The Role of Mindfulness in Women’s Wellbeing

One of the biggest challenges women face these days is the relentless pressure to be everything to everyone, all of the time.

The expectation to put everyone else’s needs ahead of our own, combined with the practical and mental demands of life as a parent, business owner, employer, employee, daughter, sister, friend, and whichever other roles we hold in our lives, leaves little time for us to take care of ourselves in the way we need to.

We rush through life, eating fast foods at the kitchen sink or scoffing them in between meetings. We work long hours and then rush home to tackle family and home responsibilities. We spend our time and energy taking care of loved ones and forget to include ourselves in all that care.

The trouble with this is that we’re not recharging ourselves, and sooner or later, we run out of energy to do all the things expected of us.

After all, you can’t pour from an empty cup.

Once that happens, if we don’t address it, we’re headed for burnout. Our mental and physical health is affected, and left unchecked, will get progressively worse.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a way to be present within the current moment with awareness and without judgment. It’s about taking notice of how we’re feeling and what we’re thinking, and responding in a non-reactive way.

Research has shown that mindfulness in every day life reduces stress levels, improves sleep quality, and leads to better emotional regulation. The simple act of practicing mindfulness creates a pause in the overwhelm of day-to-day life, so that instead of being swept away by the weight of our responsibilities, we’re able to respond with greater resilience and without sacrificing our mental health in the process.

Incorporating mindfulness practices into our everyday life creates breathing space, a pause that allows our nervous system to regulate. This reduces the levels of cortisol floating around our system and brings us back into balance. This balance is important for both mental and physical health, as prolonged exposure to cortisol is associated with many negative health outcomes.

Mindfulness practices

Incorporating mindfulness practices into your day doesn’t have to take a lot of time or effort. Even five minutes here or there has a noticeable impact over time if practiced consistently.

You can practice mindful breathing for five minutes in the car while waiting for your kids to finish school, do a body scan at the beginning or end of your lunch break, and finish each day with a gratitude practice as you close your eyes to go to sleep. It’s not hard or time consuming, and the difference is marked.

Here are some suggestions for mindfulness practices to start including in your day.

1. Mindful Breathing. This is one of the easiest things to do for yourself. Mindful breathing simply means closing your eyes and focusing on your breath. Make your inhales and exhales deep and full and put all your attention on your breathing. Not only will you improve your body’s oxygenation by doing this, but it can also help reduce stress and anxiety instantly and have many long-term health benefits. It can be done anywhere, anytime.

2. Gratitude Practice. No matter what’s going on in our lives, there are always things to be grateful for. But when we’re under stress, we often forget to focus on the good things and pay attention only to the things that are causing us stress. This quickly leads to overwhelm. By spending a few minutes every day thinking of things we’re grateful for, we shift our focus to in a more positive direction and reduce the sense of overwhelm. Try to focus on the little things we often take for granted – the breath in our lungs, the sun on our faces, the food we had for breakfast. By practicing gratitude for those little things, you will soon find you no longer need big successes to feel happy.

3. Body Scan Meditation. The body scan is a way of taking conscious notice of your body and the way you’re holding it. We often clench or tighten areas without realising it as a conditioned response to stress. By sitting for a few minutes with your eyes closed, paying attention to any areas of pain or tension in your body and consciously relaxing them, you’ll reduce stress in your body.

4. Mindful Walking. Practices that allow you to focus on something your body is doing are particularly grounding. Mindful walking is only one example; if walking isn’t your thing, try any physical activity that appeals, whether it’s gardening, playing an instrument, creating art, or another physical activity. The important thing is that you focus on the movement of your body, your stride, your physical environment, and not on your thoughts. It’s a form of meditation, and it helps regulate your nervous system and reduce stress.

Incorporating Mindfulness

It’s always tricky to establish a new habit; as with anything new, we often forget, or we set our targets too high and then can’t meet them.

Here are some tips to help you succeed:

1. Start small. Pick one practice and aim to do it for just five minutes at a time, no more than twice a day. If you do extra, great, but your goal should be easily achievable. If you try to go from not doing it at all and straight into everything all at once for multiple hours a day, you’ll quickly get overwhelmed and then feel bad for not achieving your goals.

2. Set your phone alarm to remind you to do the practice you’ve settled on.

3. Stack habits. If a phone alarm is impractical (for example, because you won’t be doing the activity at the same time each day), consider linking your new habit to an existing habit you already have. For example, you could mentally link mindful breathing to when your alarm goes off in the morning; that means that as soon as you turn your alarm off, you’ll know to do your mindful breathing practice. Your gratitude practice could be linked to making breakfast (it can be done while food prepping), driving to work, or closing your eyes to go to sleep at night. The mental link to something you do roughly as often as you want to practice your new habit will trigger your brain to remind you to execute your new habit.

Practiced regularly and consistently, these simple practices can cultivate a deeper sense of peace and balance, greater emotional regulation and a deeper sense of happiness.

Remember, self-care isn’t selfish – it’s essential.