MEDITATION
Control your mind and emotions
Meditation and mindfulness can help you become a healthier, happier person
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ccording to a Harvard University study, we are only fully aware of what we are doing about half the time. Which means, if you are awake 16 hours a day, eight of those are spent in a distracted, wandering state of mind. “(The Harvard study) actually goes further to say, 80 to 90 percent of that mind wandering can be repetitive and negative, ” says Kim Rego, a mindfulness teacher and coach at Mindful Bermuda. “Typically, when we’re distracted we’re eating more, we’re drinking more, we’re talking more, we’re working more. A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Importantly, being distracted can keep us from recognising our actual feelings of sadness or being overwhelmed, and
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we are driving and have to stop short – it we end up, for example, just grabbing just happens. something from the fridge – without even Our minds also lean into this stay knowing that’s what we’re doing. safe-mode, which is expressed The good news is this through thoughts like, ‘did I do behaviour is entirely normal it right?’, ‘do they like me?’ or and through a practice of ‘have I done everything on mindfulness you can train my to-do list?’. your mind to recognise “That’s negativity bias and when it is distracted, opening it’s there just to keep us safe,” up your options on how you Kim Rego Ms. Rego explains. “But that perceive and respond to a variety part, if left unchecked, can have us of situations. thinking the world is coming to an end Ms. Rego explains that, in attempting to when we have a deadline, or anxious when keep ourselves safe, humans utilise a sort somebody hurts our feelings or doesn’t of built in “negativity bias.” respond to an email in time.” Physically this is seen in our instinctive One of the important goals of actions in moments of danger, like reaching our arm across a passenger when mindfulness is to ensure our wandering Health & Beauty Winter 2021/22
