Imagine sitting in class, listening to a lecture you find less than stimulating. As the instructor speaks, your mind begins to drift away to more interesting subjects: homework you need to finish, bills you have to pay, a foot that is falling asleep. How can we regain our attention and redirect our wandering mind away from daydreams and back to our professor’s lecture? One way is through the practice of mindfulness.
As described in Virtual Learning Lab Unit 6: Active Listening, mindfulness is the cultivation of present-moment awareness. A simple mindfulness practice can train our minds to stay alert, attentive, and help us return a wandering mind back to the task at hand.
The following tutorial provides a link to a number of guided mindfulness meditations offered by the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC).
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