At its most fundamental mindfulness means maintaining a moment by moment awareness of your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment. The notion of mindfulness, born explicitly in Hinduism and Buddhism, is gaining great traction among a largely secular Western world searching for better ways of being. Of course, there is nothing inherently “Eastern” or “spiritual” about the idea of being aware of how you are living and we are now documenting the positive effects that a mindful way of being allows. We know that mindfulness boosts immunity, changes your brain, wards off depression, reduces stress, and enhances relationships just for a start. So how do you create mindfulness? There are many techniques and meditation is central to most of them but a new study shows that an activity like washing the dishes might be a starting point for your mindfulness training.
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The study involved subjects being divided into two groups. One group read a short passage describing washing dishes while the other group read a short passage focused on mindfulness in dish-washing. A portion of the passage devoted to mindfulness read as follows; While washing the dishes one should only be washing the dishes. This means that while washing the dishes one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes. At first glance, that might seem a little silly. Why put so much stress on a simple thing? But that’s precisely the point. The fact that I am standing there and washing is a wondrous reality. I’m being completely myself, following my breath, conscious of my presence, and conscious of my thoughts and actions. There’s no way I can be tossed around mindlessly like a bottle slapped here and there on the waves. Those in the mindfulness group were encouraged to focus on the smell of the soap, the warmth of the water and the feel of the dishes.
The results showed that those who engaged with the washing dishes process, in other words washed the dishes in a mindful way, showed a 27 per cent reduction in nervousness and a 25 per cent increase in inspiration.
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What this study supports is that mindfulness is a way of living that can be, and indeed should be, brought to the fundamental elements of everyday life. It is interesting information but it is not new. Thich Nhat Hanh is a Zen Buddhist monk and scholar and in his book “The Miracle of Mindfulness, A Manual on Meditation” he addressed specifically the task of washing the dishes and said there are two ways to wash the dishes. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and the second is to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes. If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us [upon finishing washing the dishes], thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as they were a nuisance, then we are not washing the dishes to wash the dishes. What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realising the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes , the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. Thus, we are sucked away into the future — and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.”
So the new research is supporting existing wisdom and washing the dishes can be a meditative experience that enhances mindfulness and your quality of life. Maybe that new dishwasher you were thinking of buying isn’t such good value after all.
