Being Present In The Moment

“Do not look back, No one knows how the world ever began.
Do not fear the future, Nothing lasts forever. If you dwell on the past or future, You will miss the moment. What is planted in each person’s soul will sprout.” -Rumi
Being Present:
Let’s begin with being in the moment!
Before you continue reading this article, I want you to do this simple exercise for a minute:
Breathe deeply, close your eyes and pay attention to the sound of your own breathing for one minute and count them one after another. It is a simple task, but It is enough to put all your curiosity and concentration on your inhale and exhale in this one minute. When I say to focus all your attention on counting breaths, it means don’t think about anything other than the inhaling and exhaling!”
Done?
Did you manage not to think about anything during this 1 minute? I am sure your answer is yes! But! You probably remembered somethings such as why the morning coffee wasn’t the same as usual (past), or what to make for dinner (future), maybe you even thought: “I don’t know if this article is useful or am I wasting my time?” , and finally you remember that you wanted to control your inhaling and exhaling and tried to concentrate on the breathing again… and now you are here… reading more… 🙂
In this article, I am going to address exactly this issue!
Let’s go step by step together to understand what mindfulness means? What techniques are there for more control over our thoughts? What are the benefits of mindfulness? What effects does it have on the mind and body?
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness has deep roots in Eastern thought traditions and is often associated with the formal practice of meditation. This skill is called the “heart” of Buddhist meditations, which involves conscious and purposeful attention to moment-to-moment experience. In fact, mindfulness means “Being Aware” of what is going on in our thoughts, feelings, body and environment right Now.
When we say conscious and purposeful, it means that what you do is not automatic and is done with a specific intention. For example: when you listen to music while working, listening to music here is not conscious and purposeful; Rather, you use it to accompany work. When you listen to music with intent and focused senses, it is called conscious and purposeful attention.
Through the process of mindfulness, you can detach from the contents of your thoughts and see your experience of being in the moment without judgment and with greater clarity. The meaning of non-judgmental experience is that you are aware that your thoughts are not necessarily true, it is just a thought in your mind and you have to go through it. This process requires awareness of the experience in the present moment. And you have to practice the non-judgmental thinking and behavior for other people too.
If you pay attention to your work process during the day, you will understand that low attention and concentration causes a drop in performance. This is a problem that most people face. The importance of mindfulness is due to the fact that in most of its exercises, mainly due to two features, ‘Concentration’ and ‘Attention’ are hard to find!
Maybe one of the reasons for our reducing attention and concentration is excessive use of the phone, beside the Internet and the unhealthy lifestyle that many of us got used to nowadays. (Click here to read ‘What Is Mindfulness’)
Mindfulness Exercises:
The purpose of mindfulness exercises is to attract more attention and awareness of the current experience. The experience of the present time can have different forms. Including; Body sensations, emotional reactions, mental images, mental talk, and perceptual experiences (e.g. sounds). The effectiveness of mindfulness exercises on mental health, body and social communication has been proven.
Exercises that teach mindfulness skills are expanding and gaining popularity significantly. Earlier, I explained in detail that mindfulness includes deliberately drawing one’s attention to internal and external experiences that are happening in the present. This skill is often taught through various meditation exercises. Some of the most important are:
Meditation
One of the most important exercises that increase mental awareness is meditation techniques.
It is necessary to point out that meditation and meditation are not different from each other. Meditation is mostly used in the spiritual and religious sense of Buddhism, and meditation is mostly used in the sense of health.
Meditation is a set of exercises that help us have more control over our thoughts. In fact, it reduces disturbing thoughts and instead of focusing on the past and future, it only seeks awareness in the present and present. You have probably come across people who practice meditation. Most of you may have seen meditation only in sitting position. But actually, meditation exercises can be done in different positions, for example: sitting, lying down, standing, etc.
Types Of Meditation:
Meditation exercises are divided into 5 categories
1) Based On Whether It Is Done By A Person Or A Guide
Individual: when a person performs relaxation based on the exercises he has already learned.
