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Meditation Practice to Increase Your Daily Mindfulness

In a Modern world full of ongoing distractions, social comparison, world and personal worries and a never ending “to-do” list, it is no wonder that stress, anxiety and depression levels in individuals have dramatically risen over the years. As a matter of fact, in Canada, anxiety and depression rates have increased significantly over the past decade, with a 60% rise in cases among children and adults. Young women are disproportionately affected, with anxiety disorder for this group tripling between 2012 and 2022 (Statistics Canada, 2023).


Time and time again research shows how integrating a mindfulness practice helps us improve our mental health by being less reactive, calmer under pressure, being more present, more focused and feeling more connected. However, what does this popular term truly signify, and how can meditation be utilized to enhance mindfulness in everyday life?



What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the practice of paying deliberate, non-judgmental attention to the present moment — what's happening right now in your thoughts, body, emotions, and surroundings. It's something you can bring to any activity at any time. Think of it like being fit throughout the day, not just while exercising.


What it actually means in practice It has three core components:

  • Attention — deliberately focusing on what's present rather than being lost in thoughts about the past or future.


  • Awareness — noticing your own mental state. Knowing that you're anxious, distracted, or on autopilot is itself a mindful act.


  • Non-judgment — observing without labeling experiences as good or bad. You notice "I feel frustrated" rather than "I shouldn't feel frustrated."


For example, when you do a simple task, such as brushing your teeth, showering or eating, are you thinking about your “to-do” list, thinking about the conversation you had earlier with a friend or are you truly present. Do you know how your body feels and what’s around you? That present, clear, open awareness is mindfulness.  




How does Mindfulness differ from Meditation?

Meditation is the formal practice, the actual training. It’s an activity with a beginning and an end. Think of it like going to the gym.


The relationship between them - meditation is one of the most effective ways to develop mindfulness, but mindfulness can be practiced without formal meditation (e.g., eating slowly and paying attention, or being fully present in a conversation).




What are the Advantages for our Mental Well-Being? 

  • Disrupts negative rumination - depression and anxiety often involves a “disorder of time”, where the mind dwells heavily on the past (regret, loss) or the future (anxiety, dread). Mindfulness acts as an anchor to the present moment, breaking the cycle of rumination.


  • “Decentering” - This skill allows individuals to stand back from their thoughts and emotions, viewing them as mental events rather than absolute truths. Instead of becoming consumed by a thought like “I am worthless,” a person learns to recognize it as “I am having the thought that I am worthless”.  


  • Social tool - Mindfulness does not only help calm an individual, it also helps reduce hypersensitivity to social interactions, fear of rejection and enables people to be more “present” during social interactions, enabling people to connect more easily.


The bottom line is that bringing mindfulness into our everyday lives allows us to become more awake, more present with our children, more focused at work, more able to respond skillfully under pressure rather than react automatically. 



Developing Mental Skills Through Meditation

Meditation doesn't produce mindfulness directly in the moment you're meditating. What it does is train the mental skills that make mindfulness available throughout your day.


Key mental skills:

  • Emotional regulation, fear and memory - A recent study has found that meditation actually lowers the amygdala response which is tied to emotional regulation and the fear network. It also increases the hippocampus in the brain which is crucial for memory, even during a first-time meditation session (Maher et al. 2025). Additionally, a 2024 systematic review confirmed that meditation induces neuroplasticity, increases cortical thickness, reduces amygdala reactivity, and improves connectivity — particularly in the prefrontal cortex, which governs working memory, self-regulation, and executive function (Calderone at al. 2024).


  • Sharpen’s attention - A recent study reveals that just 30 days of guided meditation can significantly enhance key aspects of attentional control - especially how quickly and accurately people direct their focus, regardless of age. This study used eye tracking, a powerful and objective measure of attention and demonstrated that even short-term meditation can lead to measurable cognitive improvements in all age groups. More precisely, the researcher found that meditation helped improve reaction time, goal-directed focus and reduced distractibility which is crucial in all areas of daily life (e.g. social interactions, driving, reading, cooking) (Kim et al. 2025). With daily meditation practice, we can therefore focus our attention entirely at the task at hand - i.e. be more mindful in each activity of daily living. 



Bringing it all together - examples for everyone!


Athletes

Elite or extreme sport athletes often have low-amygdala fear, stress and emotional response through direct visualization meditation. This allows them to remain calm, focused and truly mindful during their performance. Rather than being “fearless”, experienced athletes often train their nervous systems to reduce the activation of the fight-or-flight response. 


