A group of researchers at Brown University has been prospectively studying a birth cohort in the New England Family Study. The latest findings from this group reveal that central obesity and adiposity are inversely related to mindfulness. People who are not mindful are 34% more likely to be obese and are also more likely to have increased abdominal fat. Further, people who were not obese as children but became obese as adults had lower mindfulness scores than people who were not obese in childhood or adulthood.
Some people practice mindfulness by meditating and learning to intensely focus their thoughts inward. The current study, however, focused more on “dispositional mindfulness” – paying attention to your thoughts and feelings during everyday tasks.
Mindfulness can help you overcome unhealthy habits because being aware of your current feelings and thoughts helps you associate behaviors – like eating, exercising, or smoking, for example – with how you feel (emotionally and physically) after completing the behavior.
None of these studies can establish a causal link between physical health and mindfulness, but mindfulness may help people cognitively defeat barriers that are preventing them from living their most healthy life. People who are mindful of how they feel are more likely to feel in control of their lives and their choices. Understanding what we do and why we do it is the first step to making better choices.
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Category(s):Mindfulness
Source material from BrainBlogger
