Mindful living

Mindful living is not only about meditation, nor is it only about focusing on the sensations around you, right now or in this moment. It’s a way of living life deeply in the present moment, finding calmness, stability and clarity of mind. 

At its foundation, mindfulness is simply a practice of awareness, to be mindful means to live in the here and now being aware of oneself and what is happening in and around us. The foundation of mindfulness practice is becoming aware of our breath and learning to use it as our own personal anchor. 

“Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one’s attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment. It is a matter of being fully present in the moment,” says Dr Samia Abul, Psychiatrist, Rashid Hospital, DHA. “Mindfulness is paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment and most importantly doing this non- judgmentally.” 

According to Dr Samia, mindfulness encourages you to be aware of the present moment, and to let go of distractions and your physical and emotional reactions to what people say to you. When you’re not mindful, you can be distracted by your own thoughts and worries, and fail to see and hear what other people are doing and saying.

The practice of indfulness has its roots in Buddhist teachings and is becoming more and more prevalent worldwide. We are witnessing an exciting and fast spreading well-being revolution, with a rapidly growing awareness of how the science backed benefits of mindfulness are proving to have a crucial role in improving our emotional, physical and social wellbeing. There is a great surge of interest in the positive influence of mindfulness practice on several domains in society, and we are seeing inspiring results from its application in the education system, healthcare, politics and the creative arts.   

Practising mindfulness at work fosters positive emotions and helps provide resilience against negative experiences. There’s also evidence that the practice of mindfulness promotes empathy and a sense of compassion. Brain imaging research shows that a half hour of mindfulness meditation a day increases the density of grey matter in parts of the brain associated with memory, stress, and empathy. Mindfulness seems to increase concentration and focus. 

According to 37-year- old Pooja Dhawan, Leadership Development Consultant with a well known family conglomerate in the GCC, “At work, mindfulness can help reduce stress and anxiety and conflict, and increase resilience and emotional intelligence, while improving communication in the workplace. Our company offers mindfulness workshops to the senior management team as part of the Corporate Wellness Program, this is critical to addressing stress levels at work as a lot of our employees struggle to manage their workload and maintain a work-life balance,” says Pooja.

“We also offer mindfulness workshops for new trainees who are working in a corporate environment for the first time in their lives. Most of our management trainees directly come from a university to work in an office and quite a few of them are not able to cope with the new environment and timeline. The mindfulness workshop in the induction program helps them integrate better,” explains Pooja.

“Practising mindfulness every single day is not easy, it involves opening up to the present moment just as it is; without trying to hold on to what you like about it or getting rid of what you do not like,” says Madeeha Afridi, Counseling Psychologist at The LightHouse Wellbeing Center. “It is when we makes a conscious choice to switch out of auto-pilot mode and become more aware of our thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, as well as all that is happening in their surrounding environment.”

In relationships, we are inherently social and cooperative by nature; beginning in infancy and throughout life, we are responsive to smiles and expressions of joy. When we practice mindfulness, we become more aware of our conditioned self that compare us to others, compete with others, or feels superior or inferior to others. “One of the essentials of mindfulness is to cultivate the practice of non-judgement, where you pay attention to your thoughts, emotions and occurrences in the moment as an impartial observer with non-judgement, kindness and curiosity rather than resistance or with a desire to suppress what is happening in the present moment,” cautions Afridi. 

For most individuals, being mindful does not come naturally because our minds have a tendency to have its own agenda by replaying experiences from the past, or jumping into the future with assumptions and distortions, which is contributing to why we are unable to be fully in the present moment. Mindfulness can help live a values driven life that feels enriching and fulfilling but for that it is important to practice mindfulness with intention.

An early, small study suggests that mindfulness may help boost the immune system. By serving as a buffer against stress, mindfulness may also lower the risk of heart disease. A 2015 study looked at people who scored high on a mindfulness awareness test and found that they had a healthier cardiovascular risk profile than people with lower scores. One small pilot programme also found that mindfulness training helped decrease depression. 

Eating mindfully is such a challenge, you do this in a workshop and think you can practice this in your every day life but it is tough there are so many distractions like family, kids, job pressure, the list is endless. The trick is not to punish yourself but practice mindful eating every time you remember to.