Mindfulness is a state of living in the present, being aware of your feelings, both internal and external and moreover, accepting them without judgment. The practice of mindfulness has now been accepted as a key element to finding happiness. It can help relieve stress, manage heart disease, lower blood pressure, reduce chronic pain, improve gastric pain, and relieve gastrointestinal problems. It also significantly improves concentration, handles depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, and anxiety disorders (including OCD).
Practicing mindfulness helps to concentrate better on the tasks at hand, with procrastination and distraction being eliminated almost completely. Try these simple mindfulness meditation exercises to improve your focus:
- Go to a public place such as a park or mall, and seat yourself in a place where there is a good amount of crowd around you.
- Practice looking ahead of the people who walk past you for at least 5 minutes. If you are finding this difficult, try focusing your attention to a single object far ahead of you.
- Practice this everyday for a few weeks and you will be able to see the effects of it almost immediately.
Below are a few other mindfulness tips to help improve concentration:
- While at work, turn off your personal phone, email, Facebook, and Youtube for short periods, every now and then. Keep your personal stuff reserved for break time. Set tasks or goals that you propose to finish off before you take these short breaks.
- Every time you find yourself stuck with multitasking, try and stop for a while, and take a deep breath. Prioritize tasks based on the level of importance, time limit available, and length of completion of each task.
- Begin each day by practicing the things that make you happy, be it spending time with your partner or children, or even indulging in a leisurely activity such as gardening or cooking. Give your complete, undivided attention to this one happy task. It will help set the mood for the rest of the day.
This practice can easily be made a part of your daily life and prove to be helpful in several ways. So, start practicing mindfullness today and reap its benefits.