Mindfulness is more critical than ever in today’s fast-paced, often highly stressful world. The science behind the process has gained considerable attention in recent years, with documented benefits proving both significant and highly beneficial to our collective well-being.
The practice becomes even more powerful when combined with meditation and yoga. It’s something about which real estate professional and long-time mindfulness advocate Destiny Davis is equally passionate and well-versed.
To help newcomers to the field better understand the science behind the process, Davis has put together a closer look at how mindfulness, meditation, and yoga combine to impact participants’ brains positively. It’s a closer look that starts with a handful of her favorite mindfulness facts.
Five Key Facts About Mindfulness
At its core, and whether practiced alongside yoga, meditation, or separately, mindfulness involves paying undivided attention to the present moment. At the same time, it’s about accepting the moment through awareness and understanding.
Destiny Davis believes a better grasp of mindfulness starts with factual insight into the process, including its millennia-long background. This background, and more, is nicely demonstrated in the following handful of mindfulness-related tidbits, courtesy of the yoga-loving real estate professional and mindfulness champion.
Mindfulness Fact #1: Ancient Roots
Mindfulness comes from ancient roots and traditions, namely yoga and meditation. With that, the practice is steeped in over 5,000 years of constant history, throughout which it’s helped countless generations focus, calm their minds, and become more self-aware.
Mindfulness Fact #2: Brain-Boosting Powers
Numerous studies into mindfulness have shown that the process can positively shape participants’ brains. This most commonly occurs when improved well-being—a direct effect of mindfulness, yoga, and meditation—leads to bolstered day-to-day and long-term cognitive abilities.
Mindfulness Fact #3: Stress-Reducing Abilities
Mindfulness doesn’t just boost cognitive abilities. It can also reduce symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression. For this reason, in particular, the practice has become more and more popular in recent years. Worldwide, mindfulness now helps people of all ages and from every imaginable walk of life to cope with any number of trials and tribulations daily.
Mindfulness Fact #4: Antidote to Technology
Life has never been more packed with distractions than in 2023 – not least smartphones, social media, and the wider internet. Thankfully, practicing mindfulness is the perfect antidote to today’s plethora of thoroughly modern distractions, helping Destiny Davis and others focus their attention more effectively in the digital age.
Mindfulness Fact #5: Everyone Can Do It
One of the best things about practicing mindfulness is that anyone can do it. Contrary to past beliefs, it’s not just for monks and gurus! Whether through meditation, yoga, or simply by practicing what’s known as superficial breathing, mindfulness is accessible to everyone, as and when needed.
The Science Behind the Facts
So, how exactly does mindfulness achieve everything that it promises? Science has the answer! According to scientists, mindfulness works because so-called contrology, which is at the heart of the practice, activates parts of the brain related to attention and emotions.
Activating these parts of the brain promotes better focus, reduces stress, and boosts what scientists studying mindfulness call neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganize itself, facilitating all of the above benefits and more, further opening the mind to new learning opportunities while simultaneously strengthening existing memories.
Furthermore, what’s unique about mindfulness, especially when coupled with meditation or yoga, is that it’s shown to change the amygdala. The amygdala is the area of the brain controlling fear and emotions.
Exercising the amygdala is believed to improve emotional resilience – something that’s at the heart of self-mindfulness. Positive changes to this part of the brain are also understood to facilitate better handling of difficult situations and prevention from acting impulsively.
Personal Observations
Away from the science of mindfulness and its brain-boosting powers, participants across the board routinely report similar collective benefits in other areas. For example, many who regularly practice mindfulness believe they’re more empathetic and compassionate than before embracing the process.
This realization and the process’s many other combined benefits mean it can help in almost all areas of life, from staying cool, calm, and collected under pressure to promoting more positive social behaviors and helping forge closer connections with others.
Whether combined with meditation and yoga or practiced as a standalone art, Destiny Davis and other mindfulness advocates also report enhanced decision-making skills, better attentiveness, greater focus, and improved self-regulation.
All it takes to start seeing benefits is as little as 15 minutes dedicated to mindfulness daily. Newcomers can start by finding a quiet area and concentrating on breathing or reciting a personal mantra. Alternatively, joining a yoga class is often a fantastic route into a more mindful future filled with new friends, relaxation, and improved mental well-being.
