If you’ve spent any time with me in my therapy office, you know I’m a huge proponent of practicing mindfulness.  The research over the last several years continues to show numerous benefits for this really simple, yet elegant, intervention.  New research shows yet again how helpful mindfulness is.  In this paper, Dr. David Creswell, PhD, of Carnegie Mellon University reviews what we know about mindfulness so far.  In this post, I’ll summarize his main points about how mindfulness impacts your physical health, and in a post to come I’ll summarize his points about how it impacts your mental health.  Hopefully all together this will give you even more encouragement to practice mindfulness in your daily life.

5 Ways Mindfulness Improves Physical Health

1. Mindfulness helps us improve body awareness, relaxation skills, stress management and resilience, and coping skills, which are all well known to improve health and reduce risk for a variety of illnesses.

2. Stress impairs our immune system, which is why we are more likely to get sick when we’re stressed out (and why people with depression and other mental health conditions tend to get sick more often than people without mental health conditions). Stress is linked to all kinds of negative physical health outcomes, and there is some evidence mindfulness can improve how our immune systems function (presumably by improving our stress management).

   

3. Stress triggers pain, and mindfulness helps reduce pain and how pain interferes in people’s lives (meaning people can get back to some of their normal activities because they are in less pain or can tolerate the pain better). 

4. People who practice mindfulness take fewer sick days and are sick for a shorter time period. Mindfulness appears to improve quality of life for people with conditions like fibromyalgia, IBS, breast cancer, and even psoriasis.

   

5.  Mindfulness can reduce smoking among heavy smokers and improve diet habits and may improve sleep, but more research is needed in these areas.

With all those benefits of mindfulness, I hope you’re encouraged to continue your daily practice.  Here’s a mindfulness exercise to get you going today:

Set the timer on your phone (or watch or …microwave?) to 3 minutes.

During the first minute, focus on your thoughts, feelings, and any physical sensations you notice in your body and label each as you experience it, noticing how you are doing and feeling.

During the second minute, try to focus your attention on your breath, refocusing each time you notice your mind has wandered.

During the final minute, gradually broaden your attention from your breath to how it feels in your body to breathe.  When the timer expires, proceed with your day as you were.

Source: Positive Psychology Program

Check out my “3 Things to Know About Mindfulness” post for more information about mindfulness and for helpful mindfulness resources around the internet and print.