How many of you brush your teeth for the full two minutes we’re supposed to? I never used to – I just couldn’t see how one could, but now I do; thanks to the hygienist who explained to me just how to do it. You must concentrate on each individual tooth, taking the toothbrush up and down so it cleans around your gums and into each side, brushing as far into the crack as possible. When you do this for every tooth, thirty seconds for each of the four surfaces seems to be exactly the right amount of time.

I get my reward at the dentist, who tells me I have very nice teeth and that it’s a pleasure to see someone who obviously takes care of them. I haven’t had a filling for more than twenty years.

So often we perform tasks mindlessly, thinking of something else. We drive while listening to the radio; we cook watching TV; we shower while planning the day ahead – or reviewing the day just gone, if we shower in the evening. Often, we resent the amount of time the task takes because we’re not absorbed in it.

There must be times when you are totally focused on the job you’re doing. At work, I must bring my complete concentration to bear: I can’t afford to miss a date on the food. As a consequence, I can spend two hours on the cheese aisle, and it seems like twenty minutes. At home, absorbed in my card-making, a whole afternoon flies by.

Totally concentrating on the task in hand, performing it mindfully, is a great benefit to mental health. While your mind is engaged in the washing up, for instance, noticing and enjoying the white froth of the bubbles and cleaning each plate and dish intentionally, taking pleasure in the smooth shiny surface of the china, you can’t have negative thoughts running around like squirrels in your brain.

This morning, I am totally involved in writing this blog. I concentrate on the words, but also the sound of the keyboard (I have a “clicky” keyboard that sounds like an old-fashioned typewriter). I sometimes make mistakes as my fingers hit the wrong key. Mistakes, for instance, I wrote as mistakds. In pauses, I wait for the next words to come. I’m aware of the clock ticking, but I’m not paying attention to it – I’m thinking of words. I’m mindfully, engaged in the writing process.

What tasks do you perform that you could bring your whole attention to? In some ways, mindfulness is a bit like meditation: the thoughts persist in coming, but you bring your mind back to changing the bed or cleaning the bathroom. If you concentrate on the colours and texture of the bedding, and getting the fitted sheet nicely tight, or the smell of the toilet cleaner, then negative thoughts find it harder to get in. Before you know it, you have the satisfaction of a job well done.

Mary

A Moodscope member