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Priory Wellbeing Centre Dubai discuses how embracing mindfulness can impact your life.
15 January 2018
| Last updated on 12 April 2018.jpg "Living Mindfully; Using the Power of Mindfulness to Fulfill Your Life")
Mindfulness has been a way of life for many living in Eastern parts of the world and is rooted in their way of life. It embraces focusing on the present moment, accepting our thoughts, feelings, emotions and interpreting our experiences in the moment.
Learning about mindfulness and how it can impact your life is probably the first step. There are so many benefits in living a mindful life and making the changes are not as overwhelming as one might think.
Like any goal we try to achieve, we start with ensuring the goal is achievable. It will be very challenging to sit still and focus on your surroundings for 30 minutes the first time however trying 2-3 minutes initially and building your way up over a few weeks makes that 30 minutes achievable.
Mindfulness does not only encompass meditation, it is being aware of your sensations.
An example of this is taking a walk. Taking a mindful walk would be to take a walk with our sensations of sight, smell, sound, touch and taste.
A good way to start bringing mindfulness into your life would be to take care of you first – like they tell us to do in an airplane by putting our mask on first:
Davis and Hayes (2012) did a study on the benefits of mindfulness and the empirical data indicates that mindfulness reduces rumination - the obsessive thoughts of distress and the potential results of the distress, reduces stress, increases the ability to focus, decreases ones negative emotional responses and reactivity, increases working memory and an increase in awareness of ones emotions and responses.
Perhaps the biggest take away from this would be to make mindfulness a way of life. Start small and gradually include other mindful activities like taking time to be with family and friends with your phone out of sight, introduce some boundaries and do not touch your phone after 8pm.
As you wake in the morning, take a moment to breath, wake and be mindful before you reach for the phone.
Be kind to yourself and appreciate that what you feel may be a fleeting interest in mindfulness may actually be your way of reaching out to a more focused, aware and gentler way of life.
Authored by Tanya Dharamshi
Centre/Therapy Services Manager
Counselling Psychologist
Priory Wellbeing Centre Dubai
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