Wandering minds
Mindfulness is “the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally”.
This definition from Jon Kabat Zinn is the simplest way to explain what mindfulness is.
Being mindful is about becoming attuned to those moments in your day when the mind wanders from the present experience and fixates on past or future events.
When your mind wanders, it may land on a mundane task such as making your shopping list or a mental to-do list and that’s OK because that’s what minds do. Your mind may wander and bring you fresh perspective on something and that creativity and innovation is wonderful.
However, your mind may take you back to a past event which caused you pain or upset. Or project you forward to worrying about something in the future, which may never happen. This type of mind-wandering is unhelpful – you cannot change what has happened in the past and you cannot know with certainty what will happen in the future – all that over-thinking is, at best, wasted energy and, at worst, harmful to your physical and mental health.
Practicing mindfulness enables you to notice more quickly when your mind has wandered and bring it back, without judgement, to your present felt experience.
Physical changes
Mindfulness has physical and mental health benefits which have been demonstrated in an increasing number of clinical studies. There is evidence from adult MRI brain scanning that after 8 weeks of sustained mindfulness practice, there is an increased capacity in the brain for regulating emotions and a decreased capacity for stress reactivity. In effect, your brain becomes more skilful at handling emotional reactions and dealing with the tricky situations that life throws at you. Mindfulness enables you to cultivate acceptance of your experience, whether pleasant, unpleasant or somewhere in between.
