be practised regularly, ideally daily, to fully experience its benefits. What’s great about it is it can be practised anywhere, whether you’re brushing your teeth, on the bus to work, or simply sitting in your living room; the benefits of mindfulness practice are abundant.

This is a collaborative post.

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