Mindfulness in Chaos

In chaotic times like this, mindfulness is so important to check on ourselves. Emotional health is important as this affects even our work performance and physical health.

You can simply start practicing mindfulness by focusing on the sensations of feeling your breath going in and out of your body. Doing this lets you ease your pain, even when it’s as intense as breaking your leg. Pain is eased because it eases your anxiety as your breath tells your body that everything is ok.

At first, people may think that meditation is just a ruse, but it’s truly scientifically proven and should be taken more seriously. Its effects may not be evident at first but it will, eventually, when you practice stillness repeatedly to strengthen control of your attention. Just practicing every day for 10 mins can help you ease your mind more consistently.

If we do this practice, we will gain deeper sleep since our metabolism can drop 2–5 times lower when we try to sleep. With this, you’re able to make the body less stressed and able to rehabilitate your body in sleep better. With better sleep, some of your illnesses from lifestyle will even be mitigated. Doing this well enough may even enable people to not depend on their medication. Aside from helping us recover from what harms us, this practice also improves on what’s good in our lives as we have more energy for exercise and can absorb healthy vegetables more. Thus, you’re able to easily keep away from common lifestyle diseases, and live a more energetic life.

This practice also helps with mental health and is even better than medication for some worse cases of depression. Thus, with this mental health benefit, you’re further improving on your physical health. Once you’re in top mental shape, the decisions you have in life become responses, not reactions, and you’re able to make better choices.

In doing this, your mind is not the enemy of meditation but your ally as you treat all your thoughts as legitimate. It is perfectly normal to not be abruptly still as we live in a fast-paced world. Thus, meditation is just an outlet for all the pressure we have daily.

Then, we also don’t need to be perfect when we meditate, we just have to try to be still. The success lies in being mindful of your brain’s random thoughts, and not having no thoughts at all. We will also likely have negative thoughts, as our brains are mostly habitual and some negative thoughts are well-established in our minds. Then, we must practice being mindful, being connected with life even throughout the day, not just in our meditation. If we must, we can even meditate through our phones to have a healthier relationship with technology.

In any way, we have to practice mindfulness so it carries over to the rest of our day, as we can still be relaxed even after our meditation. With practice, eventually, you’ll be able to endure even the most chaotic experiences and still be relaxed. From this, you’re not bothered much and you’re able to respond better to any situation.

However, the mistake of most people is they often don’t make it a habit or routine. One way to make it a routine is to anchor it to another thing like brushing teeth. Then, eventually, you start doing it naturally as you enjoy it. From here, we’ll be conscious when we’re tense and can choose to look at the sky when you feel stressed or savor anything around you. You can even just concentrate on the breath thinking that you’re breathing peace.

Source: Dr. Rangan Chatterjee