5 reasons we all need mindfulness in our lives

Mindfulness is a tool we all possess, the rest is learning how to master it

What is mindfulness?

Summed up, it’s the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something. In holistic practice, that awareness is of the self. While mindfulness is innate, it can be cultivated by merging meditation practice with other activities, such as yoga, sports, walking or simply being still. Practicing mindfulness means being aware of your consciousness, and the direction in which your thoughts are moving. When mastered, you have full control in guiding them on a trajectory that best serves you. Picture yourself (as many of us are), overwhelmed, under pressure, and as a result, overly reactive to what’s going on around us. When this mindset is left to build and fester without a pause for meditation, every day life becomes swept under in a foaming wave of anxiety, depression, tension and exhaustion. If any of that is sounding familiar, here’s 5 reasons you should practice mindfulness:




Your memory is failing you, and it’s become a cause for concern


Poor memory can impact work, impede on plans and strain relationships. Stress and anxiety have a hindering effect on the process of forming and retaining long and short-term memories, whereas mindfulness boosts working memory by “clearing the pathway”. Imagine an overgrown path in a forest, riddled with thick vines, hoards of brambles, and jagged tree stumps blocking anything other than bugs and mice crossing through it’s tangled roots. There’s no room for you to take this path unscathed, and if you tried, you’d likely get stuck. That’s the difficulty memories face when trying to navigate through clustered synapses. Now clear the path, there’s room for you to move effortlessly, the sun able to illuminate the way and your destination clear and accessible on the other side. This is the brain after mindfulness or meditation, able to navigate optimally without hinderance.

Happiness is eluding you

In practicing mindfulness, you breathe deeply, think purposefully and ground yourself. This allows tension to leave the mind and body, and a sense of peace to fall on even the heaviest of hearts. Even if you don’t feel instantly joyful after encountering stability within the mind and emotional spectrum, it will enable positive emotions to manifest. The amazing thing about feeling better, is that it has a knock-on effect, one happy thought or step towards health affects all aspects of life. The best part? You made it happen, and you have the power to do it again and again.

Stress and anxiety levels are peaking

This is a common one, because life always has it’s struggles no matter who you are. Pretty much everyone deals with stress or anxiety on some level, and often coping mechanisms aren’t all that helpful in the long-term. When you use mindfulness as your go-to tool, you’ll realise you can actually handle pretty much anything life decides to throw at you, and best of all, you can do it with grace.

You’re never really 100% there

Your mind is always far away, either stuck in hindsight, worried about what’s ahead or tangled in a million different mental reminders and random memories. This is not only exhausting, but detrimental to relationships, as a healthy relationship requires your full attention, and often, when in company. When your mind is trailing off elsewhere, you start to lose interest, empathy and even emotional ties to the other person. If you think about it, the ‘now’ is all we ever have, so to waste it caught up in what can’t be changed or what’s yet to come means you’re never fully there, like you’re borrowing existence. That’s an awakening thought, because with the limited time we have here, it’s completely wasted if we’re not living it.

Mindfulness helps brings you fully to the here and now, allowing you to feel more in control of yourself and appreciative of the moment, and needs of other people. In becoming more self-aware you also become more empathetic towards others. As a result, your understanding of others and of yourself improves, so you’re better equipped to act and converse fluently.

Decision making has become a struggle

In a nutshell, mindfulness helps you to strip away the non-important from the vital. Once we’re sure of what’s important, we’re able to prioritise with ease and base decisions off of that principle. Once again, it’s all about that crowded pathway. Our thought processes fight to get to where they need to go if we’re not consciously clearing away the vines, brambles, thorns and weeds that are overgrown and cluttering the way. When we bring ourselves into a meditative state, we find stillness in our thoughts, and are able to decide our fate from a place of stability. Science has proven how anxiety impedes decision making – read about that in our recent blog.

Gain a qualification in Mindfulness!

Why not brighten your future with one of our accredited online holistic health courses? We offer internationally recognised qualifications in Psychotherapy and Counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Mindfulness and Neuro Linguistics Programming. We have over 60 different holistic therapy courses to choose from, and we’re happy to help you every step of the way.

Here at The School of Natural Health Sciences, you can be sure that your CV, spectrum of knowledge, and outlook on life will be forever enriched.

• View our A-Z Holistic Therapy Course list
• Check out our outrageous 21st anniversary offers
• View our worldwide accreditations
  
• Contact us for more information. We’d love to hear from you!

The post 5 reasons we all need mindfulness in our lives appeared first on SNHS - School of Natural Health Sciences.

from SNHS – School of Natural Health Sciences http://ift.tt/2EaS9IZ