2 Practical Ways To Use Mindfulness for Productivity

Cleaning your mind

No, this is not about dirty thoughts. This is about unnecessary thoughts that clutter your mind – just like how random objects strewn about in your house may end up cluttering the place.

So just as we need to clean the house to maintain the hygiene of the place, and just as we need to bathe every day to maintain personal hygiene – we also need to do the same thing for our mind.

You can think of it as having too many too many programme running on your mental CPU. While it may be useful to run programmes in the background that you want to use later on (triggering the Zeigarnik effect), overall it’s not a good idea to have too many unnecessary mental apps running in your head.

While we can’t take a vacuum cleaner and mop to our brains, there are other ways to clean our minds so that we can be more effective. So that our mental programmes can run better. So that we can be more productive.

And the answer to better productivity is mindfulness.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness might conjure images of people sitting down, closing their eyes, and doing nothing. And you’re not wrong – that is what meditation looks like, and it is a form of a mindfulness practice.

The thing is, it looks like doing nothing – which looks like the complete opposite of productivity.

So here I’d just like to clear up the fact that meditation isn’t the only way to practice mindfulness. There are other ways, such as reappraisal and re-setting the intention, which are techniques that involve mindfulness and doing things.

As for mindfulness itself – it can be defined as the awareness that arises through intentionally attending in an open, kind and discerning way (Shapiro & Carlson, 2009). It can thought of as a form of awareness that is inherent and ever present, or as a series of specific practices designed to enhance mindful attention and awareness.

The three qualities of mindfulness

It’s obvious that attention is a key quality of mindfulness. However, there are two other qualities that comprise mindfulness – intention and attitude (Shapiro & Carlson, 2009).

Intention is about know why we are doing what we are doing. It’s like setting our direction for where our attention goes. Except that since it’s intention, we “set the intention.”

Attention is our psychic energy – where we choose to focus our thoughts on. You don’t need to be a telepath to have psychic energy. You just need to think. Attention is currency, hence we need to “pay attention”.

Finally, attitude is a quality of mindfulness. It is how we choose to set the intention and pay attention. You can be mindful in a cold and critical way, or you can be mindful in a compassionate and curious way.

In a way, these three qualities of mindfulness can be thought of as:

• intention: the why of mindfulness
• attention: the where and what of mindfulness
• attitude: the how of mindfulness

Mindfulness as being present

For me, mindfulness is about present. It’s about being there when doing something.

The most obvious expression of this is paying attention when someone is talking, to process and understand the information output.

But it also manifests in different ways.

Responding to messages is a key form of mindfulness for me, especially when a question has been asked. If a question has been asked, it is a request for attention to be placed on an issue – and to not respond is to not place attention on that issue. It’s an attitude towards responses.

Setting a direction is also a form of mindfulness, especially when it comes to organisations. It’s about intention. The direction is where attention will be focused – but one needs to have attention placed first on where that direction is.

The evidence-based mental hygiene benefits of mindfulness

Mindfulness is a key part of positive psychology – and thus, copious studies have been conducted on whether it does help us. Spoiler: it does, and in more ways than you might expect. Here are the myriad mental hygiene improvements of mindfulness that research has uncovered.

1. Memory and intelligence: Improvements in intelligence, learning ability, memory recall, and school grades (Cranson et al., 1991).
2. Psychological flexibility: Skilful responses to situational demands that are aligned with our needs, interests, and values (Brown & Ryan, 2003).
3. Creativity: Enhanced capacity to solve problems that require one to transcend informational boundaries (Ostafin & Kassman, 2012).
4. Attention and concentration: Improves overall attention and response times (Jha et al., 2007).
5. Interpersonal relationships: Greater gains in personal resources which leads to more life satisfaction and reduced depression (Johnson et al., 2011).
6. Happiness and positive affect: Higher positive affect, lowered levels of stressors, anxiety, hostility, depression, and dysphoria (Beauchamp-Turner & Levison, 1992).
7. Optimism: Increased optimism and reduced alcohol and drug use (Bowen et al., 2006).
8. Empathy: Increased levels of empathy and decreased levels of anxiety and depression (Shapiro et al., 1998).
9. Self-compassion: Greater kindness and understanding to self, and reduced self-criticism (Shapiro et al., 2005).
10. Self-actualisation: Increased acceptance of self, others, and nature, and superior perception of reality (Alexander et al., 1991).
11. Moral maturity: Enhanced ethical motivation and behaviour (Walsh, 1999).
12. Neuroplasticity: Improvements to the brain’s physical structure (Lazar et al., 2005).

