Mindfulness: An Anti-Anxiety Exercise You Can Start Using Immediately

In my practice, I often use mindfulness as an intervention to help people with many different concerns. As an anxiety specialist, it is no surprise that most of my clients have some form of anxiety; and I have seen mindfulness become a valuable tool for countless individuals to better manage their worries. If you’re not sure what exactly mindfulness is, check out my blog post Mindfulness: What It Is and Why It's Important for some clarity.

So how exactly does mindfulness help with anxiety? The answer requires a little metacognition--thinking about your thinking. Stop for a minute and consider how much of our mental energy is spent thinking about the past (e.g., “I can’t believe I said that!”) or the future (e.g., “Tonight I have to….”). While this is very commonplace, it leaves us mentally checked out in the past or future, making us live our present-moment lives on autopilot. Our bodies are completing tasks in the