Mindfulness and helping others (‘turning outwards’) can improve one’s well-being.

I recently attended two talks.

The first was a positive aging talk held by a non-profit organisation. The talk was interesting and what plucked up my ears was when the speaker mentioned mindfulness helped in aging well as it was a ‘non-drug approach’ (true that!)

Another thing that stuck out in my mind was ‘being able to help someone else’ contributed to positive ageing. This was a very uplifting statement!

Then I attended a parenting seminar and they too mentioned mindfulness (in parenting) was a good practice.

They also mentioned turning attention to one’s breathing as a form of calming a parent down (just pausing and taking time to do that already helps the process of calming down 🙂 )

Also, at the same seminar was the part about youths being able ‘to turn despair around’ by shifting from the ‘me’ to ‘you’ stance (i.e., helping others), because ‘others are you’.

This means attention is turned ‘outwards’ instead of ‘inwards’; this is similar to the message shared by  the speaker at the former talk as he spoke about positive aging.

I do agree that a neighbour’s problem is, or will become, our problem.

From a systemic point of view, we are all more interconnected to one another more than we realise; we live on one planet.

On the same note, I am moved when I see youths (or anyone for that matter), assisting someone else in the community, because helping another is just the right thing to do.

Maybe even coming up with a solution which would help someone else feel, or be more comfortable.

It does add up, this helping each other.

Mindfulness and helping others are beneficial as part of positive aging practices and these can accumulate into better well-being over the span of one’s life journey.

#wellbeing #turningoutwards #commonhumanity #positiveaging