Originally a practice drawn from the Buddhist tradition, “mindfulness” has been used in Western circles since the 1970s as part of psychiatry and psychology.
Over the years, this practice has been shown to help reduce depression, stress, anxiety and even drug addiction, and is regularly recommended as a coping mechanism, as part of treatment.
And recently, psychologists said in a recent study, that we often practice “mindfulness” the wrong way.
Dealing with stress
In a recent study published in Clinical Psychology Review, a statistical analysis revealed that most of us understand that mindfulness is about being aware and reacting to whatever comes our way, but scientists say we’re not putting that understanding into practice.
Igor Grossman, a social psychologist at the University of Waterloo and co-author of the study, explains the idea: “Scientific understanding of mindfulness goes beyond stress relief, and requires a willingness to deal with stress.”
“In fact, it is dealing with stress that ultimately leads to stress relief,” he added. “More specifically, mindfulness includes two main dimensions: awareness and acceptance.”
According to the researchers, people who practice mindfulness are good at the “awareness” part, where they assess what’s going on around them and any potential problems that might come their way.
Grossman comments: “What we must do to get the full benefits of mindfulness is engage in our experiences, finding solutions and responses to our environment, something that researchers have found we are aware of, but not doing.”
Acceptance and facing problems
The team analyzed 145 data sets, covering about 42,000 participants who took the Five Factors of Mindfulness Measurement, or FFMQ, an objective test of mental alertness and its impact on vital aspects of life. interaction.
“While we have found that people seem to understand in theory that mindfulness involves participation, in practice this does not,” notes lead author and Ryerson University organizational psychologist Elaine Choi.
“Our results suggest that ordinary people may understand what consciousness is, but the next step for acceptance may not be well understood, limiting the possibility of dealing with problems,” he said.
That’s why the researchers say in their study, common definitions place mindfulness as a “quick fix” to suffering rather than a lengthy practice of reorienting, reframing, and engaging in everyday experience.
Some critics have described mindfulness as a consumer brand that helps short-term relief from personal suffering at the expense of continual exploration of the sources of distress that can lead to societal change.
Examples of mindfulness-based practices include, but are not limited to, breathing, walking and eating.
Mindfulness can be practiced even in simple, routine daily activities such as brushing and brushing teeth.
Scientists do not recommend abandoning mindfulness exercises, but they point to the need for social participation and facing problems along with these practices.
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