When I first started thinking about mindfulness, I found it easy to confuse the techniques with the actual experience. Breathing, sitting quietly or taking a mindful walk can all be helpful, but I do not think any one of those things is mindfulness itself. I think of them more like warmups for moving through levels of awareness consciously.

Just like I would warm up my body before asking more of it physically, these techniques give my attention somewhere to go before I ask myself to look more closely at what is happening within me and around me.

For me, that distinction matters. The goal is not to become good at breathing exercises or perfect at sitting quietly. The goal is to get better at noticing. If you want to explore what I mean by awareness first, read What Is Mindfulness? How Awareness Can Change Your Experience.

Once your desired level of awareness is engaged, the next question becomes: Where do you direct your attention?

What Is the Difference Between Mindfulness and Mental Fitness?

I would not use mindfulness and Mental Fitness interchangeably. Mindfulness is one way we can practice awareness. Mental Fitness is much broader and includes how we work with thoughts, attention, beliefs, learning and other patterns of the mind.

So yes, mindfulness can support Mental Fitness, but they are not the same thing. I explore the mind more broadly in What Is Mental Fitness? The Truth About Our Brain and Mind.

What Mindfulness Techniques Can Warm Up Your Awareness?

Practicing these five techniques regularly can make it easier to get into the practice of mindfulness:

1. How Do You Practice Mindful Breathing?

I like starting with the breath because it is already happening. You do not have to create anything. Just notice it. Where do you feel it? Is it fast, slow, deep, shallow, smooth or irregular? You do not necessarily need to change it.

And when your attention wanders, that gives you something else to notice. You can simply bring it back to your breath. I am not trying to control every breath here. The exercise is noticing.

2. How Can You Practice Body Awareness?

From the breath, I would bring attention into the body. What is already happening there? Where are you holding tension? What feels relaxed, warm, cold, heavy, light, comfortable or uncomfortable?

My instinct used to be to notice something uncomfortable and immediately want to change it. But awareness can come first. What am I actually feeling in my body? This is also where the holistic body becomes useful: something you notice physically may connect with what is happening mentally or emotionally.

3. How Do You Practice Being Present?

I do not think being present means somehow shutting off thoughts about yesterday or tomorrow. That is not very realistic. I would pay attention to when my mind has moved into remembering, anticipating, planning or imagining.

Then come back to what is happening now. I actually think the moment you realize your attention wandered is useful. You noticed it. That noticing is part of the practice.

4. Do You Need a Quiet Place to Practice Mindfulness?

No. I do not think mindfulness requires a perfectly quiet room. Life is rarely that cooperative. But when you are learning to pay closer attention, reducing some of the noise can make it easier to hear what is happening internally.

Put down your phone, turn off the television or simply stop adding new information for a few minutes. Notice what comes forward when less is competing for your attention.

5. How Can You Practice Mindfulness While Walking?

Walking is one of my favorite ways to practice this because awareness has so many places to land. I can notice my feet touching the ground, my breathing, the temperature, sounds, light, movement, thoughts, emotions and what is happening around me.

If your attention wanders, notice where it went and return to the experience of walking. Nature can add another layer of sensory awareness when it is available. If that interests you, explore Nature Therapy: How to Best Harness Its Healing Power.

Once Your Desired Level of Awareness Is Accessed, Where Do You Direct Your Attention?

This is where the practice gets more interesting to me. The mindfulness techniques help warm up the practice of awareness. I usually use the Five Pillars to decide where to direct my attention. The pillars give me different lenses, but I do not experience myself as five separate parts. What I notice in one area can lead me directly into another.

What Does Nutritional Awareness Look Like?

With food, for example, I can pause before making the choice and ask: Am I actually hungry? Am I satisfied? Am I eating automatically? Am I looking for comfort food or trying to fill a void that has nothing to do with physical hunger? How does this food make me feel?

And I want to be clear about something here. Awareness is not another way to police yourself. I might realize I am not physically hungry, recognize that I want comfort and still decide to eat something. The important part is that it expands my understanding of what is driving the impulse instead of pretending every urge means the same thing.

What Does Physical Awareness Look Like?

