Ask HN: How do you sustain mindfulness throughout your day? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you sustain mindfulness throughout your day?

19 pointsdesertraven12 comments

By mindfulness I mean simply being aware of your thoughts and impulses and acting intentionally.

"Mindfulness" is a made up word by people trying to sell you things (self-help for starters, but tons of other shit besides, like special diets, focus booster pills, retreats, and so on).

Well, if not totally made up, surely proped up from insignificance to a marketing term. In any case, don't give it much thought.

The reality is you will have focus and will some days, be uninspired, slouchly, and under the weather on others. Same goes for the hours of each day.

Now, to improve your general power levels:

- eat well (don't gorge, mostly vegetables),

- sleep roughly 8 hours each day,

- hydrate, and

- exercize

- permit yourself to be lazy when you don't feel like it.

Try also to multitask less, and don't spend time on social media and binge Netflix/Youtube/etc. And check your health from time to time.

If you do those things well enough (no need to go anywhere near pro, or track your progress, or whatever, common logic is enough), you'll do great.

Note that none of those things will work wonders if you totally hate your job - or the people in it. Quit and get another, if that's the case (we're talking suffering though, not some mere dislike for some idiot boss or some project - this happens to all jobs).

Oh, and when you need an extra boost, some coffee/tea will also work wonders.

Mindfulness has certainly become a bit of a buzz word in recent years, but to dismiss it completely as if it isn't a real thing seems like a waste. It isn't some indefinable concept: mindfulness has been practiced in various forms for thousands of years and increasingly studied in scientific settings (eg https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3679190/).

Sleep, exercise, hydration, etc are all certainly extremely important, but seem a bit off topic to the question OP asked (which I unfortunately have no good answer to myself, but I look forward to reading others).

>It isn't some indefinable concept: mindfulness has been practiced in various forms for thousands of years

As anything besides meditation and/or focus practice?

>Sleep, exercise, hydration, etc are all certainly extremely important, but seem a bit off topic to the question OP asked

Simply put, without any of those, you don't have anything close to "mindfulness".

>permit yourself to be lazy

By not setting limits on my 'free play' I always find myself gravitating back to productivity because I engineered a life where my business is aligned with my core interests. Play time is critical to keep me fresh and up to date with the field as well as let me go down rabbit holes that often lead to innovation. But importantly, I genuinely feel refreshed!

That's an inaccurate take and obviously non-professional. It amounts to "mindfulness isn't real just take care of yourself and do it". Mindfulness doesn't have anything to do with the things you mentioned it has to do with. Mindfulness is meant to help with controlling obtrusive, obsessive, and unhelpful thoughts.

People should go talk to an actual professional and not listen to internet comments.

Set alarms periodically to remind you. Also Meditation practice helps sustain the moments of mindfulness longer before drifting back into ego identification and thought. Journal in the evening and or morning. That by your definition let’s you be mindful of all that you mentioned albeit in a more distant time than what we consider the present.

I ask myself a question randomly throughout the day, any one of these or similar:

Am I aware right now? What is the mind aware of? What do I notice? Is there awareness? Am I craving something? Do I have any aversion?

The act of asking any one of these types of questions naturally brings me back to an awareness of right now.

Being mindful all the time is tasking, exhausting and depressing. So much sh*t you have zero control over.

I prefer being in the zone instead - mindfulness, for me, is best done periodically as part of reflection of sort.

Try to do 5 breath in/out - start occasionally and reduce this interval. When you breath in/out you need feel you 'got' that breath fully.

Maybe try to meditate once during the workday?

The Headspace app is a good aid.

whenever you transition from one activity to another, be aware of what you are doing in exactly this moment. that’s it.

This is mindfulness by definition, and also the answer to the question "how do you sustain mindfulness throughout the day?"

One purpose of having periods of formal meditation is to be able to sustain greater periods of mindfulness throughout the day. Formal meditation gets the mind used to coming back to what's at hand.

To take it a little further, you can practice having a tiny moment of mindful awareness each time before you open your mouth to speak or eat, and each time before you move your body.

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