MODULE 2 : Full Attention or Mindfulness.

Mindfulness is an English expression used to translate “sati”, a Pali word that means awareness, attention and recollection (Siegel et al, 2009).

The word mindfulness is used in more academic or scientific contexts, due to the more restricted use and that allows it to be more limited, for its study in the scientific community (Simón, 2011), while for daily use and in the practice itself it has a less clear meaning, being included within the term meditation.

Mindfulness focuses its development so that the person is consciously located before the circumstances, facts or events that occur at every moment, without applying any filter or value judgment, and therefore, can be applied to any context of life (Stahl and Goldstein, 2010). Therefore, what is sought is full awareness in the body and mind in the here and now.

The different exercises that arise in the realization of mindfulness are activities practised for millennia of years by human beings, and that have shown their effectiveness, both in the laboratory and in the clinic, this has generated that the different techniques that form mindfulness have been assuming greater weight in medicine and in the modern health context (Didonna, 2008; Krasner et al., 2009; Ludwing and Kabat-Zinn, 2008).

One of the definitions that have been most accepted is the author Kabat-Zinn (2003) defines it as the consciousness that emerges from being fully attentive, consciously, to the events or events that are appearing, accepting them as they are in that moment. instant, without printing a judgment, without analyzing it and without reacting to them. Therefore, it is intended that when we are in the situation we let the events flow as if they were sailing down a river, observing them from a distance, understanding each one for what it is, without letting our past experience intervene in giving it the vivid connotation. For Miro (2007), it intends to experience directly and continuously what is appearing without the intervention of thought. Being full meditation a means of self-observation of an adaptive nature, as opposed to self-observation which could be called rumination or non-adaptation (Cebolla and Miro, 2007). Simón (2007), for his part, has defined mindfulness as “the universal and basic human capacity, which consists of the possibility of being aware of the contents of the mind moment by moment”.

The meditative phase is different from the relaxation disposition, due to the fact that during the meditation process, an increase in alertness is caused against a reduction level (Anand, Biedebach and Fernando, 1996; Jevning, 1998;). Research has shown in electroencephalogram (EEG) tests that when analyzed in meditating subjects or who practice relaxation, the patterns given by EEG have been different at a physiological level, because the mind in the process of meditation is in a state of relaxation and attention, as shown by Dunn, Hartigan and MIkulas (1999) .

What the mindfulness process seeks is to enter into a characteristic mental process (being an immediate entry process) and stay in it over a period of time, looking for changes in brain processes (Simón, 2007). As supported by neurobiological research, variations in <<state>> are modified into changes in <<traits>> (Lewis et al., 2007).

Buddhist writer Walpola Rahula mentions that the Buddha taught us that meditation or the state of mindfulness “is simply to observe, contemplate and examine. And the role that, in it, we assume is not that of a judge, but that of a scientist” (1974, 73). In these words we find one of the great evils of our society, the one that we tend to label things, causing the negative to generate a state of discomfort and anguish that moves into the future to live in the present, without understanding what was an experience that allows us to develop in the future, but not for that, we must block our life, giving rise to a state of constant and painful rumination of what may come or what happened.

Functions of mindfulness

According to the researcher (Kabat-Zinn, 1990), at each moment of the development of life it is important to be fully aware of how we live it as a means of achieving an experience of personal freedom and development in all areas of the person. For what it allows us in its application in the classroom or in moments of crisis of the individual to have resources that make the transition due to the circumstance lived, or the learning, or development of the work, etc., generate a different mental and corporal position, where only "that" allows approaching the situation from the balance and coherence of the whole person.

Different functions that we find in mindfulness can be observed:

• Being aware of what happens at a conceptual level at each moment of time.

• Learn what it means to be in the present state of mind regardless of what has happened before or after the activity or task that you are performing at this moment.

Components of mindfulness

The use of meditation has been in recent years a model of interest at the academic level due to the results that have been shown in the different investigations. Generating some positive elements as we have been able to experience during the course how to improve the attention and the activity to be developed at each moment, adapting to each situation from an open vision, and implicitly pointing out the difficulties that may arise from not being focused on the present moment.

For Germer (2005), it indicates a series of components of mindfulness, such as:

• Non-conceptual, that is, focus attention and awareness without stopping at the thought processes involved.

• Focus on the here and now, allowing mindfulness to observe whether or not the thought that enters is related to what interests us at this moment, leaving behind all those that do not have a relationship with what is needed at that moment.

• Non-evaluative character, reducing the assessment of each thought or situation to the fair level of what each situation needs, being aware of what corresponds to us and what does not, allowing personal resources to be those that are necessary.