Physical awareness directs attention toward the body. How am I breathing? Where am I holding tension? Am I tired, restless, energized, stiff or uncomfortable? Does my body seem to need movement or recovery? How well is my body moving? What does it need to function better today?

What Does Mental Awareness Look Like?

Mental awareness directs attention toward thoughts and attention itself. What am I thinking right now? Where has my attention gone? Am I remembering, anticipating or imagining? Am I treating an assumption as a fact? Is a particular thought repeating?

I do not have to immediately argue with the thought or make it disappear. First I want to know that it is there.

What Does Emotional Awareness Look Like?

Emotional awareness asks what you are feeling and what may be happening around that feeling. What happened before it appeared? Where do you notice it in your body? Are you responding only to what is happening now, or has the experience touched something older?

For me, the value is in creating enough room to recognize an emotion before I automatically let it make the next decision for me.

What Does Spiritual Awareness Look Like?

For me, awareness itself is a spiritual practice. It is one way I get in touch with the nonphysical aspect of myself. I cannot see awareness the way I can see my body, yet somehow I know it is there because I am experiencing through it.

This becomes especially interesting when I notice a thought. If I can observe a thought coming and going, I can begin distinguishing the thought from the awareness noticing it. That leads me to a different kind of question: If I can observe a thought, what is the relationship between me and the thought I am observing?

I do not need to turn that observation into a religious belief or claim to know exactly what consciousness is. I don’t. And I’m okay with having an ongoing and sometimes evolving understanding of it. Different spiritual and contemplative traditions have their own ways of understanding it. For me, the practice begins with recognizing that there is an aspect of my experience that I am aware of but do not completely understand. I’ve become comfortable accepting that and continuing on with life.

That is also why I do not see mindfulness as belonging only to Mental Fitness. Awareness is the spiritual aspect for me, while the attention that comes from that awareness can be directed toward what I am eating, what I am sensing in my body, what I am thinking, what I am feeling, or my level of awareness itself.

How Do the Five Pillars Work Together During Mindfulness?

This is also why I do not want the Five Pillars to become five boxes. They help me organize where I am directing my attention when I want to practice fitness, but my actual experience is still one experience. One observation can naturally lead into another.

You might notice yourself reaching for food and ask, Am I hungry? That begins with Nutritional awareness. Then you notice very little physical hunger. Your thoughts return to an uncomfortable interaction from earlier. You recognize that you’re feeling like some need you had wasn’t met. Then you reach for that cookie and realize you may be trying to fill that void. Finally, you notice that you are observing the hunger, thought, and emotion rather than simply moving along with them.

One experience has moved through Nutritional, Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Fitness. The lenses help us examine different parts of the experience while the holistic body reminds us that those parts can interact.

Do You Need to Practice Mindfulness Through All Five Pillars?

Definitely not. I would drive myself crazy if every sandwich required a Five Pillar investigation. The lenses are there when they are useful, not so that every ordinary moment becomes another self improvement assignment. This can, however, become a useful technique when you have been unable to change an eating habit that is clearly no longer serving you.

Sometimes awareness really is as simple as, I am tired. That may be all I need to know. Other times I may notice that I am tired, irritated, hungry, unable to concentrate and feeling disconnected from myself. That is when looking through more than one lens can help me see something I might miss if I reduced the whole experience to just one problem.

Is the Goal of Mindfulness to Have a Quiet Mind?

No. And I think this is one of the easiest ways to make mindfulness feel harder than it needs to be. I do not need a silent mind, perfectly regulated emotions or flawless presence to practice awareness.

These five techniques are simply ways to warm up my attention. Once my level of awareness is anchored, I have somewhere to direct it.

That is where I use the Five Pillars: Nutritional, Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Fitness. Sometimes one lens tells me enough. Sometimes what I notice there sends me straight into another.

The goal is not to notice everything. It is to become more capable of noticing what matters in the moment.

References:

Powell, A. (2018, April 9). Harvard researchers study how mindfulness may change the brain in depressed patients. Harvard Gazette. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/04/harvard-researchers-study-how-mindfulness-may-change-the-brain-in-depressed-patients

‌Keng, S. L., Smoski, M. J., & Robins, C. J. (2011). Effects of mindfulness on psychological health: A review of empirical studies. Clinical Psychology Review, 31(6), 1041–1056. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2011.04.006