Guided: When techniques are taught to you by a teacher or guide. In fact, sedation is done by another person.
2) Based On The State Of Doing Meditation
Sitting
sleeping
Standing and…
3) Based On The Place Of Concentration
Internal focus: like focusing on breathing or focusing on body parts.
External focus: focusing more on objects and issues outside the mind and body, such as focusing on an apple or a plant.
This type of concentration is mostly used for mindfulness; Because all the attention and senses should be on a specific subject or object.
4) Based On The Goal
In this type of meditation, they focus on the goal you are doing in order to achieve it. For example: treating insomnia, increasing concentration, reducing stress, increasing self-esteem, etc.
5) Without Scientific Basis
We have a large number of non-scientific meditations, those that are mostly based on traditional beliefs and have no scientific basis. For example: opening the third eye, chakras, etc.
Researches have shown that meditation can have a positive effect on the mind and body such as: reduction of heart rate, improvement of brain wave patterns, treatment of stress, reduction of inflammation in the body, etc.
The time you can devote to meditation is approximately 20 minutes a day. It is recommended to do the exercises at least 3 times a day. If you are a beginner, it is better to start with a small amount of time to create a habit of meditation. For example: you can start from 1 to 3 minutes and increase it to 20 minutes daily. (And for those who are going to take a new step in the path of meditation, or want to practice meditation in a higher level, it is better to use the guided methods.)
You Can Practice The Following Exercises:
1) Inhaling And Exhaling Consciously – Breathing
After meditation, which is the main mindfulness exercise, we will do other exercises. Most of the exercises related to mindfulness focus on the way of breathing, which includes conscious breathing and exhalation exercises.
Sit down first. You can be in other positions, but the best position is sitting.
Try to keep your spine straight. Choose a place to sit that is comfortable and does not put pressure on the body.
Focus on your inhalation and exhalation.
Just focus on your breath and don’t worry if you get distracted. Focus on your breathing again.
Start by inhaling and exhaling slowly. This breathing process should last at least 6 seconds.
Try not to think about the past and the future and let your thoughts flow. Just pay attention to your breathing.
Pay attention to the path that breathing takes in your body. Do the exercise for 3 to 5 minutes.
2) Apple Exercise:
This is an interesting and at the same time simple exercise that you can do. Especially for people who just want to start practicing mindfulness. This exercise belongs to the category of focused meditation.
Take an apple (or any other desired food) in your hand and pay attention to these things:
What is the shape of an apple?
How does it make you feel?
How does it smell?
What does it taste like?
Focusing on such details makes your mind pay attention to the present moment and experience what it sees and feels. When you pay attention to the apple and understand all its components with all your senses, you can think less about worries and other issues. If your mind wanders after doing these steps or during the exercise, it is completely normal. Calmly and without worry, return to the training and continue.
3) Body Scan Exercise
Another mindfulness technique is body scanning.
Lie down slowly on your back.
Focus on your breathing for 1 to 2 minutes.
Scan the body from the tips of the toes. Suppose the energy that enters the body by breathing flows to the toes.
Think about the soles of your feet in your mind and gradually come up. Wrists, legs, thighs, hips, stomach, etc.
Do this exercise for 5 to 10 minutes.
You may feel tingling in some parts of your body while doing this exercise. It’s completely natural, so let yourself experience all those sensations.
4) Yoga And Gentle Stretching Exercises
Yoga is also a kind of mindfulness exercise. Because yoga is a sport that focuses more on the body and the surrounding environment. That is, if you try to pay attention to your body movements and feelings while doing yoga and experience the present tense, you have hit two birds with one stone. You have exercised and practiced mindfulness. Gentle stretching exercises are also used in yoga. If you consider the same technique of attention and concentration while doing stretching movements, you have done a kind of meditation exercise.
