Mindfulness
Purdown Open Space/ Strawberry Hill - Krishna Solanki
What did I do?
For my happiness hack, I went to Strawberry Hill, located is near St Werburgh’s City Farm. It was nice to go there as I had never been before, and I enjoyed this opportunity to explore Bristol. Going at the time of sunset led to me seeing beautiful colours in the sky, which further enhanced my experience. On the hill, to incorporate my hack, I completed a guided mindfulness meditation – although it was quite chilly in the late afternoon, it was relaxing and a much nicer view than just my bedroom!
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and being overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. Whenever you bring awareness to what you’re directly experiencing via your senses, or to your state of mind via your thoughts and emotions, you’re being mindful.
Is there any research supporting that mindfulness increases happiness?
When you meditate, you are present, and when your mind wanders you choose to pull it back to the present. As mind wandering is said to have a negative effect on happiness (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010), actively bringing one’s mind to the present will do the opposite. Mind wandering often also leads to negative rumination, where one focusses on all that is not going well in their life, making them all the more unhappy. Furthermore, Brewer et al (2011) found that expert meditators were better able to focus their thoughts on their task at hand (in their study, maintaining their meditative state), and their mind wandered less compared to controls.
How can you put mindfulness into practice?
When you feel yourself beginning to ruminate and focus on negative thoughts, you can implement mindfulness techniques. One aspect of mindfulness is to acknowledge and accept your thoughts, but not to try to stop them (for that will make them stay longer). Once you have done this, you can turn your attention to something like your breathing or a part of your body.
Another way is by doing mindfulness meditation regularly. You can start for a short amount of time, say 5 minutes per day or every other day, and you can slowly increase the time you meditate for. Considering you’re busy and focussed on other tasks for a large amount of the time, this will allow you to recentre and be present, which is a lovely little break to look forward to every day.