The Art of Everyday Mindfulness

What is Mindfulness?

If your notion of mindfulness is a practice starting with a phrase like, "Take a deep breath and close your eyes," then you have mostly bought into the myth that the only effective way of practicing mindfulness is guided meditation.  However, if you know what mindfulness entails, you can incorporate it in your daily routine in an informal way without relying on popular apps that have commercialized a practice known to humans for thousands of years. 

Mindfulness-based interventions are well-validated treatment approaches that not only promote well-being and resilience but also have been found to be effective in anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and substance use disorders (Wielgosz et al., 2019). Mindfulness has two components: (a) orienting one’s attention purposefully to the present moment, and (b) approaching one’s experience in the present moment with curiosity, openness, and acceptance (Bishop et al., 2004). The state of mindfulness is described as the being mode as opposed to the doing mode. The latter has also been called the autopilot mode, which is task oriented and focuses on getting things done using analysis and problem-solving skills. On the other hand, in a being mode, thoughts, emotions, sensations, and images are seen as mental events that come and go in the mind like clouds across the sky or ocean waves on a beach. The goal of mindfulness is to have greater awareness and acceptance of the present moment and not getting or fixing something.

Everyday Mindfulness

It is easy to incorporate elements of mindfulness in your activities of daily living by doing the following (Williams et al., 2007):

1. Paying attention to things as they actually are in any given moment rather than as you want them to be. It is not paying more attention but paying attention differently and wisely using all your senses and with warmth, compassion, and interest. 
2. Directly focusing on and experiencing the present-moment experience rather than daydreaming, planning, problem-solving, rehashing, rehearsing, or ruminating. 
3. Being non-judgmental about the present-moment experience by not attaching any judgments of good or bad, right or wrong.

Everyday mindfulness means living with your eyes wide open and directing your attention to only one thing – the moment you are in (Linehan, 2015). However, in our daily lives, we ruminate, plan, daydream, worry, or problem-solve while doing our activities of daily living. For example, while loading your dishwasher, you may be thinking about what to cook for dinner, or your plans for tomorrow, or your son’s game in the evening, or the meaning of your boss’s comment. Later in the day you suddenly get a thought, “Did I put the dishes in the dishwasher?” Not that you have suddenly become cognitively challenged, but the doing mode that you were in while loading your dishwasher actually robbed you of experiencing the moment as and when it happened by keeping you focused on things not related to the moment.

You can bring mindfulness to daily mundane activities like eating. The next time you are eating, first pay attention to the smell of the food. Then feel the texture of the food on your hand; feel the warmth (or coldness) of the food on your hand; feel the taste in your mouth; feel the sensations of swallowing; and the urges to eat more slowly, faster, or not at all (Linehan, 2015). If you are up for it, you can take your mindfulness experience while eating to the next level. You can ponder about how the elements such as the rain, the sun, the Earth, the plants, the animals, the farmer, the trucker, and the cooks have come together to support your existence in this universe (Hanh, 2009). When was the last time you ate mindfully like this? Eating is one of the most mindless activities we do – we eat while we talk, or watch television, or surf the internet, or text, or think about other things. This void of mindfulness during eating is one of the reasons why people get overweight because the brain doesn’t get the signal of satiety as it is focused on several things other than eating (Williams et al., 2007).

You can also be mindful about what you speak or listen. While paying attention to your tone and body language, ask yourself these questions (Zerbo et al., 2017):

• Is it true, kind, helpful, and necessary (when speaking)?
• Can I listen without judging, while paying full attention and being open?

Another activity which easily lends itself to mindfulness is walking (Teasdale et al., 2014). When you walk, focus your awareness to the sensations at the bottom of your feet and how your body supports your weight and how this weight is transferred between your right and left legs when you walk. Try to appreciate the complex pattern of movements that your body uses to change direction. How does the air on your face, arms, and legs feel as you walk? Are your feeling rushed? In the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s words, “Walking mediation is walking just to enjoy walking. Walking without arriving, that is the technique.” (Hanh, 2009).

Bringing your awareness to your breathing when you first wake up in the morning and before you go to sleep at night is a good way to start and end your everyday mindfulness. You can add mindfulness to other daily activities – brushing your teeth, taking a shower, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, getting dressed, putting on your shoes, waiting in line, etc. Mindfulness of tasks entails paying attention to every little detail of what you are doing and experiencing the task through as many senses as possible. When the mind wanders, then acknowledge it, accept it, and gently bring your attention back to the task. Appreciating the small things in your daily routine that you take for granted will help you overcome the feeling of boredom that keeps you looking for something new. 

After practicing mindfulness with everyday tasks, ask yourself the following questions:

• “How did I feel when I was doing the task?”
• “How was my energy and motivation during the task?”
• “If my mind wandered away, was I gently able to bring my attention back to the task?”
• “Was there any part of the mindful exercise that I struggled with?”
• “Did I feel calmer after the task?”

The takeaway: everyday mindfulness is an easy way to blend a proven way to reduce stress into your daily routine. Don’t approach daily mindfulness with a “fix it” attitude in that you are trying to problem-solve through mindfulness. Also, there is no right or wrong way to practice mindfulness and don’t worry about the technique itself or the outcome but focus on being in the moment. And don’t forget that mindfulness is practiced with an attitude of openness, compassion, self-forgiveness, and kindness and this mindset prevents you from becoming self-critical when you don’t get time to practice your mindfulness skills or don’t see quick results (Williams et al., 2007).

To learn more about evidence-based self-management techniques that are proven to work for depression, check out Dr. Duggal's Author Page.

HARPREET S. DUGGAL, MD, FAPA

REFERENCES

Bishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., & Devins, G. (2004). Mindfulness: a proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11(3), 230-241.

Hanh, T. N. (2009). Happiness. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press.

Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT skills training manual (2nd ed.). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Teasdale, J., Williams, M., & Segal, Z. (2014). The mindful way workbook: An 8-week program to free yourself from depression and emotional distress. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Wielgosz, J., Goldberg, S. B., Kral, T. R. A., Dunne, J. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2019). Mindfulness meditation and psychopathology. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 15, 285-316.

Williams, M., Teasdale, J., Segal, Z., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (2007). The mindful way through depression. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Zerbo, E., Schlechter, A., Desai, S., & Levounis, P. (2017). Becoming mindful: Integrating mindfulness into your psychiatric practice. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association Publishing.