The modern world is extremely loud. Everywhere you go there is something big and bright and important, just begging you to pay attention to it.

Even when you aren’t out in public, you’re still probably being bombarded with notifications and distractions.

Our phones are always at our sides, and with them, an endless stream of information. People call and text, emails appear, and social media notifications buzz non-stop.

It’s no wonder that so many of us are feeling overwhelmed and stressed. We are constantly being pulled away from the peace and quiet we need to recharge.

The world is unlikely to change dramatically enough that we don’t have to deal with these constant attention-grabbing stimuli. While the impact of too much noise may be undesirable, it comes from many wonderful technologies that make life better on the whole.

So if the world won’t become calmer, how can we learn to become calm in the world?

The answer is mindfulness.

What is Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a very simple concept. It’s the idea of staying grounded in your life and living in the present moment.

Practicing mindfulness can be done in many ways. The most common and widely-known mindfulness practice is meditation, but you can practice mindfulness in almost any situation.

All you have to do is pull your attention to the present and engage with whatever you’re doing.

While this may sound trivial, mindfulness can have serious benefits when incorporated into your daily life.

3 Benefits of Mindfulness

1: More Mental Clarity

When we try to multitask or do things in a distracted state, we often fail to learn from what we’re doing. We’re so caught up in our thoughts that we can’t wholly engage with the problems we’re experiencing as we do things.

For instance, imagine you’re doing a puzzle. You’re putting the pieces together, but while you’re doing that, you’re thinking about what you’re going to make for dinner.

Because your mind isn’t actively engaged with the puzzle, you probably won’t notice that the shades of blue on certain pieces make it easier to group them. You’ll keep doing the puzzle in the most difficult way, simply because you aren’t engaged enough to notice the details.

Mindfulness helps you avoid this. By paying full attention to the task at hand, you can notice the intricacies involved and thus, develop better solutions.

2: Less Stress

Mindfulness has been shown to drastically reduce stress.

A big part of what makes us feel stressed is the sense of having far too much to do. When your brain tries to think about everything you have to do today at once, it feels like you have to climb a mountain.

Mindfulness helps reduce stress by keeping you from thinking about future tasks. All you have to focus on is what you’re doing at the moment.

Any task is manageable for a mere moment. Staying present helps you chunk things down, helping you get out of the anxiety spiral of overwhelm and, as a result, reducing your overall stress levels.

3: More Productivity

Because we are often distracted and paralyzed by stress, we rarely get as much done as we would like. We have a hard time getting started, feel burnt out and sluggish once we do, and fail to accomplish tasks as quickly as we could.

Mindfulness at work can make you far more productive. Being mindful makes it easy to get started and chip away at your daily tasks. It also keeps you engaged, helping you avoid unnecessary mid-task breaks that only serve to stress you further.

When you incorporate mindfulness, you feel better and perform better.

Conclusion

The world might be overwhelming, but that doesn’t mean you have to be overwhelmed. While there’s no easy solution to the number of stimuli we face on a daily basis, mindfulness can help ground us and keep us from feeling anxious.

If you are looking for a way to perform better at work while also improving your sense of well-being, mindfulness is the answer.

Incorporating mindfulness doesn’t need to be complicated. All it takes is a bit of presence and concentration.