By Steve Gillman
What's going on in your head? Until you know, there can be allsorts of problems. Uncorrectable problems. You can't fix aproblem that you don't see, right? That is where mindfulnesscomes in. Mindfulness and mental health are intimately connected.
Your mind is busy in there right now, talking about all sorts ofthings. It may be telling you that you are tired of your job, orthat you are a victim of circumstance. It may be running througha list of all the things you need to be doing. It may be sayingall the wrong things, and yet you may hear none of it. You mayjust feel a slight anxiety building as your day goes on.
When I first learned how to do basic mindfulness exercises, Iwas amazed. I found that whole conversations were going on justbelow consciousness. Not only was it interesting to see, but themost amazing part was that I could now often end feelings ofworry or anxiety. All I had to do was stop and watch my minduntil I found the cause.
Yes, it actually is often that simple. If you forgot to writedown an appointment, for example, it may be bothering you forhours. As soon as you see that, you write it down and you feelrelaxed again. If an argument is playing and replayingsubconsciously in your mind and stressing you out, often justbringing it to consciousness will make you laugh and dismiss it.
Mindfulness And Long Term Mental Health
Don't underestimate the power of short term happiness and goodthoughts to influence the course of your mental health over thelonger term. Resolve anxieties and stresses now, and regularly,and you'll be healthier, and you'll be developing good habits.Good feelings now lead to good feelings in the future, andhabits are what we need for any long term results.
As for the big problems, mindfulness is a way to see them moreclearly for what they are. As you get better at tuning into yourown subconscious mind, you will start to see patterns. I found,for example, that my mind was mulling over and worrying aboutall the possible choices in decisions that weren't made. Itcaused me endless stress.
Seeing this clearly, finally recognizing how destructive thishabit of indecisiveness was, lead me to change. I started makingdecisions more quickly, just to try a new way. I immediatelyexperienced how stress diminishes once a decision is made. Myhabits began to change, and I was getting more done with lessanxiety.
The most basic mindfulness exercise is to just sit quietly andstart paying attention to everything going on in your body andmind. Of course this can be difficult if you've never done it,and this article isn't a how-to. This is just to make the casethat it's worth learning. There is definitely a connectionbetween mindfulness and mental health.
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