The Benefits of Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a term used to imply to the aspect of maintaining a moment by moment awareness of our feelings, thinking, surrounding environment as well as body sensations through a nurturing and sensitive lens. In that, it is a psychological state of awareness that entails the practices that enhances recognition, a method of developing character traits and information. In this line, mindfulness is viewed as a state as opposed to a feature. Notably, it might be enhanced by specific practices or activities for instance, meditation although it should be understood that it is not equivalent to them. The significant element of mindfulness is the act of practicing acceptance. This implies that individuals focus their energy on their thoughts and awareness without trying to judge them. Meaning that they do not perceive moments to be right or wrong, instead, a person's feelings tune into what a person is sensing in the current moment instead of rehashing the past or visualization the future (MacDonald 41). Therefore, whether pursued as a systematic approach or clinical intervention that promotes self-development and self-awareness, understanding the concept of mindfulness can solve a wide range of health issues, increased productivity at work and help in deciding other benefits.

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Mindfulness has experienced an incredible flow in popularity in the past years, both in the psychotherapy literature and popular press. The practice has developed from an extensive Buddhist understanding founded nearly 2,600 years ago to a conventional psychotherapy construct today (Bodhi 39). Believers of mindfulness hold that virtually all therapist and client stands a more significant chance of benefiting from being more mindful due to the various benefits that are attained from this component. Subsequently, according to the American Board of Preventive Medicine, public health is a constituent of enhancing health, controlling the health of the general public and preventing sicknesses. Therefore, the board discovered that mindfulness meditation could be used as the leading preventive practice in the sector of public health. More so, it is projected that roughly 90% of all sickness in the United States is caused by preventable conditions and lousy health behaviors (Hyland 175). As a consequence, mindfulness is applied as preventive medicine in the maintenance of the public health. This is implemented when promoting health behavior change and solving chronic illness. In the sense that, mindfulness-based measures and mindfulness meditation are effective in fostering greater awareness and understanding of a person's body and feelings. Evidently, increased self-insight of a person has been seen as an effective method of improving health behavior as well as the health-related decisions.

Nevertheless, the experience is categorized as knowledge or sensations attained from associations of clients that are tangled in context and activities. Engaging in leisure activity can offer spiritual, mental and psychological outcomes such as stress reduction, improved learning behaviors, and stimulation behavior and psychology. Therefore, mindfulness, which is a psychological concept that is linked with the mental state has been used in social psychology and tourism studies to learn ways in which visitor experiences can be made more appealing. In that, the tourist experience is viewed as a concept that entails understanding both the psychology and the behavior of the consumer hence the need of adopting socio-cognitive mindfulness as a tool for advancing tourist experiences (Hyland 181). The objective of employing mindfulness theory in inspecting the tourist experience has been attributed to the urge of enhancing operative elucidation or communication among tourism settings, tourists, and hosts. Consequently, mindfulness theory espouses a cognitive dual information-processing system based on different mental levels of mindedness and mindfulness.

Mindfulness is considered a prime element in the reduction of stress. This is seen in the whole stress reduction program where with many years of experience and thousands of practitioners is an indication that mindfulness works. Moreover, there have been numerous studies that are in support of the notion that mindfulness is a tool that is used to fight stress. A survey conducted by MacDonald (39) discovered that mindfulness generated less averting and an extensive methodology coping as a retort to tension as opposed to recreation or self-assertion controls. Additionally, Mindfulness theory was found to enhance an adaptive response to daily stressors. It is achieved through the act of relieving stress through heightening emotion control, hence equipping an individual with a better mood and relevant skills of handling tension. It should be noted that still the practice of fighting depression relapse, mindfulness meditation practices can eliminate depression through the reduction of negative ruminative perceptions which are comprised of repetitive reflections on a person's assumed faults or weaknesses.

Moreover, Mindfulness theory plays an essential role in improving the working memory. Boosting of the working memory is viewed as another benefit of mindfulness. Notably, the ability to attend to a certain task without any form of interference encourages performance in various contexts. Mindfulness training provides one with the ability to remain focused on a task that should enhance a similar broad enhancement of performance due to the improved cognitive performance. Evidently, the aspect of mindfulness training enhances the reading and boosting the working memory capacity while concurrently decreasing the occurrence of distracting thoughts when a person is working (Wisner46). This implies that improvements in the working memory were achieved by reducing mind wandering which is responsible for causing distractions when a person is working. Thus, there is need to embrace mindfulness as an effective and efficient technique for promoting cognitive function with far-reaching consequences of attaining an improved working memory.

Nonetheless, mindfulness plays a crucial role in improving the well-being of a person. It is responsible for increasing the capacity of mindfulness by promoting various attitudes that enhance a contented life. It should be known that being mindful helps to savor the pleasures in life as they come, it encourages an individual to become completely engaged in activities and develops a significant capacity of handling adverse occurrences (Wisner 63). It was discovered that persons who practice mindfulness are believed to be at a lower possibility of getting entangled up in distress about the future or remorse over the past events. Still, in that sense, it means that they are less preoccupied with issues to do with success and self-esteem although they are in a better position to form deep connections with others. Evidence indicates that mindfulness meditators can activate the parts of the brain linked to more adaptive responding to negative or stressful situations. Activation of this part of the brain corresponds to a quick recovery to baseline after being adversely provoked.

Mindful mechanisms have direct impacts on the brain structures that are tasked with the job of passing information to the immune system. Research has pointed out that mindfulness meditation has played an essential role in boosting the activity in the prefrontal cortex, right hippocampus, and right anterior insula (Hyland 173). This alludes that, when these parts are roused through mindfulness, the immunity of the body starts operating more efficiently by increasing the antibody creation. Antibodies can be understood as the proteins produced by the immune system so that it can destroy viruses and other harmful substances. Notably, in most instances, stressful events tend to slow down the production of antibody. Therefore, a study published in the Journal of Philosophy of Education (180) discovered that participants who carried out mindfulness meditation program experienced a significant increase in antibodies, hence, implying that mindfulness meditators may be less defenseless to the effects of stress on the immune system.

To sum up, it is important to record that more methodological study may be required to be conducted so that it can evaluate the extent to which mindfulness meditation can enhance more aspects of biological functioning although the research carried out so far has been very promising. The Mindfulness concept is today believed to be effective in addressing various concerns, such as depression reduction, boosting of working memory, improving the immune system as well as its multiple application in a wide range of places as depicted in this research work. This work has illustrated that mindfulness has the perspective of enhancing trainee and therapists' advancement as well influencing change mechanisms that will foster the well-being of the general public. As noted in this work, mindfulness practice constitutes accepting whatever issues arise in your awareness at every moment. It entails practicing the aspect of being kind and forgiving toward yourself. Therefore, mindfulness has been presented as the aspect of focus more on the current moments and accepting it without any judgments whatsoever.

Works Cited

Bodhi, Bhikkhu. "What does mindfulness really mean? A canonical perspective." Contemporary Buddhism, vol. 12, no. 1, 2011, pp. 19-39., doi:10.1080/14639947.2011.564813.

Hyland, Terry. "On the Contemporary Applications of Mindfulness: Some Implications for Education." Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 49, no. 2, May 2015, pp. 170-186.

MacDonald, Pat. "'The Nowness of Everything': A Mindfulness-Based Approach to Psychotherapy." Psychodynamic Practice, vol. 22, no. 1, Feb. 2016, pp. 38-49.

Wisner, Betsy L. "Benefits of Mindfulness and Meditation for Adolescents." Mindfulness and Meditation for Adolescents, 2017, pp. 47-73., Doi: 10.1057/978-1-349-95207-6_3.