How Mindfulness Helps Stress - 4 Ways to Do It

I'm Dr. Tracey Marks a psychiatrist and in this video I'll be talking about mindfulness meditation and how to practice it. Mindfulness is simply paying attention to your environment activities and thoughts in a neutral and non-judgmental way. So you're limiting your thoughts to your present situation. if other thoughts intrude on this process, you bring your attention back to the present. for example, if you're mowing the grass, think about the things that you see, smell, hear and taste and feel while you're cutting the grass. Ideally avoid thinking about your unpaid bills, your relationship issues, the past, the future. You only want what is happening in the present moment. Pacticing mindfulness helps declutter your mind. When your mind gets cluttered you feel stressed and this can come in the form of feeling tense, tired, overwhelmed, irritable. Not only can this affect you negatively but it can also affect your relationships with the people most important to you. If your mind is overloaded. you can become emotionally unavailable and not fully engaged with the people around you. this is what happens when you're having a conversation with someone and you don't remember any of the details of what they said because you were thinking about your to-do list. in the short-term the person on the receiving end knows you're not listening; in the long-term, you miss time with that person that you can't get back. so how do you remedy this problem when you have a busy life that you can't change? You live each moment mindfully. Now you don't need a meditation pillow or hot stones to do this. You simply need to purposely focus on what you're doing at any given moment and block out everything else. And this doesn't have to take a long time and a little goes a long way. You can do this while you're waiting in a traffic light. For example where do you keep your phone when you're driving? Do you pull it out to check messages when you're waiting for the light to turn green? Instead of doing that. take in the glory of your surroundings. What if it's just a bunch of cars in traffic? There's got to be some nice cars to look at but look at the trees and the buildings in front of you. Think about how these things were created. Even if it's an ugly building it's someone's architectural creation. Many people worked hard on that building. If you're running an errand or like buying groceries for example instead of thinking about all the things that you need to do after you leave the store take in the environment. Notice the lighting in the store, the temperature of the room the sounds of the people talking. How many credit card machines do you hear. That's an example of being fully present in the moment instead of being there physically while your mind is on other things. Now I focused on how mindfulness helps your mind and how you relate to people but mindful eating is a way to control your eating. So instead of watching television and checking emails while you're eating, focus on the texture of the food, the aroma, the taste. Think about how long how many times you have to chew the food until you can get it to the point where you can swallow it. Now you may think I don't have time for that but in reality, slowing how you eat may only add another 10 minutes to your meal and the time you spend at traffic lights may only be about 5 minutes in total. And what did you gain in that five minutes? Whatever it is, it's at the expense of letting your mind run full steam ahead. So what's the problem with thinking too much? Your mind doesn't rest but your mind needs to rest. If your mind is too busy all day it will get overstimulated and then you'll have trouble falling asleep at night. Now you may say well, if you're thinking about the present moment you're still thinking. Well yes but it's controlled thinking that you deliberately make positive and neutral. So here's an example of uncontrolled thinking. Let's say you're working at your computer and you look out the window and you see a delivery truck drive by and the truck reminds you of one that collects money. Then you remember that you need money to put in your child's bag this morning not sure if you did that and then that makes you think about your child's tooth pain and wonder if it's going to be a huge dental bill. Then you remember you need to research the insurance exchange because your Cobra benefit benefits expire at the end of the month and you hear that the average deductible is $5,000 will it cover your wife's expensive blood pressure medicine. Now you're stressed out and aggravated and all this came from glancing outside and seeing a truck. Mindful observation of that truck would be to notice the glossy paint on the truck and whether or not it's driving fast or slow. Is the pavement wet is the sun shining? These are simple observations of the environment that are neutral and not connected to any unpleasant aspects of your life. Here are four steps to start practicing mindfulness. number one be aware. this means to be aware of everything in your environment as well as everything that you're doing and thinking. Keep your focus on the present moment. number two don't multitask do one thing at a time. You're actually more efficient if you complete one thing at a time anyway. Number three be intentional with mundane tasks. Be focused on the task rather than getting the task over with. So if you're washing dishes, focus on washing each dish and keep repeating that thought until all the dishes are washed. If you wash the dishes while you're thinking about how much you hate washing dishes, you'll still get the dishes washed but - but when you do it mindfully you finish with less negativity. number four listen when other people are talking. don't think about your to-do list or what you're gonna say next. Listen to every word the person says as if you're you need to repeat it back to them. I challenge you to spend ten minutes each day in mindful activity. you may want to do it toward the end of the day when your mind is the most full and see if it helps you unwind and relax. Leave me a comment about your experience thanks for watching.

Channel: Dr. Tracey Marks

Views: 50,521

Rating: 4.9857244 out of 5

Keywords: How Mindfulness Helps Stress, how mindfulness helps the brain, how mindfulness can help you, how mindfulness meditation, how to practice mindfulness in everyday life, mindfulness meditation for anxiety, what is mindfulness meditation, youtube mindfulness meditation, youtube mindfulness meditation 5 minutes, youtube mindfulness meditation for anxiety, declutter your mind, declutter your mind meditation, dr. tracey marks, mental health channel, mental health education

Id: fcRANlaqf9c

Length: 6min 52sec (412 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 25 2018