You’ve heard people talk about “practicing mindfulness.” But what are they actually talking about?

In this latest practice on our pandemic mental health resource hub, we’ll teach you the basics of mindfulness, including what it is, why you should practice it, and how to incorporate it into your daily living — during and after the coronavirus pandemic.

What Is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is intentionally living with awareness in the present moment.

Through mindfulness, we can observe internally (our own thoughts, feelings, body sensations) as well as externally (what we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch). 

Mindfulness is an English translation of the Pali (the language used in the original teachings of Buddha) word sati, which means awareness, attention, and remembering. 

Why Practice Mindfulness?

Research has found great reasons to practice mindfulness.

Below are just a few studies the American Psychological Association refers to as “empirically supported benefits of mindfulness.”

Reduce Rumination

Several studies have shown that mindfulness reduces rumination.

In one study, for example, Chambers et al. (2008) asked 20 novice meditators to participate in a 10-day intensive mindfulness meditation retreat. After the retreat, the meditation group had significantly higher self-reported mindfulness and a decreased negative affect compared with a control group. They also experienced fewer depressive symptoms and less rumination. In addition, the meditators had significantly better working memory capacity and were better able to sustain attention during a performance task compared with the control group.

Lower Stress

Many studies show that practicing mindfulness reduces stress.

In 2010, Hoffman et al. conducted a meta-analysis of 39 studies that explored the use of mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. The researchers concluded that mindfulness-based therapy may be useful in altering affective and cognitive processes that underlie multiple clinical issues.

Those findings are consistent with evidence that mindfulness meditation increases positive affect and decreases anxiety and negative affect.

In one study, participants randomly assigned to an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction group were compared with controls on self-reported measures of depression, anxiety, and psychopathology and on neural reactivity as measured by fMRI after watching sad films (Farb et al., 2010). The researchers found that the participants who experienced mindfulness-based stress reduction had significantly less anxiety, depression, and somatic distress compared with the control group. In addition, the fMRI data indicated that the mindfulness group had less neural reactivity when they were exposed to the films than the control group, and they displayed distinctly different neural responses while watching the films than they did before their mindfulness training.

These findings suggest that mindfulness meditation shifts people's ability to use emotion regulation strategies in a way that enables them to experience emotion selectively and that the emotions they experience may be processed differently in the brain (Farb et al., 2010; Williams, 2010).

Boost Working Memory

Improvements to working memory appear to be another benefit of mindfulness, research finds.

A 2010 study by Jha et al., for example, documented the benefits of mindfulness meditation among a military group who participated in an eight-week mindfulness training, a non-meditating military group, and a group of non-meditating civilians. Both military groups were in a highly stressful period before deployment. The researchers found that the non-meditating military group had decreased working memory capacity over time, whereas working memory capacity among non-meditating civilians was stable across time. Within the meditating military group, however, working memory capacity increased with meditation practice.

In addition, meditation practice was directly related to self-reported positive affect and inversely related to self-reported negative affect.

Focus Better

Another study examined how mindfulness meditation affected participants' ability to focus attention and suppress distracting information.

The researchers compared a group of experienced mindfulness meditators with a control group that had no meditation experience. They found that the meditation group had significantly better performance on all measures of attention and had higher self-reported mindfulness.

Mindfulness meditation practice and self-reported mindfulness were correlated directly with cognitive flexibility and attentional functioning (Moore and Malinowski, 2009).

Decrease Emotional Reactivity

Research also supports the notion that mindfulness meditation decreases emotional reactivity.

In a study of people who had anywhere from one month to 29 years of mindfulness meditation practice, researchers found that mindfulness meditation practice helped people disengage from emotionally upsetting pictures and enabled them to focus better on a cognitive task as compared with people who saw the pictures but did not meditate (Ortner et al., 2007).

Improve Cognitive Flexibility

Another line of research suggests that in addition to helping people become less reactive, mindfulness meditation may also give them greater cognitive flexibility.

One study found that people who practice mindfulness meditation appear to develop the skill of self-observation, which neurologically disengages the automatic pathways that were created by prior learning and enables present-moment input to be integrated in a new way (Siegel, 2007a).

