By keeping us in the present moment, mindfulness teaches us about ‘anchors’, such as focusing on the breath or attuning to the body. This helps us to manage any difficulties we might encounter. The ability to cultivate awareness in meditation enables us to observe patterns of thinking and responses to physical sensations, providing cues about ourselves and our behaviour that are transferable to everyday living. We observe and accept our thoughts, feelings and sensory reactions to experiences, and we allow fluctuations to pass by or simply tolerate them and remain with them, regardless of whether they are pleasurable, uncomfortable or neutral. We learn to tolerate and accept the desire we have for things to be different. The practice of mindfulness teaches us to manage everyday anxieties and stresses with kindness and compassion towards ourselves and others.

When practising mindfulness, there are no specific objectives or aims, unlike with other techniques such as relaxation (where the goal is to relax) or other forms of meditation (where the goal can be to eradicate all thinking from the mind). Nevertheless, people who participate in mindfulness often report feeling calm and tranquil after meditation, and research indicates that following sustained practice, EEG (electroencephalogram) patterns are associated with an altered resting pattern related to these responses. Investigators have also undertaken MRI scans of participants before and after they took part in mindfulness courses, and have found thickening in grey matter associated with attention, sensory processing and recognition of internal bodily sensations (e.g. taking time to drop your shoulders when you notice tension) (Lazar et al. [41]). Holzel et al. ([34]) undertook similar MRI research, again comparing participants before and after a mindfulness course, and found increased grey‐matter density in areas associated with learning and memory processing, emotion regulation, and the ability, psychologically speaking, to explore all aspects of ourselves and adopt a broad life view, such as when considering strategies for self‐care and personal well‐being (e.g. taking regular breaks to make refreshing drinks).