Everyday Health is a publication committed to supporting you on your journey to a healthy life.
Its team includes accredited health journalists, board-certified physicians, and other health professionals who adhere to the highest standards of accuracy, objectivity, and balance in their work.
They create content based on the latest evidence-based health information, as well as real-world patient and clinician experiences, to help inform you on how to take control of your health. That’s why I’ve compiled nine of the best Everyday Health articles on mindfulness, along with my favorite quotes.
1. “What Is Mindfulness?”
“Mindfulness can help when you’re in your head and … worrying about something,” says Ehrman. By using mindfulness techniques, you can be more intentional about what you’re choosing to pay attention to or think about, she adds. “It can reduce anxiety. Part of anxiety is a story that you’re telling yourself in your head that’s usually not the [full] truth — it can be distorted and often may even be very negative.”
Click here to read the article “What Is Mindfulness?“
Related book: Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn
2. “Ease Pain with Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)”
Mindfulness-based stress reduction is an eight-week stress reduction program focused on intensive mindfulness training. It’s now used in hundreds of hospitals, clinics, and medical centers around the world. The course uses various practices of mindfulness, including body scan, gentle yoga, and sitting meditations.
Its aim is to help practitioners get in touch with their present thoughts, sensations, and emotions, so they can gain better insight into their own behavior patterns, particularly when it comes to how they react in stressful situations. A main goal of MBSR is to help people learn that while they cannot always control what is happening around them, they can decide how to respond to it.
Click here to read the article “Ease Pain with Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).”
3. “What Is Mindful Eating? A Complete Beginner’s Guide”
Mindful eating is one method that may provide an alternative to fad diets that are unsustainable, unhealthy, or simply not enjoyable. While the point may be slowing down and savoring your food, the overarching message is that it’s possible to love what you eat and prioritize nutrition to feel good — and live a more fulfilling life not subject to guilt, judgment, or restriction associated with food choices.
Click here to read the article “What Is Mindful Eating? A Complete Beginner’s Guide.”
Related book: Savor: Mindful Eating, Midnful Life by Thich Nhat Hanh
4. “13 Tips for Mindful Eating During the Holidays”
Paying more attention to what, when, and how you eat allows you to better tune in to your body’s true physiological hunger cues and make choices that keep your energy and spirits up. You’ll even savor your food more, whether it’s an extra Christmas cookie or a kale salad. While most experts recommend against setting lofty goals during the holiday season — simply getting through it is more than sufficient — practicing mindful eating beginning now can slowly but surely improve your relationship with food.
Click here to read the article “13 Tips for Mindful Eating During the Holidays.”
5. “What Is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy?”
MBCT combines two research-backed approaches: mindfulness practices and cognitive therapy. Mindfulness is a practice involving awareness of one’s internal state and surroundings, according to the American Psychological Association (APA). Cognitive therapy is a type of talk therapy that helps a person replace faulty or unhelpful thoughts with more adaptive ones, notes the APA.
Click here to read the article “What Is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy?“
6. “Can Mindfulness Help You Sleep Better?”
One study, published in May 2020 in the journal Sleep, found that older adults who underwent mindfulness-based treatment for insomnia (MBTI) fell asleep more quickly at night and also spent less time lying awake at night. Another study published in the same issue of Sleep coupled mindfulness training with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). That study found that adding mindfulness to CBT significantly improved several measures of sleep quality and also reduced pain among a group of poor sleepers with chronic pain conditions.
Click here to read the article “Can Mindfulness Help You Sleep Better?“
7. “Rheumatoid Arthritis: Can Mindfulness Meditation Help Ease Pain?”
If you’re like most people, your mind typically runs in a hundred different directions. But you may not realize that focusing in on the present moment — a process known as mindfulness — may actually improve pain and other symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
“Drugs are effective for rheumatoid arthritis, but they don’t affect the stress pathways that are so fundamental to the condition,” says Michael Irwin, MD, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California in Los Angeles and the director of its Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC). Stress symptoms, he says, activate inflammation and even heighten the perception of pain. “A mindfulness-based intervention, which targets the multiple components of the body’s stress response, can decrease overall pain severity and increase quality of life.”
Click here to read the article “Rheumatoid Arthritis: Can Mindfulness Meditation Help Ease Pain?“
Related book: Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief by Jon Kabat-Zinn
8. “How to Get Into a ‘Mindful Tech’ Self-Care Habit”
You don’t have to delete your social media accounts and go for days on end without looking at a screen, he explains. For most of us, that’s probably not even realistic considering work responsibilities — especially with many of us working from home at least some of the time now — and wanting to connect with friends and family we don’t live with. It’s about being more mindful about when and why you’re reaching for your smartphone, laptop, or other devices, so you can be pickier about choosing to do so. “Focus on usage that makes you feel uplifted and informed, rather than seeing tech as some necessary evil or distraction habit,” Pang says.
Click here to read the article “How to Get Into a ‘Mindful Tech’ Self-Care Habit.”
Related book: Awake at Work by Michael Carroll
9. “Mindfulness as Effective as a Commonly Prescribed Antidepressant in Reducing Anxiety”
Anxiety is a future-oriented mind state involving worry about potential negative or catastrophic outcomes, says Gould. “Mindfulness is a practice where attention is repeatedly brought to the present moment. While these anxious thoughts may still be present with mindfulness practice, they become somewhat devalued when there is not an actual threat. Over time and with regular mindfulness practice, the mind can distinguish actual threats from perceived threats more readily,” she says.
Click here to read the article “Mindfulness as Effective as a Commonly Prescribed Antidepressant in Reducing Anxiety.”
Related book: The Mindful Way Through Depression by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Complement this list of best mindfulness articles from Everyday Health with Psychology Today articles on mindfulness, Healthline articles on mindfulness, Psych Central articles on mindfulness, Verywell Mind articles on mindfulness, Well and Good articles on mindfulness, WebMD articles on mindfulness.
I’m a freelance writer and mindfulness advocate behind this blog. What you see here is the combination of my three favorite things: reading, writing, and mindfulness. While you’re here, subscribe to my blog updates and gain access to free mindfulness resources for stress relief.
