Train Mindfulness: A Pathway to Life's Awareness & Intensity - Essay Sample

Introduction

Mindfulness is the moment where someone focuses on their emotions, physical sensations, and feelings based on the happenings without their concern (Lindahi, 2014). When one trains mindfulness, it means they are creating a pathway of life's awareness and intensity. The more someone carries the ability to direct their attention, the further they distance themselves from distracting thoughts that keep on re-circulating in their head. In other words, mindful training is similar to training the brain (Lindahi, 2014). The essay will elaborate more on mindfulness in a clinical setting.

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The Benefit of Mindfulness

One advantage is that it does not change anything that happens around people. However, it changes how people react to a situation. When one practices mindfulness, they gain the ability to make conscious decisions. This allows the person to nip the stress triggers and come up with solutions that will deal with unhelpful thoughts. It also develops higher states of awareness to enable a person always to keep their boundaries protected. Several studies have shown that mindfulness prolongs the quality life of a person (Gallant, 2016). Mindfulness also brings positive change to a person's neurobiological and cognitive dynamics. In other words, it transforms the way a person views the world, themselves, and how they respond to people. Such practice is what makes mindfulness to be considered a valuable exercise.

Effects of Mindfulness in Clinical Settings

In clinical settings, mindfulness makes the medical practitioner have great insights, thoughtful responses, emotions, actions, moods, and patterns (Shigaki et al., 2016). In most circumstances, life becomes easy for them when they are experiencing things more intensely and consciously. Most nurses and doctors can deal with a stressful moments. This assists them to reduce symptoms like sleeplessness, tiredness, and high blood pressure. Nurses also get the ability to set boundaries between emotions and treating the patients. In other words, mindfulness is a skill that can be practiced at home and work (Shigaki et al., 2016). Even though it may be challenging at first, it is a doable act that transforms the healthcare professionals and people surrounding them.

Mindfulness is usually essential when a patient has completed their treatment. In most circumstances, they ask 'what they want to achieve in their lives' (Roos et al., 2019). Even though it is a difficult transition, patients that have practiced mindfulness have benefited - the benefits of mindfulness stretch to the point of easing the stress of cancer diagnosis. Several studies have also proven that a mind-full mind has a small but high impact, particularly on the stressed-related hormones as well as the immune system.

The study also discovered that mindful interventions protect the body cells from aging prematurely. When people grow older, the small structures found at the end of the chromosomes get shorter. However, when one has chronic stress, they tend to reduce the levels of telomerase. The study also discovered that mindful meditation protects and boosts the activities of the telomeres and telomerase. Given that the telomerase has shorter events, the chances of cancer mortality are high (Roos et al., 2019). This means a mindful person will assist the cells in fighting the disease.

For one to see the psychological benefits of mindfulness, they have to understand that the body and mind are one. This means that mindfulness might not change the status of the disease but has an impact when it comes to the quality of life of a person (Roos, Stein, Bowen & Witkiewitz, 2019). When a medical practitioner trains mindfulness, they can help the patients to forget about the past and think about the future. On the other hand, women that have breast cancer and practice mindfulness, can reduce mood disturbances and stress (Shigaki, Glass & Schopp, 2016). In short, mindfulness eases fatigue, enhances quality life in people struggling with diseases and improves the quality of sleep.

Conclusion

Mindfulness can free the attention of clinicians to enable them to attend to patients similar to how they could have dealt with their situation. Mindful clinicians have more considerable attention when it comes to taking care of the patients because they appreciate the impact of diseases. This makes them respond to such circumstances with compassion, empathy and understanding while attending to the patients. In exchange, clinicians convey through the problem through acceptance, positive regards, and emotional tones of warmth. Even though the clinician must also learn patient-centered communication, mindfulness will help them apply their skills professionally.

Recommendations

One recommendation is that clinicians need to enhance their capacities of mindfulness when it comes to interacting with patients and practicing medicine. According to the studies, it is evident that mindfulness reduced distress and improved the well-being of physicians and nurses. During training, medical practitioners that practice medicine tends to be more attentive because they recognize their errors. As a result, they refine their technical skills by acting to what they like. In other words, physicians and clinicians need to train mindfulness to make them attentive to patients when it comes to their needs. This makes them patient-centered and also to enhance patient-clinician communication.

References

Gallant, S. N. (2016). Mindfulness meditation practice and executive functioning: Breaking down the benefit. Consciousness and Cognition, 40, 116-130. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2016.01.005

Lindahl, J. R. (2014). Why Right Mindfulness Might Not Be Right for Mindfulness. Mindfulness, 6(1), 57-62. DOI: 10.1007/s12671-014-0380-5

Roos, C. R., Stein, E., Bowen, S., & Witkiewitz, K. (2019). Individual Gender and Group Gender Composition as Predictors of Differential Benefit from Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention for Substance Use Disorders. Mindfulness, 10(8), 1560-1567. DOI: 10.1007/s12671-019-01112-y

Shigaki, C. L., Glass, B., & Schopp, L. H. (2016). Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Medical Settings. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 13(3), 209-216. DOI: 10.1007/s10880-006-9033-8