The Body

We have about 60,000 thoughts a day! We remember very few of them, we don't need the rest. What's the difference between the thoughts that become memories and the ones that we just let go? Emotion. Stronger emotion means a stronger memory.

Neuroscientists say that we experience emotion as those body sensations that go along with our thoughts. Without body emotion we're simply thinking.

The five emotions that are consistent across every culture throughout time and place are happiness, sadness, fear, surprise and disgust. They are all intensely physical.

Yes, emotion is a survival mechanism.

Right back to the early 1900's, psychologists have been studying emotions in a lot of detail . It's pretty much agreed that today we are all much more anxious.

We think of it as a modern issue, but depression has been steadily on the rise for the entire 1900's. This century, in the 2000's, there's been an explosion of negative emotion.

With the many different ways that it works, mindfulness of the body can greatly help us to either re-connect physically or become less mindless to our senses, so improving our emotional management.

It's now been scientifically proven that by mindfully paying attention to body sensations we can reduce the physicality of negative emotions, so reducing stress and anxiety.

Mindful meditators have known this for at least 2,500 years, probably a lot longer.

Due to stressful and traumatic events in our lives we can become disconnected from our bodies, and that messes with our emotions.

Things can seem distant and unreal, or the other extreme, too intense and overwhelming.

In much simpler times and for about 150,000 years emotions have kept people safe. In today's modern world life gives us far too many sensory challenges and overload situations.

This is made worse by electronic devices, the internet and social media. We are increasingly challenged by competing demands on our attention – making us less mindful. Or we could describe this as being “mindless”.

Mindfulness puts us more in control of our life experience and helps us to see who we are in a more realistic way.

Mindful techniques that reconnect us physically include mindful walking, body scanning, or yoga.

At any moment of the day we can pay attention with informal mindfulness exercises, like mindful eating, when taking a shower, washing the dishes or tidying.

There are plenty of opportunities to be mindful of the experience of physical body without needing to take time out for extra activities.

These exercises directly engage us in observation of the experience of being in our own body, and our own personal space.