mindfulness No Further um Mistério

We’re admittedly biased, but the primary goal at Mindfulness.com is to help people develop a daily practice of meditation. The most common feedback we receive for our app is how useful it is for beginners to start and sustain a meditation practice.

Mindfulness enhances relationships: Research suggests mindfulness training makes couples more satisfied with their relationship, makes each partner feel more optimistic and relaxed, and makes them feel more accepting of and closer to one another.

This idea is further supported by the fact that other stress-reducing therapies also seem to impact physical health, as well.

“The type of meditation matters,” explain postdoctoral researcher Bethany Kok and professor Tania Singer. “Each practice appears to create a distinct mental environment, the long-term consequences of which are only beginning to be explored.” How much meditation is enough? That also depends. This isn’t the answer most people want to hear. Many of us are looking for a medically prescriptive response (e.g., three times a week for 45-60 minutes), but the best guide might be this old Zen saying: “You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day—unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.” To date, empirical research has yet to arrive at a consensus about how much is “enough.

Find a comfortable seated position. Sit so you feel supported and alert and in a way that you can stay comfortably for a while. It can help to have your knees slightly lower than your hips, to allow your spine to maintain its natural slight curve.

Set a timer on your phone to remind you to meditate, or subscribe to a meditation app that sends you guided meditation notifications.

So what do I do? Don’t try to push emotions away — they’ll only spring back more intensely. Give them the space they need, then let them go.

So what do I do? We can approach this common experience exactly like we approach distracting thoughts: the moment we realize we’re fidgeting, notice it, let it go, and return our focus to our breath.

This can be accomplished by sitting on the edge of a chair or another seat, or by sitting on the floor with a support like a meditation cushion under your hips.

Body scan, another common practice where you bring attention to different parts of your body in turn, from head to toe.

(It’s hard, we know.) In the past, research has sometimes led to conflicting findings on whether mindfulness benefits our positive and negative emotions. This study sheds some light on a possible reason why, by illustrating how specific

Mindfulness helps prisons: Evidence suggests mindfulness reduces anger, hostility, and mood disturbances among prisoners by increasing their awareness of their thoughts and emotions, helping with their rehabilitation and reintegration.

Meditation doesn’t require much. But it’s easiest to get started knowing these meditation basics:

And for what? Meditation is about befriending yourself. Treat thoughts and other distractions with a friendly curiosity, as you might a passerby in the neighborhood. Maybe give ‘em a wave as they walk by, and then get back to your practice.