Mindfulness? Huh?

You know, when I first looked at the word 'mindfulness', I thought it was someone full of themselves (trust me, I'm not kidding). In reality, after listening to all of the "mindful monday" announcements at school, I've learned that mindfulness is when we are 'fully' present and aware of our surroundings. Believe it or not, at first, I thought mindfulness would be a joke, mainly due to my initial version of the definition. Over time, I've seen first-hand how mindfulness can benefit us, especially in our busy and stressful lives.

In my experience, along with many others, mindfulness has allowed us to reduce stress, which is common in our everyday lives. It even allows us to enhance our performance, gain insight and awareness through observing our mind, and increase our attention to others' well-being.

Going deeper into these benefits, if we all just took a deep breath before diving head-first into something, we would have better results. The next time you run into something head-first, take a deep breath, believe in yourself, and I'm sure you'll see the quick change in your improvement. The first time I heard about this technique I was naturally quite skeptical about it. After actually trying it, I quickly noticed how I became more attentive to my surroundings, and how my performance, whether on a test or in a competition, greatly improved.

Contrary to popular belief, mindfulness is not just meditation, and self-healing is not just mindfulness. In reality, there are so many different ways that you can practice it. To start, look back at some activities you like to do that aren't even remotely productive. Even if you can't think of any, there are so many new activities you can discover! Find that one hobby that has always given you a good break from school and live in the moment. Whether it's photography or doodling, take just 5-10 minutes step away from all the boring things that school brings.

Rather than just staying focused on school and our busy lives, whether that involves work, grades, or clubs, we need to realize how important our health is. Even just taking a couple of minutes every day can help your emotional, mental, social, and even physical state. So what are you waiting for?

If you're still here looking for some more resources, here they are! Check it out to see which topics are coming up!

https://www.mindful.org/what-is-mindfulness/