Mindfulness is Good For You And Here Are 5 Reasons Why

Attention is one of the most valuable resources we have as human beings. Your attention is like a laser - when you concentrate the light, you can even cut through metal.

Mindfulness is the practice of bringing your attention to the fullness of the present moment, with curiosity, non-judgment, and intention.

You may think that your mind is not wired for mindfulness because of the overwhelming things you've been through or the stressful things you're anticipating in your life, but with gentleness you can build your own mindfulness practice to help you cut through the hard things you're facing.

Keep reading if you still need some convincing about why mindfulness is good for you (I'll give you five reasons from what I've learned).

1) It Can Increase Your Contentment

Part of our nature as human beings is to focus on what we don't have in order to get what we need to survive and thrive. We buy food if we notice the fridge is empty. We research a question if we're lacking answers. We let someone know if we're missing them.

One of the principles of mindfulness is to have an attitude of acceptance. Of course, there are things we simply cannot accept, like abuse or crime. However, we can make our peace with the way things are when they pose no harm to us.

When we access acceptance, we can access contentment.

The next time you're waiting in a long line for something you want, rather than wishing for things to go faster, try to accept the fact that we need to wait for good things to come. When the good thing finally arrives you'll definitely be content, but in the meantime focus on the gift of the present.

2) It Can Lower Your Pain

There has been a lot of clinical research on the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness might sound like a new popular term, but the essence of it has been around for many centuries.

Research has found that mindfulness can lower pain, whether it be emotional (depression, anxiety) or physical (high blood pressure, chronic pain).

Meditation is very closely related to mindfulness because it's also about focusing your attention, but with meditation there's usually a single point of reference like your breathing or an uplifting idea. You're likely to engage in both mindfulness and meditation when you start to take one or the other into your practice, so these terms can be used interchangeably sometimes.

There's preliminary research suggesting that meditation can help with the overwhelming flare ups of fibromyalgia and asthma, so there's no question about how worthwhile this practice is.

3) It Can Help You to Be More Kind

A rather popular type of meditation is called loving-kindness meditation.

The first step in all mindfulness practices is to find some level of comfort and calm that allows you to pay attention.

With loving-kindness meditation, you wish kin