Finding Peace in The Present Essay Sample

Stress is a feeling that has controlled and challenged various portions of my life for as long as I can remember. A nagging, pressure inducing and ever-worsening feeling that hangs over your head like a cloud. I don’t doubt that you have had your own confrontations with the feeling, whether it was with family, passion, deadlines or school. Everyone experiences it.The worst part about it is that stress causes more stress. The common misconception is that once we are stressed, we need to push towards the root of the problem and miserably battle it in the hectic battlefield of the mind. For example, if you’re worrying about homework, you need to finish that homework or that cloud will never go away. However, there is a practice that is unknown to many even though the word itself is so common. It is a practice that has given me a newfound solution against my ever-so-stressed out mind, and that practice is mindfulness. Mindfulness, my fellow reader, is the key remedy towards mental tranquillity that is hidden from today’s youth. 

I will eventually cover what mindfulness truly is, as well as its importance, but not right now. There is no need to rush wink. Throughout peoples lives, we try to cover as much ground as possible. We try to get things done to have that momentary satisfaction of completion and crossing things off our personal to-do list. With modern technology increasing the fast-paced style of our lives by tenfold, everything around us seems to be happening all the time, and a vast majority of our world seems to go unnoticed to us. 

This pace of development, however, is actually a catalyst for stress and the buildup of pressure in our lives. Technology, although informative, may reach a point of information overload. The endless depths of social media, a constant fear of missing out and self-image comparisons and loss of attention management are all things the age of information technology brings that continuously busy our cognitive functions and endlessly expand our experiences, which inevitably cause a meltdown. Sometimes, it is most beneficial to simply ground yourself. Think of yourself as a computer. If you leave a computer on for days on end, the battery is going to be damaged and it is going to heat up to the point where it cannot handle it anymore. We are those computers and every now and then a reset button can help. We are so focused on what is going to happen and where things are going to go, that we forget about what is truly going on within ourselves in the present moment. Mindfulness is that reset button. The practice helps in restoring the body to base levels after a stress response, calming it down by lowering the heart and respiratory rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension.  Mindfulness is the first step to cooling oneself down and experiencing serenity in a society of disruption. 

Focusing on an opposite topic form my previous point, I would like to now touch on slowing ourselvesdown. After all, the present is what shapes the future. The present is our ever so changing rough draft of a canvas, and the future is the direction our canvas takes. The ability to be fully present must be set in motion in order for us to see a stress free future as the world around you is only in motion in the present.

De-escelating and being present is a major aspect of mindfulness, nevertheless, it comes hand in hand with another practice, which is to observe and accept our present surroundings and self. There is no need to analyse and interpret. We just need to observe sometimes and reset our minds and cognitive functions. Life is already busy enough with overheating and digging into every bit of information we see. Slow yourself down. Look around you. Feel your emotions and senses. What are you feeling? How's the weather? All these senses and thoughts and emotions are things we just need to accept and let them pass. I myself am an overthinker and a heavy perfectionist. I know, a perfect combination. These traits cause me to be in constant worry about the future and how I can prepare. Then I simply clear my thoughts and observe. Things become much more clear, and I find that I am much more aware of my emotions and my body’s needs. Once I have leveled myself, I can then return to my active state of analysing. In fact, a meta-analysis conducted by Hoffman et al.  suggests that mindfulness meditation shifts people's ability to use emotion regulation strategies in a 8way that enables them to experience emotion selectively, and that the emotions they experience may be processed differently in the brain. In summary, slowing down is not a step backwards when working for progress. It is the counteragent to overload, and consequently, stress. Making it in reality, a step forward.

Every form of progress and change must start from somewhere. At a seed from which the sapling may grow into an ever so beautiful tree.