<img class="alignright" title="Mindfulness--in space!" src="http://biggles2k.com/images/blog/posts/mindfulness.jpg" alt="Mindfulness--in space!" width="250" height="250" />If I was to define one particular theme for me this year, this would be the year of <a title="Mindfulnet.org" href="http://www.mindfulnet.org/">mindfulness</a>. <!--more-->I first encountered the concept when my workplace offered a 5-week course entitled "Defrag Your Brain," which, I thought, I absolutely had to take, for at the time, my brain felt more cluttered than usual. As it turned out, defragging my brain meant learning about the art of mindfulness and its basic practices.

Around the same time, while in the middle of a 10-week physical fitness program, I was reintroduced to the concept of mindfulness--in particular, mindful eating. Then after listening to <a title="David Rock" href="http://blog.davidrock.net/">David Rock</a> give a talk at my workplace about <a title="Your Brain At Work" href="http://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Work-Strategies-Distraction/dp/0061771295">Your Brain At Work</a>, I read his book and, lo and behold, the core of his philosophy/research is mindfulness. When I tuned into a series of <a title="TED Talks" href="http://www.ted.com/talks">TED Talks</a> called "Life Hacks," <a title="Shawn Achor" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Achor">Shawn Achor</a> revealed five daily actions that are the "happy secret to better work." One of those five actions is. . . you guessed it . . practicing mindfulness. In fact, there is an entire TED Talk devoted to <a title="All it takes is 10 mindful minutes" href="http://www.ted.com/talks/andy_puddicombe_all_it_takes_is_10_mindful_minutes.html">mindfulness (and juggling)</a>.

So what is this mindfulness practice I keep running into? At its core, mindfulness is simply the act of being aware of the present moment. Sounds very zen, and, indeed, if you refer to the <a title="Mindfulness" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness">Wikipedia article</a>, you'll find that the history of mindfulness has ancients roots in Buddhism. But what this means to us in the fast-paced, modern, multi-tasking world is that every day, we should take a break for a couple of minutes, assess how we are feeling at that very moment--whether we're happy, sad, angry, or stressed out of your mind--acknowledge that feeling, reflect on it, then continue forward with our modern, multi-tasking life. In other words, it's a chance to anchor ourselves in the overwhelming ocean of distractions we call life.

There are many ways to practice mindfulness, including mindful eating and mindful walking, but the most common form is akin to meditation or, as I like to think of it, taking anywhere from 3-30 minutes (10 minutes seems to be the magic number) to do absolutely nothing except relax, close my eyes, reflect on how I'm feeling, then focus on breathing--without falling asleep. Sounds simple, yet it's ridiculously hard. Try it, and you'll see why. Even without any external distractions, even in the dark and pleasant sphere of your own mind, you'll find your attention wandering almost immediately, usually to the next series of tasks you need to complete for the day, or to that annoying meeting you just had, or to what you want for lunch. . . in essence, anything other than what you are supposed to be doing.

That's the point: In our modern, multi-tasking lives, our mind is probably doing something other than what we want it to be doing. Instead of just focusing on coding that algorithm we'd like to finish, we're also thinking about where we need to be in the next hour <strong>and</strong> what groceries we need to buy for the week <strong>and</strong> how we are completely pissed off at our neighbor <strong>and, </strong>oh, yeah, that email we keep meaning to write--we really need to do that <strong>now</strong>--and we're off and running, typing up that email. Theoretically, practicing mindfulness can help prevent these distractions--not by preventing the distractions themselves, but by making us more <strong>aware of them. </strong>If we are aware of them, we have a better chance of taking control of them, and they have less of chance taking control of us.

Modern psychology has taken the concept of mindfulness and <a title="Mindfulness in modern psychology" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness_%28psychology%29">run with it</a>, suggesting that practicing mindfulness helps alleviate a variety of psychological conditions, especially depression, anxiety, and stress. As I noted, I ran into the practice via a half-dozen different avenues this year, and chances are, I (and you) will hear more about it. This means, of course, that it could be all hype or, as others, such as myself, are wont to call it, bullshit. Maybe it is. But if practicing mindfulness helps me deal with all of the other bullshit I have to face in life, deal me in.

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