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https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/health/practice-mindfulness-hate-sitting-still-wellness-trnd/index.html People spend half of their lives not focused on the
present, research says. Here’s how to change it
By Rachel
Trent, CNN
Updated
3:58 PM EDT, Thu August 5, 2021
A
popular way to practice mindfulness while moving is going on a mindful walk,
experts told CNN.
Editor’s Note: Welcome
to our CNN Wellness five-part series on adolescence – a tough time under any
circumstances. As our children head back to school this fall, learn more
about helping your tweens and teens understand their developing brains and
feel their feelings.
CNN —
“A wandering mind is
an unhappy mind.”
That’s what Harvard
researchers Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard
University wrote after their 2010 study found people spend nearly half
of their waking hours thinking about something other than what is going on
right in front of them.
There is good news,
however: We are not doomed to a life of distraction.
By taking up a mindfulness practice, you
can strengthen your ability to focus on the task at hand, experts on the form
of meditation told CNN.
Mindfulness is about
paying attention to the present moment “without a story about it or reacting
to it,” said Amishi Jha, professor of psychology at the University of Miami
and author of the forthcoming “
Jha said it’s very
beneficial to embrace a still practice, which she compared to resistance
training for attention.
The goal is not
about controlling the breath but “observing the breath and keeping your
attention on the breath and when the mind wanders away to guide it back to
the breath,” she said.
“When we are still,
it is much easier to take this kind of observational stance,” Jha added. “We
don’t have to control our movement. We don’t have to monitor where we are in
space.”
For many people,
that stillness associated with mindfulness or meditation can be daunting.
Fortunately, you don’t have to sit still on the floor with your eyes closed
to cultivate this mental exercise. There are more mobile ways to get mindful,
including the following.
Take a mindful walk
If sitting still
isn’t your style, mindfulness experts recommend incorporating the practice
into a walk.
It’s not the kind of
walk where you let your mind wander. Instead, you focus on the sensations of
walking, noticing “the toe touching the ground, then the heel, then the
lifting of the foot,” Jha said.
If your mind starts
to go somewhere else, instead of bringing your attention back to the breath
as you would in a stillness practice, you bring your attention back to the
sensations of walking.
How a
'micro-practice' can ease stress and help you sleep
Another common
physical practice is stretching, according to Diana Winston, director of
mindfulness education at the Mindful Awareness Research Center at the
University of California, Los Angeles and author of “The Little Book of Being.”
Try mindful stretching
“The difference
between stretching versus making it into a formal mindfulness practice is
what you do with your mind,” she said. “The idea is to stretch and to feel
the sensations of your body moving – so your arms as they move through space,
the air, the touch, the physicality.”
Make everyday tasks mindful
You don’t have to do
a formal exercise to practice mindfulness.
“It’s this quality
of attention, and you can bring it into any physical practice,” Winston said.
“Rather than being lost in your worries and thinking about everything you
have to do and catastrophizing and all the things we normally do, we turn the
physical activity into a mindful practice.”
This can be done
during tasks as mundane as washing the dishes.
“Feel the sensations
of your hands on the water, noticing the rubbing motion. This is all bringing
mindfulness into your day,” Winston said.
You can even
incorporate the practice into your commute, Jha said.
“You could be
sitting on the subway.
You could be at a
stop sign,” she said. “At an elevator waiting. You stop, take a breath,
observe and proceed.”
Try these 5
ways to practice mindfulness with your kids
Regardless of the
form you try, you’ll want to have success when you’re beginning a mindfulness
practice, Jha said, which is why she recommended starting with small goals.
Start small
People will also
find some practices work better for them than others, said Mallika Chopra,
author of “My Body is a Rainbow” and
“Just Be You,” children’s
books about emotional awareness.
“It changes at
different times and ages and different phases of our own life,” Chopra said.
She suggested taking on something enjoyable. “People tend to think these
exercises are very serious and stoic, and the goal is to make it fun.”
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