For example, Alex Honnold, an extreme rock climber who has free soloed impressive ascents has an exceptional low-amygdala fear response, revealed via brain scans. Alex is known for his famous free solo climbs such as El Capitain, a 880 meter route and most recently the 508 meter Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan back in January 2026 - all without ropes! Think about it. When an average individual goes to the top of the highest competition driving board at an indoor pool (10 meters), our amygdala response is often triggered. Alex is able to climb on a very steep rock wall, without ropes, 88 times higher (!) than that driving board and keep his amygdala response low. He is able to do this through neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to rewire itself through repeated behaviours, experiences and visualization meditation. 


photo from National Geographic alexhonnold.com
photo from National Geographic alexhonnold.com

In fact, a recent study shows that visualizing meditation activates the same neural pathways as actual practice, strengthening self-belief, abilities, reducing performance anxiety and enhancing overall performance (Volgemute et al. 2025). With visualizing meditation being strengthened and incorporated during practice, mindfulness can be easily achieved during performance maintaining the athlete's entire attention, focus and body into the present moment.


As NBA all-star Kobe Bryant puts it “Meditation allowed me to gain the ability to be where my feet are”. Kobe was deeply committed to meditation practice throughout his career which was influenced by coach Phil Jackson. Coach Jackson was known as the “Zen Master” and incorporated meditation and visualization into his NBA coaching strategy to help his players focus, manage pressure, and stay present during high-stakes games. Sure enough this strategy worked as Phil Jackson brought his team to win six championships with the Bulls and then another three more titles with the LA Lakers. 




Parenting

Parenting is one of the highest-demand mindfulness environments there is, precisely because it combines sleep deprivation, emotional intensity, constant interruption, and deep love all at once.


The biggest mindfulness obstacle in parenting is the fact that parenting constantly triggers your own unresolved emotional patterns. Your toddler's tantrum doesn't just create external noise; it activates your stress response, your impatience, your memories of being parented yourself. Without mindfulness, you react from those patterns automatically versus responding.


For example, imagine your toddler melts down at bedtime. You're exhausted, you have things to do, and they're screaming over something that seems completely irrational.


Without mindfulness training - The stress response fires immediately. Cortisol rises. You feel frustration, possibly guilt about the frustration, then more frustration about the guilt. You either snap, over-explain, or emotionally check out. The interaction escalates or shuts down. Afterwards you feel depleted and possibly regretful.


With consistent meditation practice - The same trigger occurs. But because you've been training attention regulation and the ability to observe your internal state, several things happen differently:

  • You notice the tightness in your chest before it becomes an emotional reaction

  • That half-second of noticing creates a gap between trigger and response. This gap slowly widens with practice. 

  • You can choose, consciously, how to respond rather than just reacting

  • You're able to stay present with your child's experience rather than being consumed by your own discomfort

  • After the moment passes, you return to baseline faster because your nervous system has been trained toward equanimity


The child's behaviour hasn't changed. What's changed is your relationship to it. Your children also benefit indirectly in a measurable way. Research on parental mindfulness shows that mindful parents have children with better emotional regulation, because children co-regulate their nervous systems with their parents (Mera et al. 2025).




Mental health - Anxiety

For someone who experiences chronic worry, their mind constantly generates "what if" scenarios — about work, health, relationships, the future. The worry feels urgent and real, and the natural response is to either try to solve the problem mentally (which generates more worry) or avoid thinking about it entirely (which provides temporary relief but increases anxiety over time).


This is the anxiety loop:

trigger → worry thought → emotional escalation → more worry thoughts → exhaustion.


What meditation does differently

Standard anxiety responses treat the content of the thoughts as the problem. Meditation works on the relationship to the thoughts instead.


Through consistent practice, a person learns to observe the thought "what if I lose my job" as a mental event — a pattern of neural firing — rather than as a fact that demands immediate action. That shift is called decentering, and it is the core mechanism by which meditation reduces anxiety.



How long should I meditate to experience benefits?

Start small and build on it. Research has shown that just three minutes of slow-paced breathing can improve emotion regulation and short online mindfulness programs can ease depression when combined with cognitive techniques. 


Every session, no matter how distracted or frustrating, is contributing to that. The sessions where your mind wanders constantly and you have to return 50 times are often the most productive ones — because each return is a rep.


The consistency matters far more than the duration. Practice, practice, practice! Take one breath before entering that meeting, entering your toddler's bedroom or stepping on the court. A few well intentioned breaths throughout the day can go a long way for your well-being.



Visit my Blog post HERE to help you get started on ways to integrate meditation as a new habit in your daily life to show up better for yourself and others!






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