Although we were taught about three kinds of time in school – past, present, and future – as adults we often forget what is happening to us here and now. Our thoughts are constantly revolving around past events or scenarios of what might happen tomorrow, a month or a few years from now. Weakening our awareness through such thinking can have a destructive impact on our daily functioning, well-being and health.
About the art of mindfulness
Did you know that before you get angry, sad, or some other unpleasant state, your body gives you very discreet signals about the negative emotional consequences that are going to happen? Most of us lose the ability to look at these little protective signs our body gives. Living in distraction, we stop enjoying what surrounds us, and our body becomes increasingly troubled. Over time, we become apathetic, stressed, easily furious, have trouble sleeping, with no control over the feeling of fatigue. We see causes in our work or daily duties, however, the source of the problems lies deep within ourselves.
Special MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) exercises involving breathing, body and imagination play a significant role in mindfulness training. Systematic training will allow you to acquire the ability to look inside yourself, be aware of being in a given moment and feel those emotions, as well as inhibit negative reactions to stress.
How to train to be here and now? Here are simple techniques that you can use almost anywhere, anytime.
1. Scanner
This exercise directs your attention to the sensations flowing from specific parts of your body. Just as the laser of a scanner moves slowly from one side of a piece of paper to the other, your mindfulness must do similar work on your body. Concentrate carefully on the feeling of the head, neck, shoulders, hands, fingers, torso until you reach the toes. Over time, deepen this training and try to feel smaller and smaller parts of the body – lips, ears, fingertips, etc. This exercise strengthens the ability to consciously redirect attention, collect information from the body, and accept the here and now without judgment.
2. Sensory and touch
Sensory therapy is associated mainly with the treatment of integration disorders in children, but therapists often use these methods for adults struggling with neurosis, insomnia or chronic stress. Mindfulness in the context of sensory exercises may be touch-based at first, i.e. trying to analyse the structure, material, roughness, size and sensations of the things you are holding in your hands. Remember as many details as possible about experiencing this touch and the emotions that accompany you. It may also be a good idea to use a blanket or sensory blanket to help you calm down and soothe your nerves, and to relax more quickly.
3. Focus on your breath
Note, this exercise is not about regulating your breathing, deepening it, or slowing it down. Focusing on this activity in the context of learning mindfulness consists of consciously observing the breathing process, looking at what it is at a given moment and what signals it sends. Your attention should be focused on how the air flows through the various parts of the body from the nose, through the throat, to the diaphragm. Do not change your breathing and its flow – check whether it is accelerated, shallow, deep on a given day, how the ribs move under its influence, etc.
4. Raisin
The best-known version of this exercise uses raisins, but the practice can involve any meal or activity. It consists of engaging only one sense at a time while eating a raisin (apple, bar, carrot). First, the sight that observes the object – we observe shapes, structure and colour. Then we focus all our attention on touch and the experience associated with it, and in a moment, we engage the sense of smell. Shifting your attention to the individual senses one by one will allow your attention to concentrate on what is here and now and move away from the past and the future. Exercise also makes it easier to consciously read stimuli coming from the senses.
