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Everyday Mindfulness and Meditation

Everyday Mindfulness and Meditation

Meditation has been growing in popularity and public awareness in the west in recent years. Research consistently shows that meditation produces positive treatment outcomes for PTSD, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and addiction. It is a classical practice that has just lately seen a revival in our instant gratification society. When asked about meditation, most conjure up images of a person sitting in an orthodox position, with legs crossed and fingers held just so to achieve some fictitious realm of complete bliss. Hollywood, Kung Fu movies, and that one annoying friend on Facebook have collectively planted the wrong idea of the practice of meditation.


If you can think of your mind as a new computer. When you first took it out of the box, it worked with lightning speed to do the task that you ask it to do at that moment. As time goes on, your computer does more and more tasks in the background so, that the specific function that you ask it to do starts to operate slower and slower. What do you do to fi x this problem? You defragment the operating system, get rid of the background activities, so it can act with more energy and computing function to the task that is needed right now. Meditation is the same as defragmenting your operating system.

How do you meditate? The key is to find the place where you naturally bring yourself to mindfulness. Most common is reading a really interesting book or article. Even though you may have some background thought, most of your conscious energy in focused on the information that is being digested right now. Another good example of complete mindfulness, is doing a complex physical activity like skiing, snowboarding, or mountain biking. Many people refer to this state of mind as being “in the zone.” This is meditation. Your monkey mind can not compute fast enough to keep up with your muscle memory and reactions to be of any help so, it goes quiet. Now that you can relate to that state of mind and being, we can start to integrate that into meditation.

A great start is to use a technique similar to one that people who suffer from anxiety are taught. Find a comfy position and take five deep breaths and try to focus on nothing but watching and feeling the breath. Then, focus your eyes and look at five separate things in your surroundings.

Don’t name them, describe them or define them in your mind, just look and focus on them. Next, touch four things. Then, smell three things and then, taste two things. Don’t forget to breath. You should now be in a more focused mindful state. The more you practice the longer you can stay in this state.

Now that you get the idea, I will share with you my favorite and more classical technique for meditation. Find a comfy position you can keep for about thirty minutes. You may lie down, but you will run the risk of falling asleep. Start with the deep focused breathing as before. As your thoughts start to fill your head, the key is not to indulge them. For instance, if you remembered that you forgot to pay that one bill, don’t add on to the thought with “I will pay that this afternoon.” Don’t feed the thoughts and they will stop coming. See if you can, imagine that you are sitting outside those thoughts as an observer. If you can stay disciplined, those thoughts will begin to fade away and you will find yourself in a complete quiet and lucid mind. It will be startling at first, but stay with it. Like in the first technique, you may only be able to stay there for a short time but with consistent practice you will be able to go longer and longer.

Meditation and mindfulness is a practice that can be used anywhere at anytime, simply just by taking a few deep breaths, being aware of the noise (and it is just noise) in your head, and focusing on what you are doing right now.

Kevin T. Waldron is owner of Colorado Restorative Acupuncture. He has been serving the people of Summit County for more than ten years. Kevin can be reached at (970) 389-8668 or visit

Colorado Restorative Acupuncture

About Kevin T. Waldron:

Kevin have been serving the heath and wellness needs of Summit County for over 10 years. He practices his art with knowledge, experience, kindness, and compassion. These are the cornerstones used to guide his patients down the process of healing physically, spiritually, and emotionally.

Specialties Include: Acupuncture, Chinese Medicinal Herbs, Moxibustion, Acupressure/Tui Na, Cupping, Oriental

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2018-03-15T22:40:10+00:00 By |