9 Powerful Benefits of Mindfulness

The benefits of mindfulness extend to all areas of our lives, improving our health, wellbeing, performance, relationships, and quality of life. Mindfulness is of benefit to individuals, families, schools, businesses, organisations, communities, and the environment. By inducing a metacognitive state, mindfulness frees us from reactivity and automatisation and in so doing restores the choice to live with more consciousness, freedom, and authenticity. Mindfulness is a key practice of self-development that can help us to become more aware and to embody our true self. It is recommended by the American Psychological Association and other bodies all around the world and its effectiveness is proven consistently in scientific, evidence-based studies.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a practice in which we learn to consciously direct our attention from our observer self to our inner and outer experience in the present moment, without reactivity or judgement. It involves training our will so that our attention is not distracted, scattered, or lost, and can be used for increasing our self-awareness and staying centred in the observer self, helping us to embody the true self and awaken spiritually.

Often our attention can be caught up in endless thoughts and emotions, particularly when we worry about the future or dwell upon the past. We might daydream or dissociate from our present-moment experience, allowing the beauty, magic, and potential of the moment to slip from us. When attention and awareness is lost in these ways, the following happens:

• We disconnect from the centre of our self
• Our energy is drained
• We become less aware of our choices
• We miss key information
• We diminish and fragment our experience
• We become less effective in our performance
• We react without full awareness, often with judgement and criticism
• We lose gratitude and compassion
• We stop living fully

Mindfulness can be practised as part of meditation and self-inquiry, but it can also be practised in every moment of your daily life, by consciously focusing your awareness on your experience in the present moment, as an observer, so that you can be more conscious and more fully aware of your choices and capable of acting upon them. This is mindful living. Although your attention may wander at first, with practice this will be less the case; simply bring it back to the here and now when it does.

Benefits of Mindfulness

The benefit of mindfulness on performance is very clear as it is being increasingly practised in schools, businesses, healthcare, and sports to increase focus and enhance results. If you need to stay focused on your goals and protect yourself from sabotaging your fulfilment due to distraction, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., then mindfulness is your number one resource. Mindfulness is therefore central to your personal growth or self-development, and maximises your opportunities for peak performance. Mindfulness can help to protect your health by keeping you present in your body and focused on your health and wellness goals while minimising episodes of stress, anxiety, and depression. Mindfulness also improves your ability to relate well with others and all of life. The health of our world depends on us living with greater mindfulness to ensure that we maximise our choices for living in a socially and ecologically sustainable way.

Here are 9 powerful benefits of mindfulness that will improve your life:

1. You become more your true self as you learn to stay present in the centre of your being as observer, rather than identify with or be caught up in your thoughts, feelings, roles, and distorted identities; being in this metacognitive state enables you to discover and respond to your authentic values and needs.
2. You become more in control of your life, your self-development, and your destiny by deautomatising and maintaining your focus on your life goals, maximising your choices, and releasing patterns that limit you.
3. You perform better by being more focused, alert, aware, creative, and resourceful, and having more energy and presence of mind. Mindfulness gives you the awareness to observe your psychological and physiological state and to change it for the better when it is unresourceful and debilitating.
4. You become more aware by being more present to your full self, other people, and your environment as you give them your full attention.
5. You increase your physical health, beauty, and vitality by being more present in your body, accepting it, honouring it, eating mindfully and healthily, and listening to its true needs.
6. You build inner peace, inner strength, and happiness by staying present in your centre, in the moment, rather than identifying with and reacting to thoughts, emotions, and impulses that create anxiety, depression, and negative or conflicting states of mind.
7. You have healthier, more successful relationships by increasing your awareness of your needs and your awareness of others; developing empathy, compassion and emotional intelligence; engaging in more effective and mindful communication; and making more conscious choices about who to have around you.
8. You become better connected with life and your surroundings by being more present to them and ceasing to be trapped in your mind’s stream of reactive thoughts and emotions; you can then make choices that benefit the greater whole.
9. You are able to develop an attitude of gratefulness and appreciation, noticing the blessings of life before you that were previously missed when you were not present—this is an inherent quality of the true self, and will increase your wellbeing and heal your relationship with life when realised.

Mindfulness is the key to your self-development that unlocks your full potential. Whether you are new to mindfulness or not, learn how it can be used to help you overcome your life challenges and progress in your authentic self-development by booking a Guidance Call with me.