Surely you have heard of mindfulness, awareness or mindfulness, living in the present moment, etc. You may not know exactly what it is and the benefits it has.
The newest psychological therapies focus their techniques on living in the present moment. This consists of the ability to perform an activity by focusing on it, without having your mind elsewhere. The benefits are innumerable: enjoy your day to day more, reduce anxiety and depression levels, etc. These are due to the fact that the mind does not stay so long on what worries us by having it focused on our day-to-day activities.
Keep reading Psychology-Online to learn how to how to live in the present and discover 10 keys to implement it in your day to day.
Index
- Step by Step
- You will make mistakes
- Daily practice
- Do sports
- Give up control
- Ponder
- Make a journal
- Complete only one task
- You accept
- Forgives
Step by Step.
How to live the present fully? Learning to control the mind and where we focus our thoughts is not easy and requires great effort. Thus,
An example of an activity that you can do to start living in the present is eating a piece of fruit focusing on it. That is, while you eat it, ask yourself the following questions: what does it taste like? Is it cold or at room temperature? How is the texture: rough, hard, soft? Where will it come from?
You will make mistakes.
How to live in the present without thinking about the past? It is quite common in the beginning that at the moment when you are trying to carry out that focus in the present moment your mind wanders to other types of thoughts. Nothing happens about it. It is completely logical because it is what she is used to. Therefore, the moment you realize that it is happening to you, simply refocus your attention on the activity you were doing. Known what is selective attention, examples and exercises.
Daily practice.
How to live in the present without worries? It is important to find a time each day to practice these relaxations. For example, you can apply a relaxation of mindfulness when you get up and another when sleeping for about ten or fifteen minutes. With practice they will be more effective and you will notice a great improvement in your mood and in your daily rest.
In the morning you can dedicate yourself to doing a relaxation in which your mind focuses on how your body is and how your day is presented: is your body rested? What is your intention for this day? How is your room? What will your morning be like? At night, this relaxation can consist of focusing on your breathing.
Do sports.
How to live in the present? Doing a type of dynamic sport that you don't have time to think about is also a way to focus on the present moment. Have you attended a Zumba class and realized that for an hour you could only focus on the steps you had to do?!! Congratulations!! You managed to live in the present moment for an entire hour. Another sport that can be useful for this is, for example, Crossfit. If, on the other hand, you like to run or do weights, try to focus on how your muscles contract or, if you run, look at the landscape around you.
In this article, we tell you what it is motivation in sport: theories, classification and characteristics.
Give up control.
How to live in the present without stress? Sometimes we don't live in the present moment because we are constantly trying to control things that are beyond our control. Do you spend the day trying to get others to act differently? Are you trying to manage everything perfectly without any errors? Do you curse every time something doesn't go your way? Try to stop doing it and focus on you and what you can do. Get rid of weights and look at your attitude before that of others.
Reflect.
From now on, try, before acting, reflect. Avoid impulses and meditate on the consequences of each action. This can be a bit complicated at first, however it is something that, with the practice of the rest of the mindfulness exercises, will be easier for you.
To train this skill, you can think about the consequence of what you will do in simple day-to-day activities. For example, think about what would happen if you took a later bus, would you arrive later to work or would you arrive well? This way you will understand what this technique consists of.
In the following article we leave you some reflections of life to be happy.
Keep a journal.
How to live in the present without thinking about the future? To live in the moment, try writing a diary with what you have experienced today. This it will help you to be more aware of what is happening to you and not to live in the automatic pilot in which the work routine makes us be.
When doing so, remember to write both positive and negative things, except if you consider yourself a negative person, then try to focus on the positive. What you write does not have to be great facts, it can simply be useful to write what you have eaten that day. Do not follow a specific rule, write about what is born to you.
Complete only one task.
In order to make it easier for you to enjoy here and now and focus your attention on the present, try to do one task at a time. That is, if you are watching a movie, try to soak up that movie. This, as we mentioned, can be difficult because it is a mental effort and we are used to living distracted.
Over time, it will get easier. Another example might be eating without the television on, walking without listening to music, or riding public transportation without reading a book. That way you focus on what is happening around you, on the people who are there and what they do.
You accept.
How to live the present in psychology? In life there will be good moments and bad moments. It is important that don't try to run away from bad times all the time. The next time you are experiencing a negative situation or emotion, try to live it, understand it and see how it is affecting you not only on an emotional level, but also on a physical level. Ask yourself if your muscles have tightened, if you feel a lump in your throat, give your emotion a name and, in addition, try to think about what learning you can get from the emotion you are feeling and the emotion you are experiencing.
Forgives.
How to live in the present and forget the past? On many occasions we do not live in the present moment because we are full of resentment towards others, of fear of suffering harm or disappointment, we put on armor before others, etc. All these types of situations arise because you have not left the resentment behind. Being angry with yourself or with others for mistakes made in the past makes us afraid of everything in the present, we are too cautious or we are even full of negative emotions.
Forgive yourself understand that you may have made mistakes. Forgive others. This does not imply returning to a relationship, but accepting that they are not what we expected, that they made mistakes and that they may never know how to recognize or change them. Just let those people go and don't make your past live in your present. Discover how to learn to forgive. This can also help you if you wonder how to live in the present with your current partner.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to How to live in the present?, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.
Bibliography
- Hayes, S. C. (2015). Acceptance and commitment therapy. Desclée De Brouwer.
