Why mindfulness works: Training your brain in uncertain times

Autumn Gallegos Greenwich, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

The ups and downs of the past two years have left many feeling unbalanced and questioning what’s important in life. Some are rethinking their jobs, relationships, personal priorities, and more.

In this time of perpetual uncertainty, how can we clear our heads and stay mindful and focused on what’s most important? Autumn Gallegos Greenwich, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and an expert on mind-body interventions related to stress and trauma, shares her thoughts on mindfulness, gratitude, and the science behind it all.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE MINDFUL?
You have to train your attention first. It’s like sitting in a chair and training yourself to understand what your sensory experience is—what does it feel like to sit in that chair? What does the air feel like? What is the story you tell yourself about this experience?

To truly be mindful, you then need to move from attention to acceptance. That’s allowing our experience to be what it is, allowing our body to feel just as it does. And that becomes the ability to direct our attention: to pay more attention to what we value and care about. This moves us towards prosocial behaviors—those that help and benefit others—like gratitude and compassion. This line from Mary Oliver’s poem, “Sometimes” sums it up well: “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

HOW CAN MULTI-TASKING CONTRIBUTE TO STRESS?
When we are distracted or multi-tasking, we aren’t paying attention, and we become more reactive and more distressed, because we are trying to do more than we are capable of doing. With multi-tasking comes the message of striving—you should do more. The reality is that we can’t do all the things and we can’t do them well, and people often become burned out. There’s a lie that we’re supposed to be productive at all times. Your worth is not what you produce—it is who you are.

Ultimately, when we pay attention to our behaviors, we can ask the big questions: do I need to do all these things at once? Do they align with my values? Is this what I really care about? The shift that mindfulness allows is the choice to show up to everything in our life—whether they are things that we enjoy, or things that are hard or overwhelming—and be present.

HOW ARE MINDFULNESS AND GRATITUDE CONNECTED?
Gratitude is a high-impact, prosocial behavior that is huge in therapy and positive psychology because it creates a lot of positive emotions. One really fascinating thing that happens when we have grateful thoughts is that we use words like “we” more often. Gratitude is prosocial in the sense that you see yourself connected to a bigger whole, which can combat things like loneliness and disconnection.

WHAT’S THE SCIENCE BEHIND MINDFULNESS AND GRATITUDE? WHY DO THEY “WORK?”
Mindfulness is considered a mind-body practice because there are both mental and physical benefits. It’s linked to changes in our brain: it increases activity in regions that control stress regulation and decreases activity in regions that control our brain’s stress alarm system, like the amygdala. Practicing mindfulness improves our mood, decreases our stress, and can help us better focus. It’s been shown to reduce chronic pain, decrease inflammation, and improve sleep. Practicing gratitude has a similar effect, because people find themselves more connected to other prosocial behaviors like compassion and empathy.

Mindfulness and gratitude also help us improve our relationships. Relationship issues are usually tied to poor communication. When we are mindful, we become better communicators: we’re more compassionate, more present, and more willing to hear the other person in the relationship.

PRACTICING MINDFULNESS AND GRATITUDE SOUNDS GREAT BUT HOW DO YOU GET STARTED?
It can be as simple as journaling. Every day, write down three things that you’re grateful for. Apps are also an easy on-ramp into the world of mindfulness. I recommend Headspace—it offers prompts at certain times of day, mediations of different lengths, and basic and advanced courses that really train people in mindfulness.

I also love the concept of “awe walks”—walking outside with a fresh perspective and noticing things that inspire gratitude. There have been initial studies that show that such walks help people become more upbeat and hopeful. There’s a New York Times piece that describes one such study, noting that “the awe walkers felt happier, less upset and more socially connected than the men and women in the control group.”