Mindfulness has become a widely used term. Its meanings and implications are broad and deep and it is present in some form in all the world’s major religions. While there are many types of meditation, mindfulness meditation is often described as resting 100% of one’s attention on the present moment. Sound simple? Yes. Easy? Well… it takes practice and persistence. The results are an increased ability to handle stress and strong emotions, a better ability to make sound and timely decisions, and an increased general sense of ease, and much more.

Many people think of mindfulness as a means to calm down after work or to get to sleep, sort of like an over the counter medication, in a way. However, many thousands of research studies have confirmed many deeper and long-lasting benefits. Many long-term and short-term studies have been done, which confirm this.

We can turn to meditation for help calming down after a trying day at work or to help us get to sleep. And, mindfulness can help. It is when we practice on a regular bases, we begin to see out baseline anxiety levels drop and we spend become less stressed. As a regular meditation practice continues and sinks deeper into our psyche, our conceptual framework of life begins to organize around our truer selves, our natural mind. This can bring about the deeper, lifelong benefits. [See my talk on The Three Phases of Meditation Practice – this will be an audio talk]

While not all of my clients have a mindfulness practice, the principles of mindfulness are part of the process: bringing attention to what one is experiencing in the moment, becoming more aware of what is driving specific feelings and emotional patterns, and not identifying so much with our troubles, learning to savor life’s experiences, and better decision-making, to name a few.

The process can be difficult or even painful at times, but the process, whatever the experience can be accepted and endured. And once one gets to the other side of the process, life can be permanently better.

In the research on mindfulness, many researchers consider it a “trans-diagnostic” intervention. This means, that, while it is not a cure-all, it can be of benefit with arguably, any diagnosis. For scholarly research studies on mindfulness click HERE and for articles on mindfulness from the Greater Good Science Center, click HERE.