Mindfulness
Mindfulness can be defined as “a mental state, calmly ackonwledging and accepting feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations” (Gross, 2018). Mindfulness is often linked with positive thoughts and emotions. The main idea is to “observe personal thoughts and feelings without judging them as either good or bad” (Gross, 2018). It is independent of context or environment, and is rather reliant on one’s ability to be a part of their experiences at each moment.
This practice of mindfulness generally originated from Buddhism, but its principles is also rooted in other religions including Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism. It was popularized as people began using it in clinical practice as therapy, where it could help cancer patients, for example, reduce their stress levels. Mindfulness has also been found to help manage stress and anxiety in healthy people. Many people have come to use it as a tool to handling their daily pressures and restoring emotional well-being, much like meditation. The ability to engage with mindfulness could even be linked with EQ and emotional intelligence, and is also related with people’s mental well-being and connectedness with nature.
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Flow and mindfulness are two interrelated but also very different concepts. They are both associated with the perception of time: while in flow, time seems to speed up, in mindfulness, time seems to slow down. With mindfulness, people often feel time slowing down as it lowers levels of arousal. Mindfuless requires people to learn how to regulate and control their own attention in order to focus their attention on their current experiences, and be aware of their own thoughts and feelings in the present moment. It also requires people to be able to stay away from distractions, including their own thoughts about the past and the future. Similar to meditation, mindfulness takes time and practice to become better at avoiding distractions and maintaining attention.
Mindfulness is a “form of directed attention” that leads to stress reduction (Gross, 2018). This suggests that directing attention to different things can either be a process that is mentally depleting or restoring. Likewise, in the Kaplans’ Attention Restoration Theory, the idea of gardens as an attention-holding place is related to mindfulness, but the attention is more focused on the activity or view itself rather than the person. With mindfulness, the key is to be “in the moment” and aware of oneself. This intense focus on the moment and self explains the perception of time slowing down and lower arousal levels.
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Being aware of one’s thoughts and feelings is the first step in mindfulness. By being able to take notice of stress and anxieties in a calm and non-judgmental way, a person is able to then find a way to manage and control them.
There is a wealth of evidence to support the fact that meditative behavior can effectively lower anxiety levels and stress hormones, as well as improve attention and cognition. For example, meditation boosts theta waves, a form of brain activity linked with reduced anxiety. Moreover, brain scans have shown that meditation training presents improvements in the white matter of brains, which is associated with communication efficiency between different areas of the brain.
Activities such as mindfulness and meditation endorse the practice of psychological and behavioral strategies for the purpose of decreasing stress. Taking on mindfulness practices in a natural setting such as the garden can further enhance its effectiveness as a way of lowering stress levels and improving mental health. Knowing that contact with nature has already been found to be linked with lowering arousal levels, mechanisms such as mindfulness can strongly support the benefits of behaviors like gardening.
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References:
Gross, H. (2018). The psychology of gardening. Routledge.