The evidence-based physical benefits of mindfulness

Bonus: Mindfulness is like the gift that keeps on giving. Here are the physical benefits of mindfulness.

1. Immune function: Improvements in immune system functioning or reversal of immune suppression (Davidson et al., 2003).
2. Stress reactivity and recovery: Reverses the effects of chronic stress (MacLean et al., 1997).

What you’re here for: 2 practical ways to use mindfulness for productivity

Okay so what you’re really here for are the 2 practical ways to use mindfulness right? These are mindfulness practices I’ve come upon (positive re-appraisal) and developed (re-setting the intention) that have helped me to do more with my life.

How so, you ask? By studying a stack of 21 readings on mindfulness (these are text-dense academic papers by the way) and making handwritten notes within the span of 6 days, while still doing my day job and living life and taking a 22-hour flight to the US.

In the process, I’ve managed to overcome some intrusive thoughts and change my mindset towards events that have plagued me for a while. While I do meditate at night regularly, these two practices don’t have anything to do with meditation, and they’re about mindful “doing” and “being” than anything else.

Technique 1: Positive reappraisal, the changing your cognitive and emotional processing of a situation

Reappraisal is a way of taking an event that triggers automatic negative reactions, and changing it so that positive intentional responses are elicited instead (Garland et al., 2015).

The negative reactions attached to that event are our appraisal of the situation – how we judge what happened in that event. Often times, they appear as intrusive thoughts because we’re reminded of that situation.

Changing those thoughts entails using mindfulness – meaning, to identify when the memory of an adverse event is affecting you (intrusive thoughts), and then being able to stop and take three breaths so you can alter the course of those thoughts.

So let’s look at it from the perspective of intrusive thoughts that are negative reactions to a past event.

Step 1: “Let go” of the appraisal by decentering

The scientific way of saying this is to “suspend the initial stress appraisal and disengage cognitive resources from it” and you know to do this when “initially cued by stress-evoked perturbations to bodily homeostasis interpreted as negative affect or by social feedback indicating that one has come into the grip of strong emotions” (Garland et al., 2015).

In plain English, it means that whenever the intrusive thought appears, you practice distancing. You might realise that the intrusive thought has appeared because of negative emotions that you feel or that people around you notice. You “decentre” because you are no longer at the centre of the event.

What you do is to take deep breaths to calm yourself down. You should focus on exhaling as long as you can. Take at least three breaths, and remember that while this is a negative feeling, you are not the feeling. You can repeat the following sentences with each breath:

This is an emotion that I have to this event.

I can feel the emotion, but I am not that emotion.

This emotion is separate from me.

Over time, you will decentre – meaning that you will see yourself as a separate from the negative feelings associated with the event.

The event is associated with negative feelings that you feel, but you are not those feelings.

Step 2: Separate the emotions from the event

The scientific way of saying this is that “over time, decentering from stress appraisals into the state of metacognitive awareness may extinguish conditioned responses, as one focuses attention on one’s relation to the conditioned stimulus rather than fulfilling the conditioned response” (Garland et al., 2015).

In plain English, it means that whenever the intrusive thought appears, you are now able to see it as separate from yourself. Then you see the negative feelings as separate from the event.

You should still take deep breaths to calm yourself down, and it should be easier to calm yourself down. Focus on taking longer exhales and realise that the event is not the same as the negative emotions. You can repeat the following sentences with each breath:

An event happened and negative emotions were felt.

The event is different from the negative emotions.

The event is separate from the negative emotions.

Over time, there should be a sense of neutrality to the event. The neutrality may not last very long – it is an intrusive thought for a reason, after all – but there should be some instances of it.

You can choose to stop here. However, the intrusive thoughts will still keep coming because there’s an emotional attachment to it. This leads to the new appraisal – or reappraisal of the event.

