Mindfulness

Mindfulness refers to the act of consciously paying attention to everything that happens and unfolds inside and around you, in the present moment and without judgement.

Focus on your attention

Mindfulness trains you to contemplate your thoughts and feelings without diving into them and without judgement. While practising, you learn to be attentive in a curious and gentle manner to both external stimuli (such as sounds and smells) and internal ones (like thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations).

While practising mindfulness you focus on your breathing. Every time your thoughts wander off, you redirect your attention to its anchor point, your breathing. In this way, you start to perceive nagging worries, and you learn to simply be aware of them and observe them, and to distance yourself from those negative automatic thoughts.

Mindfulness: anything but wishy-washy

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) are the best known and studied treatments. They target people dealing with chronic pain, chronic stress and/or psychological issues and disorders. These techniques show you how thoughts, emotions and behaviours influence one another. The effects on stress, anxiety and depression prove to be equally positive as those of other scientifically based treatments.