A modern person checks the smartphone screen 150 times a day on average, or every 6-7 minutes of wakefulness. At the same time, even the usual hum of a pipe or bright advertisements distract from what is happening. After, on average, it takes about 20 minutes to regain attention. By age 40, 30% of the population falls prey to anxiety spectrum disorder - yes, thanks to the phones for that.
To maintain peace of mind, you need to regularly get out of the stormy stream of deeds and thoughts, stop and look around. And mindfulness meditation is what will help you do this. The specialist tells more about the method.
Fyodor Shankov
Psychologist of the Moscow Service for Psychological Aid to the Population, Research Fellow at PI RAO
Numerous studies prove that mindfulness meditation significantly reduces anxiety and stress, increases resilience, improves concentration, physical and mental health, strengthens relationships, self-regulation, and sleep quality.
Enough 10 minutes
There are many forms of mindfulness meditation. The most basic one requires only 10-15 minutes of time and space, where no one will disturb you. The first step is to find the shape, time and space that suits you best. It is best to do every day and first thing in the morning, but even practice twice a week without reference to the time of day shows its effectiveness. Do not forget about the meditation time to warn your loved ones with whom you live, so as not to disturb, and also put your phone to sleep.
Guided practice is best at first. To do this, there are many free and paid applications for the phone, videos on Youtube, etc. Search the search engines for "mindfullness meditation". However, the effect will already be noticeable even if you try the following steps yourself:
- Entering meditation. Sit in a comfortable position (only so as not to fall asleep) and to begin with, take 3-5 deep and loud breaths and exhalations. Next, close your eyes. Focus briefly on the parts of the body that are in contact with surfaces (first of all, feel the weight of your feet on the floor, hands on your knees). Listen to the sounds that surround you, distant and near.
- Inside meditation. Don't do anything special with the breath or the body, let them be as they are. A central part of mindfulness meditation is maintaining maximum focus on the breath. To do this, it helps to track the temperature of the incoming and outgoing air, the movement of the diaphragm, and tracking the subtle difference between breaths. Keeping the breath count from one to ten also helps (inhale - one, exhale - two …, after ten - again). Naturally, extraneous thoughts and feelings will come, and this is normal. “The main thing is to calmly allow thoughts and feelings to come and float on like clouds, gently returning attention to breathing as soon as they notice that they have gone away,” the specialist notes.
- At the end of meditation, you can stop holding attention on the breath and let it go literally for a minute: if he wants to think - let him think, he wants to worry - let him worry. When you finish your meditation, listen again to the sounds, the body, and when you want, open your eyes and look around. How are you feeling? Do not forget to thank yourself for taking these minutes to take care of your mind.