The Effect Of Mindfulness Exercises:
Researches and studies show that mindfulness exercises affect many aspects of the body, mind and life. We will discuss some of them below:
Physical Health
Many studies in the field of physical health show that occasional mind exercises can increase body awareness, promote relaxation, and improve stress management and coping skills. All these can improve physical health and reduce the risk of disease. According to the report in the source article; In mindfulness exercises, you learn to be aware of your thoughts and feelings at every moment and accept them. This is an emotion regulation skill that reduces stress and flexibility in front of thoughts.
For a better understanding, let us briefly say what is excitement regulation?
Excitement regulation is a psychological skill that helps you express appropriate excitement according to any situation or goal, and according to the events that take place in the environment. This skill requires knowledge about experienced emotions and mind.
In addition to that, mindfulness can have an effect on other things, including reducing chronic pain, improving body immunity, and increasing healthy behaviors.
Mental Health
Clinical psychologists are very interested in using mindfulness exercises to treat mental problems. These exercises actually help you to recognize your emotions and negative thoughts and accept them so that they occupy your mind less.
I will discuss some of the effects of meditation on the mind, including:
Reducing Depression And It’s Symptoms
Some studies have shown that performing mental exercises has a positive effect on depression in a remarkable way. In fact, those who practice meditation, their symptoms of depression are reduced and they do not have relapses. For many depressed patients who preferred to use mind body healing methods, mindfulness and meditation exercises are the among best practices.
Reducing Procrastination
These exercises will make you aware of mental traps and not get caught in their trap. One of the causes of procrastination is these mental traps that many of us face in our daily life or even get used to their presence in our routines. So the mindfulness techniques can also affect the types of procrastination. Like the procrastination which is caused by anxiety, perfectionism, etc.
Reduce Anxiety And Stress
When you feel anxious, you receive a series of warnings from your body. For example your heart rate increases, you sweat, you feel short of breath, you may turn red or any other reaction may be caused by it. Is not pleasant for anyone to face anxiety and meditation exercises can help you according to the concepts mentioned in this article. For example, you can focus on your heart rate and start relaxing by doing breathing exercises and counting your blessings.
Anxiety and stress are one of the most important causes of rumination. You may ask what is rumination?
I will give you a very simple example: Have you ever had a fight with someone but couldn’t give appropriate answers at the same moment? Have you forgotten the fight after that? Definitely not! You have probably thought many times about what answers I could have given and why I didn’t say anything at that moment…even many days later at the shower or during a walk to work you may think about it over and over again… Well, this is an example of rumination. It means that you think about a topic many times and expand it every time. (I call “when one crow becomes forty crows” in the mind!)
Meditation can help to improve any problem caused by anxiety and stress. It is even effective in treating anxiety disorders such as panic, acute stress disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and rumination.
Addiction And Addictive Disorders
Many of us have obvious or hidden behaviors that are an example of abuse of a subject and get out of control at times. For example: smoking, playing computer games, using the phone a lot, or being addicted to the social media which are considered normal nowadays, and in a more severe form of addiction, we can mention using drugs or high-risk sexual behaviors (addiction to multiple sexual relations with different sexual partners) or being addicted to alcohol and so on…
Meditation techniques give you the ability to become aware of yourself, scrutinize wrong behaviors and control the urge to do them again, or replacing them with good behaviors. (Of course, all this is if we gradually become skilled in doing the meditation and the mindfulness exercises.)
So, according to all the contents raised up to this point in the article, you have realized that mindfulness is one of the best ways to improve the quality of life and take things in your own hands…
This skill helps you with different techniques, reduce your stress and anxiety and have more control over your mind, emotions and body.
Also, because of learning to control emotions, it is also effective in managing relationships and can help to improve them too. Imagine a time when you are very angry and nervous about something. Being mindful and knowing your own self makes you prepared to take control of your emotions and breathing techniques help to reduce your anger, and as a result, you show a more appropriate emotional response and become in control of your own behavior, and there you can change the results, by being mindful about yourself and the situation.
*I do recommend you to take meditation and mindfulness exercises seriously and use them on a daily basis, so that they can become part of your reality. By doing this, you are going to be a more informed person and experience a happier and healthier life.
Click here to read about ‘Inner Peace’
Copyrights@YasGorji.com