Mindfulness and How Mindfulness Reduces

Mindfulness and How Mindfulness Reduces Errors

Mindful awareness or simply mindfulness is a process which the observation of ones mental, emotional or physical experience in an active an open way .it entails one being attentive to an experience which is open to open without being judgmental in whichever way possible. This is a quality which involves paying attention and always being aware. Research has proven that training mindfulness will lead to an improvement in focus, concentration, accuracy, reduction of errors, lowering anxiety, mood improvement and helping the immune system such that one will be able to deal with any chronic pain in a better way (Leigh, 2013). Practicing mindfulness leads to a change in the structure of the brain in very limited time which is around 8 weeks. The paper will look at the various dimensions of mindfulness and how this practice leads to an increase of errors when it comes to a rational-decision making process.

Dimensions of mindfulness

Decision making is actually a conscious moment which involves choosing among alternatives that exist with an intention of moving from one state of affairs to another in most cases one which is most desired. There are five main dimensions of mindfulness which will be looked into below.

Intention and content of mindfulness practice: this dimension is about what mindful practice is made up of.it involves looking at the intentions of practicing mindfulness as well the main content of mindful practice.it comprises of why an individual ought to practice mindullness.it is also talks about what mindful practice is all about and the practices involved in this skill.

Bare attention: this involves a clear as well as single minded awareness of what actually occurs to us and in us within moments which are successive during perception.it is known as bare since it only deals with bare facts involved in a perception as displayed through either our five senses or through the mind which for the Buddhist is what comprises the sixth sense.in the course of attending to the impression created by the sixth sense, mindfulness or attention is usually put to merely registering facts, without any form of reaction towards them either through actions, words or commenting mentally which involves self references like disliking or liking (Dreyfus,2010)

Attention control: this dimension refers to the capacity an individual has when it comes to choosing the specific things they normally pay attention to and the ones they completely ignore.in simple terms this is referred to as the ability an individual has when it comes to their concentration. Attention control is perceived to have a close relation with executive functions for instance working memory.

Wholesome emotions: this dimension involves a host of emotions combined together that can have an influence on an individual in the process of making decisions. The wholesome emotions comprise of sates of mind such as fear, anxiety, anger, desire, depression, jealousy and so on. Therefore one has to overcome some of the wholesome emotions in the event where they are making a decision so that they come to a mindful decision (Dreyfus, 2010)

Ethical discernment: this dimension entails making distinctions between the right and wrong things to do on an ethical basis. It is basically being able to make a sound decision from a perception made using the mind or someone's senses. This is making a choice between tow options a right one and a wrong one .normally this discernment is done on an ethical basis and ethics is what guides an individual in the decision they will eventually make.

How mindfulness reduces errors in rational-decision making

The rational-decision making process is one which requires a lot of care and precsion.one can easily make errors during this process since there are so many things involved. There should therefore be a lot of mindfulness when it comes to rational decision making. During rational decision making there are various forms of errors that can be involved, this are classified according to the specific area and they are identifying a problem, evaluating and searching for information and lastly the implementation process (Leigh, 2013). There are several ways through which one can avoid or completely reduce errors during rational decision making through mindfulness. first mindfulness will help in the improvement of focus and hence prevent the mind from wandering .This will help in identifying a problem easily since one will concentrate on the issue at hand and thus identify the problem right away. Mindfulness also leads to an increase in an individual's attention span. This makes it easy for a person to do thorough evaluation of a problem without loosing concentration. Therefore, practicing mindfulness makes it easy to avoid any errors during the entire decision making process (Garms, 2013).