How can one thing help solve being tired, stressed and overweight? Mindfulness helps eliminate or reduce all of these things because practicing mindfulness allows you go to the root cause of many of these problems. Being tired, stressed, or overweight are personal struggles and the underlying causes are personal too. Those underlying causes are where mindfulness creates transformation, and that transformation is what eliminates layers of exhaustion, emotional eating, stress, and beyond into a better life.
The thrust of a mindfulness practice is acceptance. Modern life is one of escapism, taking us further and further from where we really are. Those escapes are most often counterproductive for us, because we escape into things like television, consumerism, games, social media and unhealthy food. Really, what we’re doing is medicating ourselves, trying to dull the sensations that we feel are harming us. However the medicine is no good, leaving us feeling tired, stressed and overweight.
When looked at nakedly, we realize most of these things that we’re trying to escape from aren’t so terrible after all. We’re just so afraid of what we might find that we run away. Mindfulness gently brings us back to these things and allows us to look at them without anxiety. Think of it as a safe space, a healthy mental medication.
How does mindfulness help you? This breakdown illustrates what it means for you if you’re tired, stressed, or overweight.
Tired
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It’s a common problem today – people walk around feeling tired all of the time. If you’re experiencing a consistent state of fatigue, there are lots of reasons that could be underlying causes. Often it’s not a physical exhaustion that we’re experiencing, but a mental or emotional exhaustion that is so intense that it feels physical. That’s where mindfulness meditation comes in. Engaging in a consistent mindfulness practice relieves that feeling of constantly being tired. Sitting quietly seems a bit odd when you’re trying to stay awake, but rather than putting you to sleep, mindfulness meditation actually helps you to feel more alive and aware.
Unresolved emotional stress, overstimulation, worry, anxiety, or feeling overwhelmed may stem from an exhaustion that isn’t physical. Mindfulness meditation helps to bring emotional and mental peace, combating fatigue.
Stressed
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Study after study has shown how incredibly effective mindfulness is for reducing stress. Even in small doses, regular mindfulness practice reduces stress. There are many reasons that mindfulness has this effect, but most notably is that it allows the practitioner to release the pressures of life, even for just a few minutes. As issues and problems pile on top of us, they build upon each other. Without a release, the stress stays there within us and tightens its grip. Mindfulness meditation releases that stress, giving the mind and body the opportunity to recharge.
Overweight
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There’s been some really powerful research in the past several years regarding the benefits of mindfulness for people who are battling their weight. Mindful eating is an extension of a basic mindfulness practice. It invites individuals to take their time and savor the food that their eating. You can gauge the sensation of food without overindulging. With the advent of fast food and fast eating, food becomes something altogether different than it once was, removed from the body and disconnected from the mind. Mindfulness reintegrates the act of eating with bodily and emotional awareness.
In addition, we often eat because of stress or exhaustion, medicating ourselves with food rather than addressing the underlying issues. Because a mindfulness practice addresses those underlying problems, it helps to combat the emotional reasons that we overindulge. Beyond that, mindfulness is a great way to build self-esteem, which is so often an accompanying issue. Mindfulness, unlike a simple weight loss program, is not about just fixing the body; it’s about healing the mind and the emotions.
Being stressed, feeling tired and overeating become emotional and mental issues, even if though they manifest in physical ways. Mindfulness helps you to relax, destress and get to the fundamental problems that lie underneath those outward manifestations. Unless you take care of the causes, you’ll never be able to break the cycles that cause you to struggle.
There are so many more benefits to starting a mindfulness meditation practice, even beyond helping you to combat feelings of being tired and stressed, or of struggling with weight loss. If you’re struggling, then mindfulness meditation can help!