• Intentional, seeking the direct intention to focus on something, and to return to it if at a certain moment we have moved away, which leads us to have an active role in our development.

• Observation at a participatory level, it ceases to be an observation from a distance or from outside, which will lead to a process of total involvement of the body and mind.

• In non-verbal characters, the use of mindfulness generates an experience that is not based on the verbal component but on an emotional and sensory type.

• An exploratory type, by focusing on an action open to experience at a perceptual and sensory level, creates a connection at the internal and external level of our information perceivers and connected with what our attention needs for that moment and not another.

• Of liberation, as it is an experience that focuses on what is being lived at that moment, it will allow us to connect it in its fullness and generate a sensation of freedom in all senses.

Therefore, mindfulness is not going to make an effort to seek a goal but rather on the path that we are doing, letting go of what does not correspond to that moment with what is necessary to find ourselves in the present moment, having for this, to be aware through the part active to realize how thoughts or ideas enter and leave that do not correspond to the action of that moment, therefore, concentration and decentralization are going to be elements that will allow us to achieve a necessary balance to live a full and satisfactory life for each instant.

Being in the present moment (“in the here and now”) and sensations. Leaving that, in case of an error we can learn to forgive ourselves in a loving way and generate models of self-compassion, so necessary to achieve internal and external changes of the future person for the present century and the basis of the following ones.

Basic attitudes for the practice of meditation

Within each practice we must cultivate:

• Patience

• Trust

• Curiosity

• Beginner's mind

• Live the experience (“disconnect the autopilot“)

• Acceptance of experience

• Commitment to practice

We can watch this video in order to understand how we should enter the process of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a perfect instrument that will act as an element of well-being, physical, psychological and spiritual. As has been verified in many studies and has even become one of the interventions used in a direct or complementary way for the management of health, learning, HR problems, etc. Therefore, we can highlight the following benefits among many others:

1. Increase in creativity. Being a mechanism that allows focusing the focus on the here, thereby allowing the person to flow more in their more creative development, managing the emotional blockages that prevent the subject from flowing in obtaining new solutions or ideas.

2. It is a mechanism to reduce stress and anxiety. As has been verified, the simple practice of 2 minutes is enough to generate a change at the level of immunology, hormones and well-being. Being a factor that acts in a better physical, psychological and cognitive recovery. As was verified in a study by Pachés (2016), the application of meditation in the development of evaluation tests improved the reduction of anxiety and with it, there was an increase in academic performance compared to the group that did not use it.

3. Improves emotional competence. Those people who directly or indirectly include the practice of mindfulness in their lives have better internal management of emotions, which helps them improve their social skills and with it, the skills to have a better life and health.

4. Reduces insomnia problems. This point is very interesting as it has not been studied much to see how lack of sleep affects the development of learning, because rest allows an increase in concentration and in the activity of anyone, something that is observed in poor performance at an academic level where students with difficulties in having adequate sleep schedules influence, among others, their educational performance.

5. Increased attention span. The different mindfulness techniques seek peace of mind, with which they seek for the person who practices it regularly to be able to manage the attentional focus, which begins a process of developing skills where they are able to manage more adequate response inhibitors, being able to avoid stimuli that do not correspond to what is necessary to pay attention at that moment.

The way we focus our attention helps shape the mind. When we develop a concrete way of attending to the experiences of the here and now and to the very nature of the mind, we create the special form of attention that is Mindfulness. Therefore, the different studies have shown us that meditation generates an improvement in the level of functioning of the organism, physical improvement, improvements in cognitive patterns of a reflexive type, increase in emotional competencies and, above all, a better quality of life and health, aspect that allows the person to be able to increase their personal, work, school and social skills.

Techniques of mindfulness

We can find a multitude of techniques that will allow us to train in mindfulness. Some of them have a static character and others are more dynamic, but all of them ultimately seek to achieve the same thing, and sometimes the use of greater or lesser intensity will depend on the characteristics of the recipient of the technique or simply on the moment in time. For this reason, this course seeks the development of Dancefulness, which is the fusion of two components such as mindfulness and dance as catalysts for change and development of its participants.

The dance will be located in the dynamic type techniques by using movement with an element of awareness and focus on the relationship between body-movement, body-music and music-mind.

Most common techniques:

• Attention to breathing

• Attention to the mind

• Body scan

• Attention to the body

• Hatha-yoga

• Meditation in motion

• Meditation to the senses

• Attention to daily activity

• Emotional attention

• emotional compression

• emotional regulation

• interpersonal connection

• Dancing meditation