Mindfulness- Ultimate Stress Buster

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is considered an effective coping strategy for combating work-related stress. Mindfulness is being constantly aware of one’s present experiences- essentially, being in the moment and experiencing all resulting pleasant and unpleasant emotions and physical reactions. To practice Mindfulness is to meditate, forcing one to stop, breath, observe and connect with one’s emotions, state of mind and state of body.

Benefits of Practicing Mindfulness:

The UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center states that studies have found that being mindful helps to improve one’s physical health, particularly a strengthened immune system, lowered blood pressure and better sleep. The most important benefit of practicing Mindfulness is found in its ability to help reduce work-related stress and anxiety; the result is improved concentration and an overall emotional calm. Mindfulness exposes one to such extreme measures of physical and emotional discomfort that eventually, one becomes immune to such sensations, thereby becoming less emotional reactive. Mindfulness is a control method over one’s thoughts and emotions. There is no need to be overwhelmed by the thoughts, feelings and body sensations brought upon by stress; mindfulness teaches a calm approach towards any discomfort associated with stress.

Mindfulness used to treat other Mental Disorders:

Mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP):

Many cognitive therapists use mindfulness to treat a variety of mental disorders that patients suffer from. For example, Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy helps by preventing depression relapses in patients who suffer from depression. Teaching awareness skills and practicing awareness exercises help patients to become more mindful and choose more positive, realistic and objective emotional reactions. Paired with meditation, breathing exercises and physical stretches, patients suffering from depression have a toolbox full of techniques to help them interrupt or change the cycle of negative thoughts that they experience.

Who can practice Mindfulness and see Positive results?

Students in School:

A “Mindfulness in Schools” project was created in 2007 in the United Kingdom, and its teachings and practices are taught in 12 different countries around the world. The project runs for 9 weeks, specifically designed for students to help them combat school-related stress. Stress sources in school could be a result of upcoming exams, bullying or from students wanting to enhance their studying skills. Mindfulness is helping to improve the mental and physical health of students around the world, enabling them to focus better on their studies.

Workers:

Work-related stress can cause many productive workers to become immobile and call-in sick for “Mental Health Days” off work more and more often. Stress gets in the way of productivity at work, when workers are unable to cope with the fast-pace of deadlines, never-ending work loads and multi-tasking while working over-time. Mindfulness is practiced in many workplace cultures, such as at the company Google to help employees remain productive, supplying them with better coping strategies to tackle stress. Workers who practice mindfulness experience a decrease in perceived work-related stress and an increase in focus tasks, memory tasks, and multi-tasking.

Sources: 1.) https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/m/mindfulness 2.) https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/apa-blog/2016/06/mindfulness-practices-may-help-treat-many-mental-health-conditions 3.) http://www.ptsdupdate.com/meditation-ptsd/ 4.) https://student.unsw.edu.au/mindfulness-and-meditation