What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a method used more and more frequently by psychologists, especially in the field of anxiety and stress. But mindfulness is a method that can be used for many different types of issues. Simply put, mindfulness is about being consciously present and aware in the current moment without judging how we feel, or our emotions.
Many people live their daily life at an incredibly high pace. Everything around us is changing rapidly, and we are constantly forced to reevaluate our plans and decisions. This can mean that we sometimes forget to ‘check in’ with ourselves. But the more we practice pausing and checking in, the better we become at noticing and dealing with our automatic reaction patterns, negative thoughts and worries. And in an age where we are constantly confronted with others’ opinions, a non-judgmental reflection can be a welcome change.
Why practice mindfulness?
Mindfulness and meditation for anxiety is a growing field that can help you navigate the many ways that anxiety might affect your life. Mindfulness can also help create better relationships both with ourselves and others, reduce the risk of stress, anxiety and depression, make us more focused, energetic and productive, deal better with pain and improve sleep quality.
As you become more aware of the present, you gain access to resources that you may not have been aware you had. It can give a sense of quiet and calm in your core, and an increased awareness of what you need and do not need in your life. You may not be able to change the situation you are in, but mindfulness can allow you to change the way you behave and react in the situation.
How Mindfulness Can Reduce Anxiety
When we experience difficult or negative emotions, our first instinct can often be to try to suppress them, or to distance ourselves from them by analyzing them logically. However, it rarely makes the emotions go away. Mindfulness can help you learn to stay with the difficult emotions, feel and acknowledge your worries, irritations and other thoughts and feelings that may be difficult to experience. But by letting them be and acknowledging them, you can better process them, and over time help them disappear – or become so small that they no longer hinder you in your daily life. Being with your emotions and your anxiety instead of fighting or suppressing them can also help you gain better insight into where the anxiety stems from.
Mindfulness can also help you create some space between you and your worries, so that your whole world doesn’t revolve around them. This can be achieved by training to be aware of what is happening right here and now, as many of the worries associated with anxiety are oriented toward the future. At the same time, you can also spend a lot of time thinking about all the things that you feel you have done wrong in the past. Therefore, it is also easy to start feeling paralyzed.
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