62 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
positively related to effective emotion regulation, suggest-
ing that people who are more mindful also tend to be more
successful at regulating their emotional states (rather than
feeling controlled by their emotions; Chambers, Lo, and
Allen 2008; Teper, Segal, and Inzlicht 2013).
Learning mindfulness can be a lot like learning a new
language or practicing for an athletic competition. The more
effort you put into practicing mindfulness skills, the better
able you will be to notice what reactions you are having and
how to f lexibly and skillfully attend to situations in your life.
If you simply do the suggested practices in this book one
time and then forget about them, mindfulness probably
won’t improve your life very much. Instead, mindfulness is
something that you should strive to incorporate into your
life so that you can more fully attend to your everyday expe-
riences and reduce your anxiety. With benefits including
decreased stress, a better quality of life, improved attention,
healthier emotional management, and increased pleasure in
daily activities, mindfulness can enhance your everyday life,
even above and beyond reducing your anxiety.
There are many types of informal mindfulness practices,
including meditation and activity- based exercises, as well as
formal mindfulness courses and psychotherapies, such as
mindfulness- based stress reduction (Kabat- Zinn 2009) and
mindfulness- based cognitive therapy (Segal, Williams, and
Teasdale 2002). Engaging in mindfulness practices will
foster your ability to mindfully respond to the experiences
in your life, which will lead to improved overall mental
health. In the remainder of this chapter, we will present
several informal ways of attending to your present- moment
experiences with less judgment and less reactivity. By so
doing, you will be well on your way to outsmarting anxiety!