How to be “mindful”

Your head is rarely where your body is.

You’re in the shower and you’re in yesterday’s argument. You’re at dinner and you’re in Monday’s meeting. You’re with her and you’re on your phone, which is the same thing.

Mindfulness isn’t for yogis and tree-huggers. It’s a tool, and a blunt one: be where you are. Here’s how to use it without turning into a zen monk.

Your head has two places it likes to go.

• Back. The thing you said, the thing you didn’t, the one that got away.

• Forward. The bill, the meeting, the text that hasn’t come.

The one place it never seems to settle is the thin bit in the middle. Which is the only bit you can do anything about.

In 2010 Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert at Harvard built an iPhone app that pinged 2,250 people at random through the day and asked three things. What are you doing? What are you thinking about? How do you feel?

Nearly half the time, 47 per cent, people were thinking about something other than what they were doing.

And they were less happy when they were. Even when the daydream was a nice one, they were no happier than the people who were on task.

The paper’s title says it: a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.

Nobody’s head stays put. Mine doesn’t. The aim isn’t to stop it wandering. The aim is to notice it’s gone and bring it back, over and over, like a dog that keeps slipping the lead.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the man who dragged mindfulness out of the monastery and into hospitals, puts it in one line.

On purpose. That’s the bit. It doesn’t need a cushion or a candle.

Brush your teeth and notice you’re brushing your teeth. Stand in the queue and feel your feet on the floor. Wait for the kettle without reaching for your phone.

If you want to sit and meditate, sit. Five minutes a day beats thirty minutes once a week, because the five becomes a habit and the thirty never does.

Set an alarm if you need one. Once an hour, three slow breaths. That’s the whole programme.

Multitasking is a story we tell ourselves. You’re not doing three things. You’re doing one thing badly and switching.

When you eat, eat. Taste it. Notice when you’re full, which you won’t if the telly’s on.

When you lift, lift. Feel the weight. When you run, feel your feet hit the ground.

Walk and look at something. The sky, a building, the bloke across the road who’s also looking at his phone.

Your senses are the quickest way back into the room. Sight, sound, smell, the chair under you. They’re always in the present. Your thoughts aren’t.

The breath is the handle. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Box breathing. I covered it properly in Breathwork.

Then scan. Head to toe, slowly. Where are you holding it? Shoulders, usually. Jaw. Gut.

Don’t fix it. Just notice. Half the tension lets go on its own once you’ve clocked it.

Your body has been telling you things all day. Mindfulness is the bit where you listen to it.

If you’d rather write any of it down, I’ve covered that too, in Self-reflection and Gratitude.

On a date, the present is the only place anything happens. Listen to what she’s saying instead of planning what you’ll say. She can tell the difference. Everyone can.

With your missus, the phone goes face down. Not on the table. Face down. An hour of actual attention does more than a weekend of being in the same room.

At work, one task. Open one thing. Finish it. The inbox will still be there.

With your mates, be at the table. Half of them are on their phones, and they’ll notice the one who isn’t.

You won’t do this all day. Nobody does. Killingsworth’s number says your head is elsewhere half the time, and that was people with an app reminding them.

So don’t aim for all day. Aim for noticing.

You’re gone. You notice. You come back.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.