Everyone today is laboring under a pessimistic approach towards life thanks to the COVID pandemic. While some are calling it the coming  of doomsday, for others it is about predicting riots for food and wars between nations. Mental and emotional health issues right from anxiety, insecurity, OCD, to loneliness, social isolation have become a part of many of our personalities. If suggested “practice mindfulness” – one might even ask, what is Mindfulness? 

Mindfulness can be defined as the ability to maintain a moment-by-moment awareness of your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens. In simple words, it is the practice of being able to live in the present moment, understanding where your mind’s attention is and learning to control and divert the attention to where you want it to be. 

This technique helps you step back from your own emotional reactions to the current life challenges – look at the situations objectively, without getting entangled and swept up in the flood of overwhelming feelings. It is not a way to eliminate the stress or other difficulties caused during the pandemic situation, but is an approach to making you aware of your own unpleasant thoughts and emotions that arise in your mind and learning to change them.

Initially, practicing mindfulness might seem a bit difficult or even impossible to carry out. With so many problems piling up on you just like a daily task-list, adding one more task of ‘practicing mindfulness’ to your list might seem highly exhaustive and difficult too. But you have to try it to reap its benefits. 

Meditation is considered as the first step for learning mindfulness. It helps you become familiar with the present situation and the moment;

1) Start off with breaking tasks down into smaller units: Everyone is juggling with different tasks and emotions while being locked at home during the pandemic. Try and focus on doing one thing at a time. Studies have shown that, multitasking fractures your attention and you end up feeling even more frantic. In order to make things better, the simplest step in mindfulness is to try to control whatever activities you can control. If you’ve started a task take your time and finish it. Once it is done, move onto the next task and complete it. Start with your email – move onto making the presentation – then get on the call – have food – wash the dishes – and then go back to work. By breaking things down and doing them one after the other you will feel in control and positive about your achievements. 

2) Bring meaning to your job: The ever increasing stress might take a toll on your practice of being mindful. But a simple attempt of finding a purpose in whatever task it is that you accept to do will help you to do your work with a happier mind. If you are having a hard day at work and that starts reflecting in your mood at home, remind yourself about why you accepted the job in the first place? What were the joyful moments at job? What was the purpose of this job? Once you have your answers, write them down – this will help you to go back to the meaning of your work and push you towards making things better again.

3) Focus on your interactions with the people: Lockdown has forced people apart. The only source of communication is  through technology where sometimes the emotions are lost behind messages. As a rule, when talking to colleagues at work, or seniors or team members, talk to them as if they were in your presence. Be mindful about  the tone of your voice and give ]] undivided attention and without any internal dialogues of your own; through this you make a strong connection with the other person and reduce chances of discord and being  misunderstood. 

4) Acknowledge your body and feelings: Mindfulness is a practice wherein you acknowledge the changes that happen in your body because of the different kinds of feelings or emotions that you experience. Embracing your feeling will help you react to them positively. If it is a negative emotion—a rude word from a senior, a dissent from a team member or your inability to finish the job within the deadline--focusing on its reasons will help you understand the triggers and you’d work towards either eliminating them or working around them. 

5) Meditation – go towards the key: Now that you have worked on a few things that might help you practice mindfulness even to the slightest degree, it is time for you to sustain it with the key of mindfulness– meditation. It is not necessary for you to sit quietly for hours and hours together. Even 5-10 minutes of quality meditation a day can help you stay in the moment. Practicing meditation when things are out of your control can work wonders in this stressful situation.

Practicing mindfulness will increase your calm appreciation and give you a better chance to react calmly and with empathy to stressful situations around you.