By Anu S, Year 8
Can mindfulness improve friendships? Are we forgetting how to listen?
Mindfulness is a key part of life, especially when preparing for stressful situations, such as exams or coping with mental wellbeing. It helps you relax, wind down and become more self-aware, enabling you to be kinder towards yourself. But mindfulness can also help you to be kinder to other people and can support and improve friendships.
Mindfulness practices often encourage you to stop and listen to what's going on around you; an exercise like this can help improve your listening skills in conversations with friends. Studies have found that the ideal talking - to - listening ration consists of around 40% speaking and 60% listening. A common saying, you may be familiar with, also reiterates this: ‘We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak’. Sometimes friends will hear you but not be fully listening. Certain mindfulness techniques can help you do this, such as the ‘environment check’:
First, find a calm space and sit comfortably with your eyes closed.
Next, try and notice the sounds around you. Listen to the pitch of these sounds, the rhythm and the volume. Try to identify 3 of the surrounding sounds.
When you’re next having a conversation, perhaps with your friend, try and use this focus on what the person is saying to you and try to listen more than talking. This technique helps improve your active listening and awareness.
Furthermore, mindfulness can help you during an argument or disagreement with a friend. This may sound odd, but during a heated argument you may comment on things you may not really mean, react instantly without thought or misunderstanding what someone is saying. The art of being mindful encourages you to pause, breathe, and not react impulsively. Maybe mindfulness isn’t about being zen all the time but identifying when to relax and be calm before acting out at someone unintentionally.
In addition, the art of mindfulness can also help with being present during a conversation and resisting the urge to glance at your phone. Many mindfulness exercises teach you how to develop a sense of self control and dedication. By practicing, for example yoga or meditation, these activities can develop the skill of self-discipline which helps when you are having a conversation, and your phone lies beside you. Utilising these mindfulness skills ensures you are being respectful and empathetic. Being mindful and having self-control when distractions are all around us is a great way to improve a friendship. By paying attention to someone's words, they immediately feel liked and appreciated by you.
So go ahead and give mindfulness your full attention!
