WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?
Have you ever started eating a snack, taken a couple of bites, then noticed all you had left was an empty packet in your hand?
Or have you driving somewhere and arrived at your destination only to realize you remember nothing about how you got there?
Most people have! These are common examples of "mindlessness," or "going on automatic pilot." In our modern, busy lives, we constantly are in a state of distraction. It’s easy to lose awareness of the present moment when we become lost in our efforts to frantically put more in our schedule than we should.
Our minds are easily distracted, habitually examining past events and trying to anticipate the future. Becoming more aware of our thoughts, feelings and sensations may not sound like an obviously helpful thing to do, however learning to do this in a way that suspends judgment and self-criticism can have an incredibly positive impact on our lives.
Mindfulness is a way of cultivating attention. To seeing clearly whatever is happening from moment to moment in our lives.
It will not eliminate life's problems, but it can help us respond to them with a greater sense of composure, stillness and clarity which can benefit our heart, mind, and body.
Mindfulness helps us recognize and step away from habitual, often unconscious emotional and thought driven reactivity, which usually adds unnecessary stress to our day. Mindfulness practices can help to reduce ones’ stress, physical pain, anxiety and depressive thoughts, ruminating thoughts, as well as promote greater problem solving ability, self-compassion, creativity, immune system functioning, sleep, self-confidence, learning and well-being.
*Aspects of this writing have been adapted from mindfulnet.org
Mindfulness practices can help to reduce ones’ stress, physical pain, anxiety and depressive thoughts, ruminating thoughts, as well as promote greater problem solving ability, self-compassion, creativity, immune system functioning, sleep, self-confidence, learning and well-being.
Mindfulness practices include developing mediation skills, and learning how to eat mindfully.
For many of us, eating has become a source of great difficulty which adversely affects our physical health, emotional well-being, self-esteem, relationships, anxiety level and makes us depressed as we repeatedly feel disappointed after failed attempts at dieting or weight loss programs.
Mindful eating techniques can help us to settle down, become centered and learn new ways to resolve our food and eating related difficulties without the need to feel deprived.
Mindful eating is about learning how to cultivate greater awareness of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors which reinforce our eating problems. At the same time, mindful eating can make the eating experience more enjoyable and health promoting.
Take a break with my guided meditations.
Ready to transform your relationship with food?
Mindful eating practices are a way of looking at an aspect of the eating experience which is usually overlooked completely: namely our relationship to food.
It is our relationship to food which contributes to the automatic reactivity cycle which perpetuates excessive eating, late night eating, unhealthy eating patterns, guilty feelings, regrets, disappointment and the sense that we can never overcome our struggle with food.
As we become more aware of our unique relationship to food we can start to make more appropriate decisions.
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