Mindfulness, an Introduction

February 2018 | Reading time: 2 minutes

The benefits of mindfulness

Mindfulness could be the missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to looking good and feeling great.

Our clients choose VIVO Body Studio for our range of cosmetic and wellbeing services that we offer. We love to help our customers achieve their goals and feel confident in their appearance. However, there is increased societal pressure for people to conform to a certain, often unrealistic image of perfection.

Being dissatisfied by our appearance can be detrimental to both our physical and mental health. Improving health and appearance can help bolster self-confidence, but these efforts can also be folly when we subscribe to beliefs which lead to poor self-image.

Mindfulness is a simple and increasingly popular practice that has the potential improve the quality of our lives. It can also allow us to take a step back and stop putting so much onus on negative thoughts relating to self-image.

Think of mindfulness as observing your thoughts, without assigning the same judgements to them as you might do ordinarily. It’s not something that you can naturally switch on straight away, but with frequent simple exercises, you may find that you can pick it up quicker than you think.

Mindfulness can be practised in many ways, but a common starting point is via controlled breathing exercises. Taking 10 minutes to focus on our breathing can allow us to reconnect with our thoughts and the judgements we assign to them.

We can recommend using an app as a way to start practising the technique. Andy Puddicombe started Headspace, and their app has a free trial which will introduce you to the basic principles of mindfulness in simple, bite-sized exercises.

If you think mindfulness may be useful to you, there is a myriad of resources available on the web, including free videos and guided meditations.

Be sure to check out our news section for other lifestyle tips.