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What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness dates back more than 2500 years ago with Buddhism, specifically Theravada Buddhism. The term "Mindfulness" derives originally from Pali, the language of Buddhist psychology. It comes from the combination of two words, “Sati”, which means "conscience" and SamPrajanya, which means "clear understanding". These two words, as a whole, can be translated as a way of being aware of what is happening.
Like many things in this life, mindfulness does not have a single definition and there are multiples. For example, Kabat-Zinn (1994), in his book "Fully Living Crises", defines mindfulness as "the process of to expressly observe body and mind, to allow our experiences to unfold from moment to moment and to accept them as they are”.
So, mindfulness can be defined as a result of previous definitions, as a human capacity that allows us to be aware of the interior of our mind at all times, of living the here and now. Thanks to this, we can develop our capacity for concentration and with this, improve our own serenity allowing us to understand and perceive reality as it is, accepting, recognizing and feeling good and not so good things.
Who are the authors?
On the one hand, we find Jon Kabat-Zinn, a professor of Medicine and the founder of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University School of Medicine in Massachusetts. Kabat-Zinn’s work has been largely devoted to spreading the use of mindfulness as a clinical therapy and in society.
On the other hand, another of the main authors of Mindfulness is Vicente Simón, professor of Psychobiology at the University of Valencia who affirms that "meditation protects us from brain aging".
Simón is convinced that meditation has burst into the West and is in a period of explosive growth, and that makes him wonder why, and he realizes that society senses that there is something that can help us improve inside and above all to control situations, and, therefore, our brain.
Furthemore, Simon remains in a position that places on the top of the pyramid mindfulness, and that is why he says that this meditation technique helps us spend less time on negative thoughts and to our concerns. In addition, for Simon, practicing mindfulness facilitates the appearance of positive moods as it increases the activity of the left cerebral hemisphere and activates the amygdala, which is the main nucleus of control of emotions and feelings in the brain, which is the part of the brain that allows the choice of strategies to be applied in the presence of stimuli, as well as detecting situations in which said strategies are also applicable.
A little conclusion
So, by way of conclusion, we can say that the mindfulness exercises, as Kabat-Zinn and Simon put it, increase the capacity for empathy and communication, facilitating interpersonal relationships and increasing self-understanding, making possible that we may better interpret the meaning of life itself: factors that contribute us to reducing stress and to feel more owners of the situations we live and, in general, of our lives.