As the day progresses and your brain starts to tire, mindfulness can help you stay sharp and avoid poor decisions. After lunch, set a timer on your phone to ring every hour.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior? Submitting your rating Get the science of a meaningful life delivered to your inbox. Submit

Notice—really notice—what you’re sensing in a given moment, the sights, sounds, and smells that ordinarily slip by without reaching your conscious awareness.

Instead, try this: When you wake up, spend two minutes in your bed simply noticing your breath. As thoughts about the day pop into your mind, let them go and return to your breath.

In one study, people with pre-hypertension were randomly assigned to augment their drug treatment with either a course in mindfulness meditation or a program that taught progressive muscle relaxation.

Meditation trains us to notice the traffic without chasing or fighting it — just to let the thought come. Then gently shift our focus away from it and back onto our breath — to let the thought go.

A new study examines how different aspects of mindfulness influence our emotional well-being. By Hooria Jazaieri

Find “micro-moments” of mindfulness throughout the day to reset your focus and sense of purpose.

. “Then there’s self-selection: Perhaps people with the brain changes reported in these studies choose to stick with meditation while others do not.” In other words, we should use caution when championing results.

Mindfulness is not about living life in slow motion. It’s about enhancing focus and awareness both in work and in life.

While cognitive stimulation and relaxation training seemed to be somewhat beneficial in comparison to pelo treatment, the mindfulness training group had much self-knowledge more robust improvements on cognitive scores than any other group. Mindful Breathing

Mindfulness helps prisons: Evidence suggests mindfulness reduces anger, hostility, and mood disturbances among prisoners by increasing their awareness of their thoughts and emotions, helping with their rehabilitation and reintegration.

Awareness gave them more choice in how to respond, instead of becoming swept up in escalating negative emotion.

There are many, many studies that find a positive link between mindfulness and relationship quality, which is probably a byproduct of the effects we’ve already described. For example, in one 2016 study, researchers measured mindfulness in 88 couples. Then they took cortisol levels in each couple before and after they discussed a conflict in their relationship. Unsurprisingly, cortisol levels spiked during the discussion, a sign of high stress. But levels in the most mindful people—both men and women—were quicker to return to normal after the conflict ended, suggesting they were keeping their cool. This result is echoed in many studies of mindfulness in romantic relationships from the beginning to the very end—in fact, there are quite a few studies that find that mindfulness makes breakup and divorce easier. Mindfulness is also linked to better relationships with your kids. Studies have found that mindfulness practice can lessen stress, depression, and anxiety in parents of preschoolers and children with disabilities. Mindful parenting is also linked to more positive behavior in kids.