Mindfulness: A Modern Approach
Mental well-being is increasingly becoming a common term among the masses. To help create awareness on mental wellness, I thought I’d share my daily practices here on Medium. The focus here is not on identifying it, but how routine practice may lead to better lifestyles. I am by no means a professional or SME (Subject Matter Expert) in this field - the idea was to write up a post on mindfulness as a topic since it was gaining traction and hoped it would reach the wider reader community. In fact, I was surprised to find out that I’ve been practising something similar dutifully daily while reading some articles on mindfulness; only giving this practice the right amount of attention in recent months. Doing a quick google trends search, we find increased searches yearly across the globe. Of course, this is essential to mental well-being, but most of the volume searches come from top-tiered cities (the Darker the color, the higher the search volume).
Mindfulness is actually an age-old practice, living in the present. Certain sports/workout regimes require that level of attention; to a further extent, some jobs require that focus. “Focus” is a word most commonly used when performing tasks. Athletes have put on their headphones to cut themselves away from the rest of the world. Traders look at multiple screens and perform unbelievably quick mental sums. Whilst similar, Mindfulness is being aware that you are performing/executing this task etc. Take for example, prolonged piano playing may result in muscle memory developing for the pianist, just as driving on familiar streets for cab drivers. The muscle memories developed may result in a mind-numbing effect when these tasks are being repeated daily.
Now, I’m a working adult in my late twenties, I struggle to cough out free time. Nonetheless, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been working on mindfulness unknowingly. Let’s look at some of the basic practices suggested by mindful.org (Link at end of article).
Following the few basic practices from mindful.org:
1. Set aside some time
2. Observe the present moment as it is
3. Let your judgments roll by
4. Return to observing the present moment as it is.
5. Be kind to your wondering mind.
These 5 steps do sound simple indeed. To add on, it does sound like meditation. Meditation have various meanings, some define it to thinking, daydreaming, contemplating or even fantasizing. To me, meditating is the clearing of thoughts, observing my surroundings, paying attention to each and every aspect. In a fast-paced metropolitan city like Singapore (Yes, I’m from Singapore), where nature is not omnipresent, it means to people-watch. Humans are a funny species. In Singapore, people come from all walks of life — they have different ways in managing stress, pressure, anger, and a multitude of other feelings. People-watching teaches me to appreciate what I have at present. I may not have lived a life of luxury, but I am grateful for the present.
Here, what I mentioned is an example of a contemporary adaptation to mindfulness. We don’t have to be meditating every other day. My commute to my workplace is a 45-minute train ride. During which I spend some time staring into blank space; zoning out. Apart from that, I read a book and catch up with reads on medium, news.
During the time where I stare into blank space or zone out observing other commuters going hard at their mobile devices, I’ve actually been paying attention to my breathing, posture, legs, hands, feet — basically every aspect of my body. I look around the train and remind myself at the back of my head “hey, you’re in a train. Be mindful of your behavior, be aware, make sure you don’t get into other peoples’ way.”
If I were preparing to present projects at a team meeting, I’d rehearse in my mind what I would say and how I could better deliver my speech. Otherwise I’d practice a meditation method adopted from “The Monk who sold his Ferrari”. The book encouraged the author to re-imagine himself walking into a garden, with a couple of ornaments which imply various meanings; I imagine myself sitting in my bedroom, and try picture every single item in my room in my mind (in the book, the author was told to imagine holding up a rose and focus on each petal and its floral pattern). Performing these actions helped me remember things better, comforted me on days when deadlines are due. It gives me the confidence to speak up and stay sharp at work throughout. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own variations and practices.
What I’ve just shared is my personal experience on Mindfulness — which I feel had an impact on not just my mental health, but physical health as well. I eat better knowing I put in the required effort to sort out my thoughts, decisions before going into any impasse daily.
Do let me know if you’ve been doing similar or different things to help prepare yourself for the day ahead!
References:
1. Getting Started with Mindfulness, Mindful.org
About:
Hi, I’m Alan. I’m from Singapore. I generally have a curiosity for all things. I enjoy reading, writing, coding and watching comedy movies. I’ve been an academic researcher, a sell-side economics researcher and now doing work in Geospatial data analytics.
Here’re the latest projects I’m working on:
Building an e-commerce business - theactvfam.com
Collecting news summaries from RSSFeeds
Collecting central bank speeches via pdf downloads.
