Mindfulness Meditation: A Guide for Better Focus

With work becoming more demanding due to technological advancements, people are on the lookout for techniques that boost their productivity. Focus has become a currency to keep ahead of the competition. So, to help men enhance their focus, this article will be delving into the simple mental exercise called mindfulness meditation.?

What is Mindfulness Meditation??

Mindfulness is the mental state of being conscious of what’s going on around you. It’s the sensory awareness of your physical state and the surrounding environmental cues. When you’re mindful, you’re grounded in reality. Your mind is not consumed with planning or imagining scenarios. Mindfulness meditation is a way of deliberately exercising the capacity to be present with the help of breath work. It’s also a good method of improving your focus.?

How Mindfulness Meditation Helps with Focus?

Mindfulness meditation holistically improves various areas that relate to our focus. As a result, it’s good for our overall mental wellness. Here’s how mindfulness meditation hones your focus and boosts your productivity:?

Stress?

Stress is not only a culprit of multiple debilitating diseases like heart attack and diabetes. It’s also harmful for your mental health and productivity. While stress is not inherently evil, it can become dangerous for you if it’s excessive. This is why exercises that calm you down like meditation are essential. The breathing aspect of meditation stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system, also called the rest or digest system. Research shows that mindfulness meditation also improves stress and burnout. In fact, the 5-4-3-2-1 technique of psychologists is mindfulness.?

Attention?

The average human attention span has become shorter due to the advent of social media. We’ve become used to bite-sized content, like reels and posts, that provides a lot of stimulation. Mindfulness meditation allows us to break free from this disruptive dopaminergic pattern. By focusing on your breath or the image of an object (e.g., orange ball) for as long as you can, you retrain your mind’s ability to concentrate. Attention is about being able to mentally stay on track with an idea or task. What better exercise is there than holding a thought for a long time??

Memory?

Mindfulness meditation sharpens people’s ability to recognize thoughts and sensations. It also increases the stamina of their working memory. Being able to hold thoughts improves your executive function. To start, you’re able to remember the things you must do. Since you have a good mental acuity, you’re able to take everything into consideration when making decisions. You’re able to prioritize tasks effectively. Studies also show that mindfulness meditation helps in memory retention.?

Emotions?

When people meditate, they sometimes end up crying or experiencing breakdowns. While some may think it is the fault of mindfulness meditation, it is not. People these days do not spend as much time processing emotions. With social media, our mind is constantly engaged with entertainment. By the time that they rest or sit still, the neglected emotions well up. Regular practice of mindfulness meditation prevents this. Mindfulness meditation has also been shown to help with depression and anxiety.?

Overthinking?

Since mindfulness meditation conditions us to remain present, it’s a potent solution to overthinking. Overthinking usually means that we’re ruminating over the past or future. We’re either beating ourselves up over regret or wallowing in our losses. We can also be torturing ourselves over negative scenarios that may never even happen. Mindfulness meditation allows us to break free from unhelpful thinking by becoming aware of our thought patterns. The focus also allows us to disrupt the toxic mental habit of overthinking.?

Sleep?

Given that mindfulness meditation stabilizes our mood and helps prevent overthinking, it makes sense that it helps us with sleep. If we’ve worked through our emotions and thoughts, they’re unlikely to keep us up at night by pestering us right as we are about to sleep. Being calm will also allow men to fall asleep faster and maintain deep sleep. Sleep is crucial for focus since not having enough would usually mean struggling to concentrate, memory issues and lethargy. It’s important to remember that mindful meditation alone is not sufficient, and you should still maintain good sleep hygiene.?

Pain Relief?

There’s evidence that mindfulness meditation is helpful for soothing pain. This may be because of stress reduction. Stress causes inflammation which can trigger pain. The good news is it works for both acute and chronic pain. Headache and back pain are a common complaint of those who are working because they tend to be sedentary in the office. The pain often acts as a distraction so their work quality suffers, and they may even go absent. Mindfulness meditation, or preferably yoga, would help counteract this.?

How to Practice Mindfulness Meditation?

Now that you know of the amazing mental benefits of mindfulness meditation, you might be wondering how to practise it. Nowadays, there are numerous ways of doing mindfulness meditation. Some practitioners even integrate it with other types of meditation. Since this is a guide for beginners, we’ll be sticking to the basic steps of mindfulness meditation.?

1. Sit or stand with your eyes closed – When people visualize meditation, they often imagine the lotus pose. But you don’t actually need to be in a lotus pose to try mindfulness meditation. You can either stand or sit normally in a chair. What’s important is that you maintain a proper posture without tensing your muscles. The key is to be relaxed but also to be alert. Since you’d be in this pose for a while, it’s important that you’re comfortable enough to maintain it.?
2. Set a timer – Usually, beginners meditate for 5-10 minutes. It can even be as low as 1 minute if you’re really struggling for focus. Pressuring yourself to do more than what you’re capable of would just make you feel overwhelmed. A study also shows that you can reap the positive effects of mindfulness meditation with just 12 minutes a day and 5 days a week of practice. However, it’s important that you do it long enough. You will barely see results in two weeks.?
3. Sense your body – As you settle in the meditation, notice the physical sensations that you feel. Does anything hurt? If so, can you do anything about it so that you’re more comfortable? It could be that you’re not sitting properly. Don’t stress yourself over any discomfort though. Just keep in mind that it’s there if you can’t do anything about it yet. You can address it once the meditation is over.?
4. Regulated breathing – A crucial element of mindfulness meditation is breathing or what is called pranayama. Breathing helps in switching your body to a relaxed state. You need to inhale and exhale deeply. You can also do box breathing. This breathing technique lets you inhale, exhale, and pause in between for an interval of 4-10 seconds. Traditionally, mindfulness meditators focus on the breath and the sensations that come with it.?
5. Focus on something – If you’re not focusing on your breathing, you can instead focus on an object. What matters is that you hold it for as long as you can. For example, think of an apple. Imagine the colour as vividly as possible. Try to feel the texture in your mind. If you find yourself thinking about something else, gently bring your attention back to the apple.?
6. Expand awareness – Beginners can focus on one thing during the meditation and then end the session there. But you can extend your practice by expanding your attention. After you’re done with your focus exercise, you can turn your awareness outwards. What is the temperature now? What textures can you feel? Do you hear any sound? This also trains your situational awareness.?
7. Notice your thoughts – Lastly, you observe your thoughts. People often get confused with meditation. They think that you’re supposed to not have any thoughts or just reach Samadhi. That would be very unlikely for beginners. What you do is you train your focus first and then if other thoughts come, you simply recognize it. You don’t start analyzing it. You also don’t judge yourself for being distracted.?

If it’s difficult to do mindfulness meditation by yourself, you can find a meditation practitioner to coach you or rely on free guided meditations online. You can also exercise your mindfulness even without meditating. You can centre yourself on the present during chores or when walking. Think of it as incidental meditation.?

Final Thoughts?

Progress has become more in demand because of our current hustle culture. But sometimes, to move forward, it’s important to stop. While mindfulness meditation is a handy exercise for maintaining focus, it also teaches us the importance of sitting still with ourselves and fully basking in the present. By doing mindfulness meditation, men can increase their productivity and live a much more meaningful life.?