Meditation also activates the brain region associated with more adaptive responses to stressful or negative situations (Cahn & Polich, 2006; Davidson et al., 2003). Activation of this region corresponds with faster recovery to baseline after being negatively provoked (Davidson, 2000; Davidson, Jackson, & Kalin, 2000).

Increase Relationship Satisfaction

Several studies find that a person's ability to be mindful can help predict relationship satisfaction — the ability to respond well to relationship stress and the skill in communicating one's emotions to a partner.

Empirical evidence suggests that mindfulness:

• Protects against the emotionally stressful effects of relationship conflict (Barnes et al., 2007)

• Is positively associated with the ability to express oneself in various social situations (Dekeyser el al., 2008)

• Predicts relationship satisfaction (Barnes et al., 2007; Wachs & Cordova, 2007)

Other Benefits of Mindfulness

Mindfulness has been shown to enhance self-insight, morality, intuition, and fear modulation, all functions associated with the brain's middle prefrontal lobe area.

Evidence also suggests that mindfulness meditation has numerous health benefits, including:

• Increased immune functioning (Davidson et al., 2003; see Grossman, Niemann, Schmidt, & Walach, 2004 for a review of physical health benefits)

• Improvement to well-being (Carmody & Baer, 2008)

• Reduction in psychological distress (Coffey & Hartman, 2008; Ostafin et al., 2006)

In addition, mindfulness meditation practice appears to increase information processing speed (Moore & Malinowski, 2009), as well as decrease task effort and having thoughts that are unrelated to the task at hand (Lutz et al., 2009).

How to Practice Mindfulness

There are an infinite number of ways to practice mindfulness.

Remember, mindfulness is intentionally living with awareness in the present moment.

We often find ourselves living in either the past or the future. Our thoughts might be focused on what we need to do later in the week . . . or possibly wishing we could have handled ourselves differently the other day.

Mindfulness is focusing on the here and now. 

Mindfulness is often practiced with mindfulness movement or meditation. Mindfulness movement includes yoga, tai chi, hiking or walking, and dancing. Meditation is a beneficial practice to implement into your day.

Different people like different types of meditation. Some meditations focus on breathing, some involve muscle tensing and relaxing, and some guide the individual with a theme.

All can be beneficial. What’s important is finding what works for you. 

Meditation Apps to Try

Wondering where to start with practicing mindfulness? Below are a few useful meditation apps you can download:

• Simply Being. This app allows you to pick how long the meditation will be as well as the background sounds. Simply Being guides you through a meditation while allowing short periods of time to be present with your thoughts and observations. (Apple App Store | Google Play)

• Virtual Hope Box. Virtual Hope Box includes controlled breathing, muscle relaxation, and three guided meditations (Beach, Forest, and Country Road). The app is free. (Apple App Store | Google Play)

• Headspace. This app has guided meditations with specific subjects like focus, exercise, and sleep. Headspace require a subscription. (Apple App Store | Google Play)

• Calm. Calm is an app that also provides guided meditations focusing on sleep, stress, focus, relationships, breaking habits, happiness, gratitude, self-esteem, gratitude, body scan, forgiveness, and anxiety. Calm requires a subscription. (Apple App Store | Google Play)

• YouTube. YouTube can be a great place to explore and find different types of mindfulness practices that work for you. It can be useful to define the type of mindfulness practice you are looking for as well as the length of time in the search. Example, search “10-minute mindfulness breathing” or “5 minutes muscle relaxation.” YouTube is free.  (Apple App Store | Google Play)

The benefits of mindfulness do take time and consistent practice. It is easy to become distracted and frustrated when you first start practicing.

Accepting these distractions is important in mindfulness practice. When distractions occur, try accepting that your mind is wandering, then turn your mind back to the here and now. With practice, turning your mind becomes easier and quicker.

Remember: progress, not perfection!

More Mental Health Resources in Sioux Falls

Keep making progress on your mental health goals!

Explore the rest of our free pandemic mental health practices, and explore our counseling services in Sioux Falls if you’re looking for personalized help.

During the pandemic (and beyond), we’re also offering tele-health therapy, which takes place 100% online from the privacy of your home.