Mindfulness is a way to stay present and more engaged in life, and it can help people navigate their daily lives with a sense of purpose and calmness — especially when things feel a little chaotic. Some of the largest misconceptions about mindfulness for adults are that it’s too challenging or requires perfect focus, but the reality is that mindfulness is quite simple and can be done by anyone. You don’t need to be an expert.
Below, we’re exploring how you can use mindfulness as a way to care for yourself and reduce stress while helping your mind stay engaged.
Mindfulness is the awareness of your surroundings and current internal state. It involves paying undivided attention to the present moment, keeping you grounded and fully present rather than having your mind wander. Mindfulness helps you stop focusing on negative events and worrying about the future. Instead, it helps you pay full attention to the current moment and accept it without passing judgment. This can help you better connect with yourself, your experiences and others.
Key aspects of mindfulness include:
Mindfulness can help us slow down instead of rushing through moments, such as when eating or moving from one activity to the next. There are several different forms that mindfulness can take, such as checking in with yourself during downtime, practicing gratitude, connecting with nature or doing breathing exercises.
If this sounds a lot like meditation, that’s because the practice of meditation uses mindfulness. These two practices are alike in a few ways, but they’re not the same. Mindfulness is an active practice that involves being more present in the moment, while meditation uses several different techniques (including mindfulness) as a way to focus and train your attention and mind to help the mind become clearer and calmer.
Here are some tips to help you get started with practicing mindfulness:
Decide why you want to pursue mindfulness: Whether it’s to increase your focus, improve overall well-being or reduce stress, having a clear reason for why you want to practice mindfulness will help motivate you to stick with this new habit.
Stay consistent: Determine the time that works best for you each day to increase your chance of success at sticking with this new habit. You may prefer to start your morning intentionally as you drink coffee or wind down each night with a calm breathing exercise before going to sleep. As you get more into the habit of mindfulness, you can try integrating it into daily activities, such as eating or going for a walk.
Be patient: It’s likely that your mind will wander at first. Be gentle, and don’t criticize yourself when this happens.
Finding ways to connect your body and mind and bring calm to a stressful moment has many benefits, including:
One of the top benefits of mindfulness for adults is stress reduction. Focusing on the present moment and taking a moment for calmness and acceptance of the events currently happening can lead to a more relaxed state of mind.
Mindfulness enables you to accept events that arise in the moment without labeling them as “good” or “bad.” This allows for a more compassionate perspective on things such as aging. Accepting things as they are and recognizing what you do and don’t have control over can help you better savor positive experiences and navigate challenges.
Mindfulness helps contribute to an overall better outlook on life and well-being, including improving attention span by helping you focus on a task for longer. It also helps improve sleep quality, reducing the amount of time it takes to fall asleep. Research has also shown that mindfulness and meditation can help reduce blood pressure and decrease strain on blood vessels and the heart.
Practicing mindfulness can help you slow down and take notice of your thoughts and emotions, resulting in being able to better regulate your emotions and not respond in an emotionally reactive way. In turn, this helps cultivate empathy and self-compassion. Having greater emotional awareness can also strengthen social connections by improving communication with family members, caregivers and friends.
You can practice mindfulness in plenty of different ways depending on your interests and preferences, meaning there’s no one “right way” to do so. Like any other skill, mindfulness takes some practice, so if you try a couple of different activities and think mindfulness isn’t for you, give it another try!
Sometimes, it can help to have more direction, try other activities or even practice with a network of friends. Here are some simple ways to start incorporating mindfulness into your daily routine:
Mindfulness and meditation apps can help provide structure to your practice and make it easier to focus. There are several guided apps available, and many offer a free trial so you can determine if it’s the right choice for you before you invest in a subscription.
Some apps to help you get started include:
Headspace: This app includes exercises focused on stress relief, guided meditations, sleep resources and more.
Insight Timer: This app has 150,000 free guided meditations from mindfulness teachers, psychologists and more.
Calm: This app includes a variety of meditations to help you sleep better, manage negative thoughts and navigate stress.
Breathing techniques are a popular form of mindfulness because they can be done anywhere and at any time. They’re also beneficial to use to calm down if you’re feeling stressed or anxious.
To practice mindful breathing techniques when you’re not in a stressful or anxious moment, find a quiet place where you can get in a comfortable position, such as lying down or sitting on your bed. Take a few natural breaths to get settled (it’s not necessary to close your eyes), and notice how the breath flows in and out of your body. Pay attention to your breath’s pace, depth and rhythm without trying to change it.
