With a brief touch of a screen, you can have all the information in the world. The constant rush of emotions, events, and topics floods into your brain. You take a step back from the real world and enter the digital one. Many people end up passively spending their time, leaving them with a sense of regret or emptiness. Mindfulness can prevent this. Mindfulness is the cognitive skill of being aware of your mind and slowing down—you notice small details and changes in your life. It increases your ability to process information, and reduces the stress, pain, and negative emotions you experience.
In the 2012 US National Health Interview Survey, users were asked to identify if they used mindfulness and the general benefits they saw in the practice. Overall, most users reported that meditation was used for general wellness, improving positive emotions, and reducing stress and anxiety. The form showed that the most common usage for mindfulness was to improve mental health, with 63.6% of all users reporting that they saw a significant improvement in their psychological well-being. These users were able to set aside brief pauses in their day to significantly reduce their negative emotions.
Despite the said positive increase in an individual’s mental state due to mindfulness, several have wondered if the brain actually changes, or if mindfulness is simply a placebo effect. Researchers at the University of California San Diego decided to test if mindfulness was really a sham, or if its effects were actually occurring. These researchers used brain image techniques when participants used a placebo cream versus when they participated in mindfulness. They discovered that mindfulness reduced the brain activity related to negative emotions, while the cream only affected the part of the brain related to the placebo effect. The cream offered a temporary but therapeutic effect, while mindfulness changed the brain’s negative patterns.
Dr. Barrie Anthony, a psychoanalysist, chooses another approach to encourage his readers to action, and shares what might happen without mindfulness. With technology comes constant streams of information, causing many people to not process how they feel and ignore the world around them. “Perhaps tech has interrupted their creative lives or their emotional growth,” she continues, “…All these moments — not actually unseen, but noticed and ignored — leave this residue of grief.” By choosing to not participate in the world, you create an emotional barrier between you and the connections that come with living. However, by choosing to live the world through an open eye, we become more aware of current events, emotions, and who you are.
Through mindfulness, you choose to be present in the moment. You’re alert of the space you’re moving through, and are able to focus on what you’re doing and feeling. Anyone can achieve mindfulness, even if it’s just for a few minutes a day, by living in the moment, breathing exercises, or simply just walking slowly. Through mindfulness, you slow down the fast paced world to focus on you.
Sources
- Barrie-Anthony, Steven. “Opinion | I’m a Psychoanalyst. This Is What Technology Is Doing to Us. – The New York Times.” The New York Times, 11 Nov. 2025, www.nytimes.com/2025/11/11/opinion/iphone-therapy-meditation-mindfulness.html.
- Cramer, Holger, et al. “Prevalence, Patterns, and Predictors of Meditation Use among Us Adults: A Nationally Representative Survey.” Scientific Reports, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 10 Nov. 2016, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5103185/.
- Tolle, Eckhart. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. Sydney, NSW, Hachette Australia, 2018.
- “Is ‘mindfulness’ medically proven, or just a placebo?” Science Illustrated, Dec. 2024, p. 25. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A822046383/OVIC?u=nm_s_albuqacad&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=82199551.
