With each passing year, it feels like the stakes get higher and higher for our individual and collective survival. At this critical time in our history, the ancient practice of mindfulness meditation has emerged on the forefront of both integrative and evidence-based treatments to address a host of conditions afflicting our modern lives.

The old saying “as above, so below” is particularly well suited to learning both the practice of mindfulness and the revolutionizing changes that mindfulness can bring. Mindfulness can change how you experience yourself and thereby affect how you manage your relationships with others. The more mindful you become of your thoughts and feelings, the less likely are you to be controlled by ruminations and irrational worries, or get swept up into the maelstrom of destructive emotions.

Ideally, this can increase your capacity to be compassionate toward yourself and be able to choose to generate compassion toward others. You spend less energy fighting with your mind or being stressed by your thoughts and feelings, instead diverting your inner resources towards your well-being and attaining meaningful goals. Over time, many of my patients report that their practice of mindfulness has indeed had an soothing and positive ripple effect on those around them as they continue to practice.

Mindfulness is not about emptying your mind, clearing your mind, nor is it about weeding out undesirable thoughts and feelings. On the most basic level, the practice of mindfulness is deliberately reducing the amount of stress your body feels while simply paying attention to inner thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they arise and without judgment.

Evidence is consistently building that practicing mindfulness meditation twice a day for twenty minutes can actually change how your brain works after only 8 weeks. Instead of being prone to rumination, worry, and distress, mindfulness can “re-wire” your brain to experience relaxation and well-being. However, there are no finish lines to mindfulness practice; it is process as much as goal.

Mindfulness can be done anywhere. There is no special place, particular accessory, or situations that need to arise before you can practice mindfulness. It begins with breathing mindfully through your belly, in the here-and-now even while you are reading these words. I have taught belly-breathing, or diaphragmatic breathing, to people in acute crisis and those simply wanting to enjoy life more.

Here’s how it’s done.

• Put one hand on your belly, and one hand on your chest. Take a deep breath. Does your “belly hand” move more than your “chest hand”?
• If not, try to breathe deeply into your belly, pushing your hand out as you inhale. You can imagine your belly button as a breath pump that inflates to let your lungs drop down into your belly to fill with air. Your belly pump moves back in to exhale, gently squeezing the air out of your lungs.
• Practice a few breaths this way. Some people find it easier to learn this technique lying down.
• As you breathe in, reflect on the breath, simply telling yourself silently “I am breathing in.” As you breathe out, reflect again on the breath, telling yourself silently “I am breathing out.”

This mindful breathing is the cornerstone of all mindfulness-based practices. You can connect your awareness of thoughts to your breath even more by counting your inhalations or exhalations one at a time. For example, with the first exhale, you can count silently, “one.” With the second breath, you can count the second exhalation, “two”, and so forth.

Not if, but when you lose count, simply start over. Let your mind wander and go to the places it goes to, but maintain your awareness on counting your belly breaths.

Remember: you’re not trying to judge or choose your thoughts, but change your relationship to them.

Mindfulness can turn down your stress response as thoughts and feelings unfold at their own pace. Over the course of twenty-minute sessions practiced regularly for weeks and months, your thoughts, feelings, and responses to your thoughts and feelings become stabilized. In the practice of mindfulness, you are training your body to teach your brain.

You can use this technology anywhere. Some of your so-called boring and frustrating moments can become mindfulness booster sessions. Traffic lights. Being placed on hold. Waiting rooms. Checkout lines.

Mindfulness can transform these inopportune times that we usually think of as hassles into moments of calming peace. Over time, you can amplify this transformative capacity of mindfulness into the bigger challenges and obstacles you face in life, such as the death of a loved one or transitioning from one relationship to another. You can also use mindfulness skills to begin practicing self-care routines outside of mindfulness meditation sessions.

With the stable base of mindfulness practice, you have the freedom to be present for the choices you make with your life, and the freedom to begin to be the person you want to be.

Dr. Sameet Kumar is clinical psychologist for the Memorial Health System Cancer Institute in Broward County, Florida. He has also studied with numerous Hindu and Buddhist teachers. He is the author of Grieving Mindfully: A Compassionate and Spiritual Approach to Coping with Loss and The Mindful Path Through Worry and Rumination (January 2010). He lives in south Florida with his wife and two sons. He can be followed on Twitter and on his blog.