Just paying attention to your breathing and ensuring your focus stays on breathwork helps to reduce stress and stay in the present moment.
Here are some exercises to help you get started:
A body scan involves lying on your back and paying attention to the sensations you feel. Scan your entire body from head to toe, taking time to focus on each part of your body, and make note of any tension or discomfort you feel. One way to do this is with progressive muscle relaxation, which involves tightening and then relaxing each muscle group one at a time.
The purpose of this practice is to observe the sensations throughout your body without changing anything. If you do encounter any discomfort, simply accept it and allow it to stay as it is. A body scan helps you to become more aware of the sensations throughout your body, promoting relaxation and decreasing stress.
Mindfulness can easily be incorporated into self-care activities and hobbies. Have you seen a lot of adult coloring books in bookstores? That’s because it’s therapeutic! Coloring allows your mind to relax, therefore improving focus and reducing stress. Another bonus? It also improves fine motor skills!
Journaling is a popular way to decompress and improve your outlook. It helps you process what you’re thinking and feeling without becoming overwhelmed and can help you make sense of experiences in your life.
Gardening is another excellent therapeutic pastime that helps you connect with nature. Watering a vegetable or flower garden or planting seeds are great ways to practice mindfulness. As you’re gardening, pay attention to the process, much like you were a child playing. Note how the soil feels, the breeze in the air and the squirrels or birds around you.
Practicing mindfulness while walking ensures you reap the benefits of being in nature and engaging your senses while staying focused on the present moment. Practicing mindfulness while walking involves finding a quiet place to walk and focusing on your surroundings.
As you walk, take note of what you smell, feel beneath your feet, hear and see. Try not to let your mind wander. If it does, gently bring it back by focusing on the sounds and scents around you.
Mindful walking offers many benefits, such as reducing stress, developing a deeper connection with nature and finding moments of peace and calm in a busy day.
Affirmations are words that make you feel good and empower and motivate you. The affirmations you decide to focus on can be recited or thought about every day while you meditate, get ready in the morning or cook dinner.
Repeating positive mantras can help overpower negative thoughts in your mind. For additional benefits, pair this strategy with journaling and breathing exercises.
Some examples of positive affirmations to get you started include:
To be effective, positive affirmations must be short, recited as a fact instead of a possibility and must have meaning to you.
Gratitude is a simple but quite powerful practice that enables you to reflect, appreciate and record the moments, accomplishments and people in your life that you’re thankful for. This practice can be combined with mindful journaling for a mindfulness technique that has a large positive impact on your emotional well-being.
Dedicate a few minutes each day to reflect on what you’re thankful for throughout your day. Nothing is too large or small to list — the purpose is to develop an appreciation for the ordinary and exceptional moments in your life. This helps you develop a more positive outlook about your life instead of focusing on what you may be lacking.
It’s so easy to find ourselves trying to accomplish multiple things at once to try to speed through a day’s necessary tasks. To practice mindfulness while completing your daily tasks, devote yourself fully to the task at hand.
For example, if you’re doing something on the computer, close all the browser tabs you don’t need and focus on what you need to complete. If you’re cooking a meal, focus on what you need to do to complete the meal rather than washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen at the same time. This can help alleviate the stress you may experience from doing multiple things at once and possibly help you develop laser focus.
Mindfulness can often feel solitary and can even feel lonely at times. On top of that, it can be harder to stick with a mindfulness routine if you’re the only one doing it and celebrating your wins. Mindfulness doesn’t have to be practiced alone.
When you practice mindfulness with a group, you have a supportive network, connection and motivation that’s often absent when practicing alone. Additionally, those who may not feel a calling to practice mindfulness on their own have the opportunity to show up for group mindfulness sessions. Great ways to practice mindfulness with a group include taking part in meditation sessions, connecting with nature by going for a walk or performing mindful activities, such as gardening, together.
This feeling of community and connectedness can be incredibly powerful when practicing mindfulness because it promotes a feeling of “we’re all in this together.” This commitment to others can mean you’re more likely to show up to group mindfulness practices.
Life Plan Communities (also known as continuing care retirement communities or CCRCs) make it easy to find a community of friendly folks and focus on your mindfulness goals, with many HumanGood communities offering meditation groups.
To learn more about how Life Plan Communities help support wellness and connection with others and the world around you, explore our free resource, The Complete Guide to Life Plan Communities.