What to Do with a Full Mind

Mindfulness incorporates awareness of all of one’s senses in the immediate moment. Mindfulness implies one strives to become more fully aware of one’s own experiences.

Being mindful is not about achieving a state of perfect awareness; mindfulness is a strategy to improve awareness of one’s brain-body connection. Recognizing perceptions, thoughts, and sensations can improve one’s ability to understand, interpret, predict, and interact with the surrounding environment.

The brain assigns meaning and places value on the information it perceives, That can influence how we react to the people and experiences in our world. Increasing one’s mindfulness can improve control over one’s emotions and behaviors, particularly when the emotions are powerful or unwelcomed, and the behaviors are counterproductive or self-destructive.

Today I will take one minute, just sixty seconds, to sit quietly and take notice of what I perceive with my five senses. I will tune in to my body’s physical reaction to what is happening around me. I will breathe deeply and appreciate this moment of calm in the midst of the turbulence of life surrounding me.