What is Mindfulness?

A Mind on Mindfulness

What is mindfulness? Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of mindfulness as we know it in the US says, “Mindfulness provides a simple yet powerful route for getting ourselves unstuck, back into touch with our own wisdom and vitality.” But what exactly does that mean and how does the practice help us get unstuck from stress?

Richard Davidson, astute neuropsychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he founded the Center for Healthy Minds, and Daniel Goleman, father of Emotional Intelligence, took a hard look at the abundance of research on mindfulness and the brain.

In their book Altered Traits: Science RevealsHow Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body, the authors conclude that there are, indeed, many positive impacts mindfulness has on our well-being.

It can improve attention, working memory, and happiness. It can decrease anxiety, depression and the effects of stress, including some biological effects of stress on the body. But, most of all, it can create a “lightness of being” that, in turn, governs how we respond to stress in the first place.

Lightness of being

What is “lightness of being” and how can mindfulness bring it about? To answer this question, let’s look at what it is and is not.

Mindfulness is paying attention. It is not letting one’s mind drift. It is meta-awareness, that is, awareness of awareness. Instead of getting lost in thought or letting one’s mind wander, it helps us direct thought and be aware of thinking itself.

We become observers of our thought and emotional processes instead of being in reaction to our thoughts and emotional processes.

In psychotherapy we often help people identify and express emotion. Getting people to verbally express when they feel hurt, for example, can help them understand themselves better and can increase the health of their relationships.

However, this isn’t exactly what mindfulness is about. Mindfulness notices the hurt, internally and compassionately, but may or may not express it to the other. In fact, mindfulness language prefers to identify hurt as “there is hurt” vs. “I am hurt” to promote observation of a phenomenon, thus reducing the chances of reactivity to it or identification with it. When we’re not in reaction to something (a thought, a feeling, another person) we’re not dragged down by it. We have a better chance of feeling lighter and, therefore, responding to stress with this lightness.

Mindfulness can be a type of meditation, but meditation doesn’t translate as mindfulness. In other words, one can do a mindfulness meditation by focusing on his or her breath moving in and out of the nose or one can eat mindfully by noticing the texture and flavor of each bite of food.

One can walk mindfully or work mindfully by paying attention, on purpose in the present moment and non-judgmentally to each task or each step, respectively. Therefore, one can lead a mindful existence without ever formally meditating (although formal meditation is excellent training in being mindful.)

What is Mindfulness? A practice not a religion

Mindfulness is a practice, it is not a religion. Although paying attention, non-judgmentally came out of Buddhist philosophy and is practiced regularly in Buddhist and Hindu meditation, it is not a religion. Mindfulness is a way of being in life.

It is an approach, a practice, much like exercise or eating healthily are practices. You don’t have to sit cross-legged on the floor chanting mantras to practice mindfulness. Simply pay attention to the present moment and practice releasing judgment. When your mind wanders from the present moment, bring your attention back to the present moment. In doing so, you are practicing mindfulness.

Reducing stress

One of the most powerful ways that mindfulness can reduce stress is through its effect on our connection to ourselves and others. In his book Attachment in Psychotherapy, published in 2007, psychologist and author, David Wallin states: “The regular exercise of mindful awareness seems to promote the same benefits—bodily and affective self-regulation, attuned communication with others, insight, empathy, and the like—that research has found to be associated with childhood histories of secure attachment.”

In other words, if we are feeling disconnected, insecure, anxious or avoidant (all stressful states of being), practicing mindfulness regularly can help heal this disconnect and create a sense of safety and security which, in turn, can bring about the lightness of being Davidson and Goleman talk about.

Start small

Start small. Set a timer for five minutes and do the following: follow your breath, paying attention fully with all your senses to the air that moves in and out of your body. When you get distracted by sound, thought, sensation or emotion, notice the distraction and then return to following the breath.

You may get distracted every few seconds or only once in a while. Don’t judge how you’re doing, just notice and redirect your mind to the breathing. By doing this you are on your way to learning to respond calmly vs impulsively to the stress in your life. You are on your way to creating a lightness of being. You are practicing mindfulness.