How to Reduce Stress Through Mindfulness

The fast pace of 21st century life can be very stressful. This effect is due, in part, to the maladaptive use of screens. We have become so accustomed to using our mobile phones to solve many daily tasks, such as searching for relevant information on the Internet or getting in touch with other people, that both overexposure to screens and the inability to connect to the Internet generate high levels of of stress and anxiety.

For this reason, it is of our interest to acquire resources and tools to be able to face the difficulties that our times bring and reduce stress This has led many people to start practicing Mindfulness, in vogue in recent years, whose translation into Spanish is “full attention” or “full consciousness.”

However, a halo of ignorance still surrounds Mindfulness: it is often asserted that this practice is religious in nature or that its ultimate objective is to evoke states of relaxation in the practitioner, when this is not strictly the case. Therefore, in this article we will see what Mindfulness is and How Mindfulness Practice Can Be Related to Stress Reduction

The problem of living on autopilot

Human beings tend to relapse, again and again, into an automatic way of living. We have all gobbled down a plate of food in a minute by looking at our phone (and then being unable to remember what flavors we tasted), just as we have all walked from one place to another while “with our mind somewhere else” (and being later unable to remember the streets we walked down). The automatic mode is a modality under which the human mind functions and to which we systematically refer. Even if we try, we can’t fight it

And this tendency to automate as many psychological processes as possible is based on an evolutionary advantage. Being able to automate certain simpler tasks that we are accustomed to through repetition throughout our lives, such as swallowing food or walking down the street, allows us to invest our attentional resources in other types of more cognitively challenging activities, such as resolve a work problem or an interpersonal conflict.

However, living on automatic completely uproots us from the present moment. John Kabat-Zinn argued that the ability to be fully aware of the present moment is also inherent to human beings. Being in the here and now gives us the possibility of enjoying the life experience as it is; It allows us to be able to feel more fully the good things that life has to offer us and, curiously, also the bad things with greater intensity. At first glance it might seem that increasing unpleasant experiences could be something negative or harmful to health. Nevertheless, pay attention to what is happening at this precise moment, beyond the value judgments that we can make about it, gives us an extremely beneficial degree of consciousness to undertake valuable actions in our lives. That is, adopting a conscious attitude or mindful.

Mindfulness: what does it consist of?

Therefore, being able to distinguish the “automatic mode” of living from the “conscious mode”, we will be able to delve into what Mindfulness consists of. First of all, Mindfulness as we know it is a practice or training that It has its roots in Buddhist Vipassana meditation However, this very ancient knowledge was “Westernized” and adapted to the scientific standards of this part of the world, arousing increasing interest in the general population and in the academic field: according to Parra Delgado and collaborators, between 1980 and 2000 there have been references In different databases a total of 976 references to the word “mindfulness”, while between 2000 and 2012 the number of total references is 12,687.

The application of Mindfulness in psychotherapy

Scientists intuited that this ancient practice could be useful to increase the well-being of people who suffer from some type of mental disorder or discomfort and, in fact, the literature on the subject shows that practicing Mindfulness achieves this. Many psychotherapeutic treatments, such as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), among others, use the Mindfulness practice as a fundamental pillar of the process.

However, per se, the notion of utility It doesn’t exactly go hand in hand with Mindfulness. This is extremely important to note. When we refer to a certain practice as being “useful,” we assume that it is based on the execution of an action with the objective of changing something in the present, such as appeasing an emotion, eliminating a thought, or solving a problem. Mindfulness is not about this.

When you practice Mindfulness, you observe the flow of your own breathing without expecting it to change, without forcing oneself to inhale and exhale faster or slower, without trying to make the current moment different from what it already is. Mindfulness practice is also based on adopting a place of observer of the experience: describing the physical sensations of the body, labeling the thoughts that appear in the mental space, recognizing them for what they are, just thoughts about reality, and allowing them to be dissipate In short, when we talk about Mindfulness we have to be clear that it is a practice that seeks to cultivate awareness and not control.

Mindfulness involves acceptance of experience as it is

For this reason, we could say that by practicing Mindfulness our attentional field expands, directed to the present moment; We dispense with the “automatic mode”—at least temporarily—and radically accept the experience as it happens. This is what confuses many people and even health professionals: Mindfulness does not pursue the goal of “making you feel good” or “relaxing.” In any case, it does not pursue any goal other than to be aware of ourselves here and now. As we mentioned, increasing the awareness we have about the experience could make us more attentive to the small rewarding things in life, but also make the unpleasant things become more noticeable and intense. For example, if we fully attend to an injured finger, we may notice its temperature, its swelling, even how it “throbs,” which would increase the pain. It doesn’t mean that we are doing something wrong if we feel unpleasant when practicing Mindfulness. There’s no way to do it wrong, in fact. At the end of the day, it’s about realizing what’s happening.

Beyond this, The habitual practice of Mindfulness usually causes greater well-being in people’s lives and reduces stress levels that they feel on a daily basis (despite this not being their initial purpose), as if it were a side effect of referring to the present again and again. We do not practice Mindfulness to change something or to feel better, as this usually happens but not necessarily. On the contrary, we practice Mindfulness to be more aware of what is happening and, from that state of full attention, to be able to make wiser decisions.

How to implement Mindfulness to reduce stress

Understanding the theoretical background of Mindfulness is extremely interesting and, like any construct supported by science, it is susceptible to being questioned and receiving criticism or expansions. However, above all, Mindfulness is practiced. Therefore, we want to emphasize this quality of Mindfulness by proposing a way (among many other possible ones) to practice it right now.

Mindfulness can be practiced formally or informally Formal practices are those based on meditation and are considered ideal to start with. At first, practicing on your own can be a difficult exercise to carry out. Therefore, we propose searching for an audio guide to practice an exercise called body scanning. It is a practice that can be done sitting or lying down, lying on a yoga mat or blanket on the floor. It consists of carrying out a conscious tour of each of the parts of the body. At the same time, the person records what thoughts and emotions appear while carrying out the practice and allows them to appear, stay and go, returning to the present moment in case they become “hooked” on any of these internal experiences. The anchor to the present is, at all times, paying attention to your breathing.