BY ANGELA HAUPT
HEALTH
THERE’S A CERTAIN DISCONNECT that plagues almost everyone nowadays: your body is doing one thing—sitting in a meeting, eating dinner with the family—while your brain is miles away.
Call it being in two places at once, but mental-health experts say it’s more problematic. Not being grounded in the moment is an open invitation to stress and unpleasant emotions. “Our minds tend to focus on worries about the future, or upsets from the past, even when our body may be in a neutral or pleasant place,” says Corrie Goldberg, a clinical psychologist and founder of Shore Therapy Center for Wellness in the Chicago area.
Enter mindfulness. The now ubiquitous concept, which is rooted in Buddhism, is generally defined as turning your attention inward and maintaining an awareness of your thoughts, bodily sensations, and environment. The benefits are vast. A mindfulness practice can help lower stress, reduce anxiety (as effectively as medication, in some cases), increase a person’s capacity to savor positive experiences, stop disruptive thoughts, promote concentration, and more.
Meditation is the best-known way to achieve mindfulness—but it isn’t appealing to and doesn’t work for everyone. Some find that it’s awkward or anxiety-provoking, or that they have trouble sitting still. Fortunately, “a person can practice mindfulness while engaged in literally any activity,” Goldberg says, and with any available amount of time.
Here are five ways to practice mindfulness if meditation isn’t your thing.
1. Listen to music
Getting lost in a good song is an effective way to practice mindfulness. The first step in listening mindfully is considering what counts as focused attention, Goldberg advises. That way, you’ll be able to tell if your mind starts to wander.
For example, being focused on a song might mean “noticing the melody, observing how your body feels and moves without judgment, or focusing on the words of the song or the sound of the instruments,” she says. If you’re midway through a tune and notice you’re thinking about your grocery list, let the thought go and return your attention to the beat.
2. Use the 5-4-3-2-1 method
One popular mindfulness exercise can be particularly helpful in moments of panic, when you’re grasping for shortcuts to calm. The 5-4-3-2-1 method, as it’s often called, involves using all five senses to “get into your body and out of your busy mind,” says Tina Hnatiuk, a mindfulness teacher in British Columbia.
She describes it like this: Identify five things you can see and four things you can