Step 3: Create new emotions associated with the event

The scientific way of saying this is to “access new data with which to reappraise circumstances as benign, meaningful, or growth promoting” (Garland et al., 2015).

In plain English, it is to see the event as something that was beneficial, had a purpose, or helped you grow.

The mindfulness process still holds – take deep breaths whenever the intrusive thought comes up. Focus on long exhales. Then think of it in a way that is positive – beneficial, purposeful, or growth-focused.

Note that you don’t have to feel positive emotions about the event, but you should feel that it is not an adverse event anymore.

I don’t have sentences to help for this step – because this is up to you to decide how you want to re-appraise the event.

Over time, whenever the intrusive thought appears – it will no longer be associated with negative emotions, but something more positive instead. When that happens, it ceases to be an intrusive thought and no longer comes up as much.

A real-life example of reappraisal

Remember how I had to do 21 readings? So I came across reappraisal in reading #2.

What happened was this – I had a gathering at my house some time back. Two individuals severely violated my boundaries during an activity. After the gathering, I messaged each individual to express the violation of my boundaries. One person went “lol” and the other individual completely ignored the message.

Understandably, this hurt a lot. And since this violation happened in my house, it’s inevitable that I would be reminded of it. So it became an intrusive thought, and there was a lot of rage towards these two individuals.

I started to practice Step 1 – which is to decentre – every time that thought came up during my readings. By about reading #7, there was some level of separation and I could see the emotions as separate from myself.

That was when I started on Step 2 – separating the emotions from the event – and seeing that there was an action (the event) and I had a response (rage) to it. The event could have been perceived differently (and it was perceived differently by other people who were present). So the anger was my response to it, and it was separate from the event. This took until about reading #9 (it didn’t take very long for me).

I went on to Step 3 – which is to create a new appraisal for the event. This took the longest time. I eventually came to terms with several facts. Firstly, I was so angry because I had cared deeply about these two individuals. Secondly, I still cared about these two individuals, which is why the anger could not dissipate (hate and love are both sides of the same coin, after all). Thirdly, I could dislike their actions but still love them from afar (by acknowledging that there was still some care for them).

You can love someone but not like them, as one of my instructors shared.

It took until reading #18 (most of this was done on a wifi-less plane ride) for this to happen.

And it has made all the difference for me. The intrusive thoughts stopped. The anger melted away. And it was okay – okay to say that I really dislike your self-centeredness, but I still care and hope that nothing bad happens to you (one of them developed some sort of health condition).

That’s positive reappraisal for you.

Technique 2: Re-setting the intention when attention wavers

Note that this is “re-setting” the intention, not “resetting the intention” (which would mean changing the intention).

I’m sure many of you know what it means to set the intention – which is to think about how you want to approach a situation or task. Most of the time, you want to devote your full attention to it when you set the intention.

However, we’re humans. We get distracted, hungry, bored, annoyed, sleepy, etc… and our attention wavers. Our intention is lost.

That’s when you re-set the intention. You can set the intention again in the middle of a task. When you realise you’re distracted or just not wanting to do it anymore, but you’re physically present and you want to make the most out of it – you can re-set the intention.

Take three deep breaths – again, focusing on the long exhale. These are the three sentences I say to myself.

I want to do this.

I want to do this because [reason]

I want [reason] so that I can [action].

For me, this was especially useful wading through 21 readings. My three sentences whenever I got distracted was:

I want to read this.

I want to read this because I want to get better at positive psychology.

I want to get better at positive psychology so I can help other people.

And it has helped me shift my attention and focus back to the reading each time.

Mindfulness and mental hygiene

This is how I have used mindfulness to “clean” my mind. To clear it of the intrusive thoughts so that my emotional energy is not wasted. To be able to spend my time effectively on the tasks I want to do.

To be more productive.

So yes, mindfulness can be about meditating (which, again, I do regularly). But it’s not all about that. There are practical, “doing” ways of using mindfulness to be more productive.

It’s a way of ensuring mental hygiene so that your brain (your most valuable asset) can work better.

You might also want to read:

• “Multitask” Better By Using The Zeigarnik Effect: Running Tasks In Your Brain’s Background System

References

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