Mindfulness is something that many people overlook because of the misguided idea that they don’t have enough time. My journey with mindfulness has been a complicated one. My life progressively gets busier as my responsibilities stack up. The most intimidating part is that I know my life isn’t going to get simpler; eventually, I’ll have the additional responsibilities of homeownership and children to worry about someday.

At first, I thought that meant I didn’t have the time for mindfulness. Full-time work and grad school seemed like they were all I could manage. I thought my thought process was logical: “If I’m so busy, how do I have time to slow down?” But the truth was the opposite. As I felt more choked by the stress of life and everything I needed to do, I realized I had to change something.

I’m a practical, sometimes pessimistic person. But I had to find a way to be more aware of my thoughts and how they were affecting me. It was all of the scientific research on mindfulness that made me decide it was time to give it a try.

Mindfulness doesn’t have to be complicated or take up your whole day — it’s all in how you approach it.

“Mindfulness isn’t something that happens. It’s a learned skill, that you develop over time with practice.” — Joshua Felver, PhD, professor of psychology at Syracuse University

Even small interventions can make a big difference. This was the biggest truth I wouldn’t believe at first. Mindfulness has made me feel more in the moment and grateful for the present, even if I only do a ten-minute meditation on Clubhouse or just try breathing deeply in the shower. Mindfulness can be a part of your routine even if all you do are five minutes of deep breathing.

Mindfulness makes me feel like time isn’t slipping away.

In a way, I feel like this is the true meaning of “being present.” The idea that we only exist one moment at a time and everything else is out of our control can be daunting. Mindfulness helps to make it less scary by giving us more clarity about what’s happening right now instead of living life on autopilot — but not letting ourselves drift too far into dark thoughts or hopelessness.

Brevity is the soul of wit, as Shakespeare said, and even brief moments of meditation or mindfulness can really turn your day around.

For example, today was one of my in-person days in the office. In the morning when I was getting ready, I was feeling rather tired and stressed even though I just woke up. But I tried listening to a guided meditation, one that was just five minutes along, and the deep breathing and visualization exercises did help me feel a little bit better.

You need to figure out what practices of mindfulness work for you.

There are a lot of different ways to practice mindfulness. I’ve tried different things when practicing mindfulness: meditation, yoga, gratitude journaling and even just taking deep breaths and trying to stay calm under pressure (which surprisingly works).

But you do need to determine what you like best if you’re going to make a habit of it.

For example, I love yoga. You might not. That’s okay; you just need to experiment until you find out what you do like. It might be something like reading a book, going for a short walk each day, or something slightly unconventional in the mindfulness world. The important thing is that it makes you feel present in the moment and lets you calm your mind.

Mindfulness has made me feel more able to handle everything life throws at me because it’s helped me be present and not let other things bother or stress me. Mindfulness helps you focus on what matters right now instead of worrying about the future or dwelling too much in the past — but also keeping yourself from getting overwhelmed by either one.

Gratitude journals are great tools for mindfulness.

“This is not just some passive breathing exercise. It is a significant brain-training resource.” — Vernon Williams, MD, neurologist

One of the most helpful tools for me is gratitude journaling. One of my close friends started doing this through therapy for her struggle with depression, but her therapist explained how this practice can help anyone at all feel a little more centered and satisfied with their life.

Gratitude journals are one of the best ways to practice mindfulness. You can write down a list of things you’re grateful for when you wake up in the morning, each night before going to bed, or just throughout the day at random times. Gratitude journaling forces you to focus on what matters most when it comes to mindfulness practice. Mindfully writing out three to five things you’re grateful for every day truly forces your mind to remember that life isn’t all stress and problems.

It may not sound like a lot, but forcing yourself to think about the good things in your life can help you reprogram your thoughts.

Practicing mindfulness can be as simple as taking a few minutes to slow down and think about what you’re grateful for. I like to do this when I first wake up instead of hitting the snooze button. I think about what I’m grateful for before my brain goes into overdrive thinking of all the things that could go wrong or my persistent to-do list.

Mindfulness made me realize that I was using negativity as my default setting.

This is, unfortunately, something everyone does from time to time, even if they don’t want to believe it’s true. I always slipped into this role of the pessimistic writer without realizing what it was doing to my inner thought processes. But it wasn’t until I started practicing mindfulness that I realized how much negativity was controlling my thoughts.

This is something many people I know struggle with. But after reading books like The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor, Be Here Now by Ram Dass, and others on the topic of achieving total well-being, I realized that happiness isn’t just about “feeling good.” It’s about your inner thoughts and the way you think that makes all the difference between a positive or negative mindset.

I finally started reworking my thought process through mindfulness, occasional meditation, and periodical yoga. It helped me realize that I couldn’t be so quick to judge everything. We all have our problems in life that we need to work on resolving, but even in our worst times, there are still some good things in our lives.