Being a student you will more than likely have or will experience anxiety, depression or stress during your degree. To cope with these manifestations, mindfulness is becoming an increasingly popular technique.
Mindfulness is being able to focus your awareness on the present moment in time, experiencing all of the current sensations; sounds, smells, physiological pressures etc. Although this sounds like an easy task it is actually extremely difficult to reach a proper, complete state of mindfulness.
Similar to the practice of meditation, it takes time to train your mind to stop wandering from the focus. When trying to be mindful, each time you find yourself drifting to thoughts of your next essay or what to have for tea you must come back to the present.
Mindfulness works by drawing your attention to the present, thus preventing thoughts of things to do (which can increase stress) and rumination. Without worrying about your to-do-list and the things that people have done/said in the past week you’re giving your mind a ‘break’. Practicing mindfulness also reduces chronic fatigue and improves the quality of sleep individuals have.
Although exercising mindfulness takes a while to perfect, you can notice its effects immediately, feeling less stress after each session. Mindfulness is a great tool for coping with life and I would recommend learning and applying it as soon as you can and the best part about it is that you can do it in your own time and fit it around your life.
As it is a growing therapy, there are plenty of resources online and in the form of books that will provide you with more information and techniques to help you practice. Also, there are hundreds of videos on YouTube to guide you through your sessions.
