“My phone screen is the first I see in the morning and the last thing I look at before bed,” confessed my friend, who is also a psychotherapist.
“You know,” I replied, “If I am not mindful, I could spend an entire evening just responding to messages. There are text messages, group chats, tons of emails, social media notifications, and the list only goes on!”
“It’s scary,” she smiled with guilt. “Most of us are constantly distracted and mindless!” she said while turning her cell phone upside down.
“That’s smart,” I smiled back.
Mindlessness is a growing issue in our modern world. To be mindless is to be unaware of our surroundings as well as our inner states, including our emotions, our behaviors, and sometimes even our bodily needs! While it is normal for the human mind to be distracted, the constant use of technology today has amplified this issue, conditioning us to a restless, overstimulated, and multitasked way of living. Here are a few examples of mindlessness we all have been guilty of:
Spending hours on our phone, scrolling through feeds, without any real purpose or awareness of the time passing.
Driving to a destination and not remembering anything from the route we took.
Having a conversation and not remembering what the other person just said.
Repeating negative or self-critical thoughts without questioning them or realizing they are just automatic patterns.
While these behaviors may seem benign, a lack of mindful living can significantly impact the quality of our health and relationships. For instance, ignoring bodily signals by numbing ourselves with technology can allow health issues to go undetected for longer. Mindless eating can lead to chronic over-eating or under-eating. Being unaware of our stress levels can make us more reactive in close relationships, sometimes hurting the people we love. Difficulty concentrating can make us vulnerable to poor decisions at work, damaging partnerships and costing us money.
The opposite of mindlessness is easy to guess though not so easy to practice… It’s mindfulness! Marsha Linehan, the founder of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, was one of the first American psychologists to bring traditional Eastern meditation practices to Western psychotherapy and package them into easy-to-remember mindfulness skills. Some of the skills I regularly teach my clients are: Observe, Describe, and One-mindfully– in other words, do one thing at a time.
Observe: Take a few moments to observe what is happening in your surroundings, your feelings, and your physical sensations. “What am I seeing, hearing, feeling, or smelling?”, “How is my body feeling right now?”
Personal tip: I use this skill religiously on my daily walks.
Describe: Put a label on the experience you just observed. This can be a powerful skill in creating separation between ourselves and negative states. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by emotions, describe them: “I am noticing feeling antsy and having the urge to grab my cell phone,” “I am noticing discomfort around my belly.”
Personal tip: I like to describe my feelings of anger, and that tends to calm me down rather fast: “I am noticing some anger building up here!”
One-mindfully: When you do something, do only that thing. For example, if you’re eating, notice the texture, taste, and smell of the food. If you’re talking to someone, truly listen to what they’re saying. Multitasking is not only overrated but also correlates with increased stress.
Personal tip: Recently, I have been practicing throwing myself into the experience of washing the dishes after dinner, one plate at a time, without rushing to finish or planning what I will do next. It has been a game-changer.
In a distracted world, a few moments of mindfulness every day can begin to transform our mental and emotional health. Using some simple mindfulness skills can be the most effective way to slow down, reconnect with ourselves, and embrace life as it is, in the here and now.