[excerpted from, 9 Keys to Happiness: Positive Psychology ©2023]

And so, the first of our 9 keys is this: focus and notice. The practice of mindfulness is very useful to the recipe for happiness. While a form of meditation originating in Buddhism, it’s also been extracted from its religious context and applied as a practice of daily living. And while, like any skill, we must learn the basics and then engage it regularly in order to enhance our new capability, at its core it’s as simple as this: focus and notice your life. And also, don’t attach too much to your emotions. (More on that in a moment.)

The Greater Good Science Center at University of California in Berkeley describes mindfulness as “maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens.” Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022), perhaps the world’s most well-known Buddhist monk second only to the Dalai Lama himself, founder of Plum Village in France with centers worldwide and author of more than 100 books in English, carried mindfulness to the non-Buddhist world as part of his ‘practical Buddhism’ for world peace. In the US, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical School is generally thought of as the ‘father’ of mindfulness in its secular applications; he developed a program known as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction [MBSR], widely in use to this day.

In a systematic review of 22 mindfulness studies, Allen, Romate, and Rajkumar (2021) found that mindfulness significantly increased an array of positive emotions: amusement, awe, contentment, joy, gratitude, hope, interest, love, and pride, as well as positively impacting wellbeing, life satisfaction, self-compassion, and the capacity to find meaning in one’s life. Further, the effects of mindfulness were sustained over time.

Let’s explore that last bit. As we age, we all feel that time speeds up — suddenly we’re celebrating the new year, and we’re sure it was only yesterday that we were observing the previous one. How did another year fly by? While there are in fact biological reasons for the shortening sense of time that accompanies age, and while the speed of our world and our lives gets ever-faster the more we integrate the digital aspect, this is only part of the story. More than anything, we’ve simply failed to take note of our lives.

In mindfulness, this is not the same as engaging in a 20-minute meditation session; mindfulness meditation surely exists and is extraordinarily beneficial, but here we’re talking about a way of living. When we pay attention to our lives, when we notice the details around us, when all our senses are engaged and we’re paying attention, time stretches out before us – something scientists now refer to as ‘time affluence’ or having a wealth of time. And when yet another year has passed, while we still note the speed of time, we can also say: ah, but in that year, I’ve lived a life. I’ve engaged in my own life. I’ve noticed each day, and savored many delicious moments therein.

When I’m trekking, for example, always solo so as not to be distracted by another human being, I walk with my eyes, ears, nose, mouth, pores of my skin (and my instinct) wide open — continually scanning, sensing, hearing, smelling, feeling, noticing as much as possible around me. It’s a way to live one’s daily life, too. We can focus on the food that we’re eating (instead of an electronic screen), feel our feelings, recognize many moments of each day that bring us joy.

Meanwhile, detachment. This is the flip-side of mindfulness, its counterbalance if you will. Notice everything, yet detach from its emotional content. This doesn’t mean one should become an unfeeling robot, or live one’s life in neutral, or disengage from society — far from it. As emotions arise within us, such as that anger as a car cuts us off in traffic, or fear of what might happen tomorrow, or sadness over a loss long ago, we can take a moment to recognize the feeling, honor rather than ignore it — oh, yes, there’s that old grief again, or ah, I feel that flash of anger, or hmm, I wonder what’s really beneath that anger – oh yes, it’s fear, or envy, or simply hunger — and then let it drift away again, like so much smoke.

Granted, that takes practice — a lifetime of it, in fact — and yet, it makes life so much easier, and lighter. Most of our emotions are very temporary reactions to a situation that we either can’t control or that will quickly fade. Emotions are natural and we’re entitled to them; they make our lives so much richer. We don’t need to hold them, however, and life is much more peaceful — and happiness easier to achieve and sustain — when we let negative emotions continue to move their way through and out of us.

When we focus on and notice all the pleasurable moments in the course of nearly every day, they add up, and become a way that we’ve chosen to live our lives — fully noticing, and noting, all those good little (and sometimes, big) things around us. Granted, there are some days that simply seem difficult or painful, from beginning to end; yet even so, a sunbeam may fall on the desk beside you, or a waft of baking bread from the nearby patisserie might drift in the air and under your nose, or even the squawk of those pesky gulls at dawn may serve as a reminder that you live near the sea.

Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center refers to ‘micro-moments’ of mindfulness spread throughout the day, moments in which we take time to notice our lives, our surroundings, our emotions and bodily felt sense — the details of life. Just noticing, in as much detail as possible, enriches one’s day, and one’s life, enormously.

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Exercises:

Numerous websites, apps, and books are dedicated to the concept of mindfulness and its practice, but here are a few more, and in perhaps even a simpler and more achievable manner. In order to practice this key, we can take a walk somewhere outdoors and try to notice as much along the walk as possible. As we walk on the street, we can notice the rhythm of our gait and the people around us. When we return home, we can follow up by writing a journal entry about all that we experienced, or just take a few more moments to review and remember — to contemplate those moments of simple daily pleasures that we’ve just had, to “taste life twice,” as writer Anaïs Nin famously said.

There are classic mindful walking meditations outlined in Buddhism, in which we pay attention to our steps and also our breath — by being aware of our walking rhythm, our pace, and matching it to our breathing (e.g., 3 steps to one inhale-exhale cycle) when out in public, or by walking as slowly as possible when home, as a meditative act (e.g., 1 step to one respiratory cycle).

At home, we can eat meals without electronic devices, paying attention to the quality and taste of — and our own pleasure derived from — our food. We can also sit quietly in a room and try to notice everything about it – not only visually but with as many senses and in as much detail as possible. And whenever unpleasant emotions arise, we can take note — “ah, hello, sadness” — and then take a slow, deep breath, and on exhalation, let the emotion drift away.

Awareness of our breath is another classic mindfulness exercise, whether in mindful meditation or simply in moments throughout the day. Focusing on the breath, on the nourishment it gives us, on the air coursing its way into and out of our lungs as it enervates the heart and stretches the diaphragm, is in fact the only meditative focus we need. As we observe our breathing, we can also observe our mental activity — not aiming for ‘empty mind’ or a pure focus but instead noticing, with self-compassion, our thoughts and feelings as they arise and then dissipate.

Another useful technique is the sound of a bell — whether one you physically hold and ring, or an app or other recording of a bell chime. The mindfulness aspect is to focus on its sound, from the first ring to its fading away. Similarly, we can focus on the effects of a drop of water as it falls into a still pool, whether a pond, a puddle, or a bowl of water in front of us as we sit quietly. The concentric rings moving outward from the drop as it hits the surface are another efficient and satisfying mindfulness exercise, a gentle way to train our minds to notice everything. Staring into a candle flame and noticing as much as you can is yet another method.

In MBSR, mentioned earlier, there are several now-classic mindfulness exercises: mindful breathing and walking meditations, versions of which have already been mentioned; a body scan, in which we close our eyes and slowly — and in self-compassion — scan our body, part by part, noticing its functioning, condition, sensations. Another such is a ‘5 senses’ exercise, in which we pause and observe our environment, noting 5 things we can see, 4 that we physically feel (e.g., cool air on our skin; firmness of the chair on which we sit), 3 that we hear, 2 that we smell, and 1 that we taste – the coffee that lingers on your taste buds, or the very air itself.

In Buddhism, the metta bhavana or loving kindness meditation focuses on self-compassion and empathy toward others; multiple studies have shown its direct bearing on improved physical and mental health. There are many ways to practice this meditation; the simplest is by sitting quietly, eyes closed, breathing calm and regular, as we imagine first a feeling of compassion and kindness toward our own self, then toward someone we care for, then someone about whom we feel neutral, then someone we find difficult, then outward toward all sentient beings. This compassion will extend well beyond the meditation itself, and strengthen the more you practice.

The key, then, is not to let your life pass you by unnoticed — but to notice as many moments and as much detail as possible, while not attaching too strongly to the emotion of it all.

Reference:

Allen JG, Romate J, and Rajkumar E (2021). Mindfulness-based positive psychology interventions: a systematic review. BMC Psychology, 9(116). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-021-00618-2