How to Live a More Mindful Life

Before she retired, Jan Bretz would squeeze in a yoga session a few times a week to stay in shape and reduce stress. As a high school English teacher in Lincoln, Neb., she also guided a speech team and directed theater productions after school. All of these roles required a lot of preparation, guidance, and sometimes draining emotional support.

The yoga helped, but Bretz noticed that the brief meditation at the end of class—when she would pay close attention to her breath and let other thoughts enter her mind and escape—was even more calming.

“It began to slow everything down. With practice, I felt better during the class, but I also found that it helped me handle stress at other times,” she says. “I was more aware of my body and what I was thinking all day. It bled into how I walked and how I ate. It really took hold in my life.”

Bretz is describing mindfulness meditation—a practice she continues today. “It has changed how I handle anxiety,” she says. “And sometimes it’s just a pause to be in the moment.”

Boosting mental and physical health

Mindfulness is getting a lot of notice these days, driven by a steady flow of research about its health benefits.

The American Psychological Association cites studies showing that it may decrease depression, anxiety, and our tendency to ruminate on negative thoughts and respond reflexively to emotion. It has also been shown to improve our sense of well-being, heighten our ability to calm ourselves, and may help us empathize more easily.

Mindfulness may improve physical health, too. Research by UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center has shown that the practice may strengthen the immune system, improve sleep patterns, diminish migraine pain, and lower blood pressure.

Some companies even encourage employees to practice mindfulness, because in addition to reducing stress, it seems to improve concentration, communication, and work performance.

Patricia Jennings, an education professor at the University of Virginia who founded CARE (Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education)—a professional development program for educators that focuses on mindfulness—says the benefits are well documented and real. It is particularly valuable for educators because they have quick, responsive minds and work in a fast-paced, high-stress environment, she adds.

And for retirees, it may be beneficial in handling stressors connected to this stage of life, such as coping with health and financial issues, taking care of aging parents, or learning how to relax and make retirement as rewarding as possible.

“We have found that mindfulness reduced something called ‘time urgency,’ which is the stress one feels under time pressure,” Jennings says. “When that time pressure is no longer there, it also may be hard to relax and slow down. So, I think experiencing years of time urgency in schools may mean retirees find it difficult to unwind.”

Being present

John Kabat-Zinn, a well-known advocate for mindfulness who developed the popular Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program, defines mindfulness as “the awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”

That awareness comes through practice—often mindfulness meditation—where one allows unwanted or repetitive thoughts to come and go, without focusing on them or worrying about the past or future. Practitioners choose a mental focal point and repeatedly but gently return to it if the mind slips away. Experts suggest visualizing a scene or an experience, focusing on breathing, concentrating on bodily sensations, or relaxing parts of the body—starting at the feet and working up to the head.

A 2012 study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that the practice may actually change brain structure, which could explain why practitioners are less likely to return to emotionally charged thoughts about the past and future. People who practice mindfulness often report that they can more easily slow racing thoughts and pay attention to what is before them, appreciating the moment they are in.

Bretz says she feels relaxed in her weekly group meditation sessions, but mindfulness stretches into other parts of her life as well. She takes mindfulness walks, paying close attention to sounds and smells and looking more closely at things she encounters along the way. She also notices the tastes and textures of the food she eats. The practice builds on itself, so the more she intentionally pauses to experience the present moment, the more this relaxation happens without her thinking about it.

“I don’t go into that hyper-alert stage as often,” she says. “I am not triggered the way I used to be about things in the past or future—things I can’t control.”

Letting thoughts go by

Retired educator Andi Edson taught elementary school for 26 years and now supports new teachers through a professional development program at Lesley University, in Cambridge, Mass.

Like Bretz, she discovered mindfulness meditation through a yoga program, and makes mindful awareness part of the training she does with new educators.

Edson recalls that in her introduction to the practice, a yoga instructor told her to imagine watching sea life swim by the window in a huge tank at an aquarium.

“She urged us to do the very same thing with our thoughts—to acknowledge them coming into our mind, but to let them float on and pass by, and not to hold onto them while meditating,” she says. “I’ve reminded myself of this many times, and, for me, it’s a great metaphor.”

Edson also uses applications on her watch that remind her to pause and uses repetitive phrases to keep her from ruminating. One of her favorites: “Not my circus; not my monkeys.”

Mike Wortman also found his way to mindfulness through yoga. The meditation exercise at the end of each class made him more conscious of his body and mind and the connection between the two, which is one goal of mindfulness training.

“We often are asked to remember back to the beginning of class and see if we are still feeling the same stressful issues in our lives, or if we’ve been able to wash them away,” says Wortman, a retired teacher and former principal living in Lincoln, Neb. And the practice doesn’t stop when he leaves yoga class.

“Sometimes, if I’m trying to fall asleep, I might do a quick body scan to see if a certain part of my body is not relaxed, like my jaw or my neck,” he says. “When I realize I have tension there, I can use that practice to relax and get to sleep easier.”

Making it a habit

JoAnne Hibbard has been involved in mindfulness training since retiring from the Durango, Colo., school district, in 2010, and incorporates it in her consulting practice for K–12 professional development.

“I became interested in it when I was teaching. I could see that teachers were always in a reaction mode, including me,” she says. “I learned that just practicing mindfulness techniques five minutes a day could do so much to make me aware of what was happening within me in reaction to what was going on around me.”

She also offers mindfulness training in retirement communities. Generally, she says, half the participants find it beneficial and half find it too difficult, complaining that they are uncomfortable or can’t control their thoughts.

Some have the misconception that mindfulness involves chanting and strange rituals. Others fear they will have to sit cross-legged for long periods of time or dwell on uncomfortable emotions. But these notions are far from the truth.

“You can’t really do it wrong.” Hibbard says. “Anyone can focus on their breathing, and if they drift away, they can bring themselves back. That is actually the point, and the more they do it, the better they will get at it. That then transfers to life each day.”

She believes mindfulness has to become a habit, whether someone tries it for a few minutes a day or in longer sessions.

“It is about the practice and consistency,” Hibbard adds. “With work, you really can train your brain and develop those neuro pathways differently.”