Just pay attention..

Nowadays, mindfulness is the buzzword, you hear about it in the news, on social media, TV, etc. Many people such as athletes, politicians, and scientists are practicing mindfulness, and the majority say that their lives are much better now, they make better decisions, they become more effective.

But:

• What is mindfulness?
• How does it work?
• Is there any scientific proof about its impact on lives?
• How to master mindfulness?

Well in this article, we will try to answer those questions.

Let’s get started.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness suggests that the mind is fully attending to what’s happening, to what you’re doing, to the space you’re moving through (source: mindful.org). In other words, mindfulness is paying attention to the outside world right now in the present. This is the opposite of focusing on what is going on in our heads, and starting the creative process, this topic was covered in our article earlier here.

What does the science say?

According to Amishi Jha, a PhD Associate Professor of Psychology University of Miami, attention is the leader of the brain, as it redirects the brains’ resources to what we pay attention to. Without paying attention, people might miss critical information, such as a judge not paying attention to an important testimonial, or a surgeon not focusing on a sensitive maneuver even for few seconds. Those short “not paying attention” could have a dramatic effect on people lives.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, a microbiology PHD at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, discovered that during the practice of mindfulness (paying attention) a state of brain activation is created, and overtime paying attention will become a habit rather than a conscious and premeditated act. This is the basic principle of the neuroplasticity.

To be fair, some psychologists, neuroscientists, and meditation experts are skeptical about the mindfulness; they suspect that the main reason of mindfulness’ oversell benefits is financial incentives rather than about health concern. Nicholas Van Dam, a clinical psychologist and research fellow in psychological sciences at the University of Melbourne, pointed out that mindfulness meditation and training is more than 1.1 billion dollars industry in the U.S. alone. “Our report does not mean that mindfulness meditation is not helpful for some things,” Van Dam says. “But the scientific rigor just isn’t there yet to be making these big claims.”

How to master mindfulness?

Takeaway

What we can agree on is that paying attention and focusing are always good skills to have in life, either we have a high demanding skill job or not. And as any skill, it takes practice to master it, and here is a list of exercises to master mindfulness:

• Write a detailed daily journal, to keep attention to what you are doing.
• Detect and control your emotions.
• Eat meals without interruptions, so no reading, watching videos, talking, etc.
• Take time to focus on your breathing.
• Write daily goals.
• Keep work and home tied up and clean, to focus/see only important things.
• Make a list of distractions, and try to get rid of them.
• Take a digital break.

We are pretty sure that many other exercises are out there to help you pay attention and focus in your lives. Feel free to share your comments and best tips to master mindfulness.

Note:

This article was brought to you by noterecorder, ideas for a better life.

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 331,853+ people.

Subscribe to receive our top stories here.