The Benefits of Mindfulness for Seniors and How to Get Started

A senior man practicing yoga outside, as part of a mindfulness for seniors practice

Mindfulness has become a popular buzzword of late. It’s often seen as a way to decrease stress, to improve your experience of life, and to help you to feel better. So, why not look at mindfulness for seniors?

The idea might sound a bit ‘new age’ or like something that your aging parents won’t be interested in. But, you might be surprised. Mindfulness practices are becoming more popular among all age groups.

You might even see mindfulness being taught in some senior centers or assisted living facilities. We’re not just talking about meditation either. Some techniques for practicing mindfulness have nothing to do with meditation at all.

What Is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness sometimes described as being present in the current moment, nonjudgmentally.

In part, the practice focuses on allowing yourself to observe and experience the way your mind and emotions shift and flow, without any judgment. Some writers talk about a calm and kind aspect of mindfulness, where you are being gentle with yourself.

Meditation is a common way to begin mindfulness and is a key part of the practice for many people. However, it isn’t the only approach. More than anything, meditation is one way of being mindful. You can also be mindful in your daily life and during pretty much any activity.

The Benefits Mindfulness for Seniors

It Can Influence Behavior

Mindfulness comes with an interesting paradox. The practice has a strong emphasis on being in the moment and on accepting things as they are. Yet, this doesn’t mean that things remain exactly the same.

Instead, mindfulness often ends up promoting change.

This happens because practices are less invested in all that they think and feel. You end up believing your emotions, thoughts, and the attached stories much less strongly, so you’re less likely to act on them.

In doing so, mindful people tend to be less reactive and find it easier to respond appropriately to situations.

Emotional Reactions Can Decrease

Similarly, despite focusing on allowing and accepting emotions, mindfulness often helps to decrease people’s emotional reactions.

This effect often happens because there’s a decrease in self-judgement. By doing so, people end up being less upset about whatever their feeling.

It Can Decrease Loneliness

There has been promising work linking mindfulness to decreased loneliness.

This isn’t surprising, as mindfulness work often changes a person’s relationship to their emotions. A person might still feel those same lonely sensations in moments, but those sensations don’t mean that there’s a problem to be solved.

Mindfulness may also make it easier for a senior to enjoy the social connection that they do have, as they’re not constantly comparing it to what could be.

It May Improve Health

Mindfulness might influence physical health as well. This is partly because it helps to lower stress levels and make people feel more balanced.

The decrease in stress alone is a powerful effect. After all, we often end up being in states of high stress for days, months, or even years at a time.

Mindfulness also tends to reduce the desire to escape your emotions. This often means that you rely less on unhealthy tools to feel better, like alcohol or junk food. Some mindfulness practices, like walking meditation, get people outside and moving more too. There’s no denying the benefits of that.

Mindfulness versus Meditation

You might assume that mindfulness and meditation are the same thing. Many people do – and the words are often used interchangeably.

However, there are plenty of ways to practice mindfulness without meditation.

The site Positive Psychology is a good place to begin. They list 22 different exercises, techniques, and activities that all have some relationship to mindfulness.
Finally, H ealthline offers a list of 30 activities, broken down into age and activity type categories.

It’s a little debatable whether all of the activities on the list are technically mindfulness. Honestly though, that doesn’t matter. They’re all ways to come more into the present moment and worry less about the future and the past.

Using Mindfulness Meditation

While meditation isn’t an essential part of mindfulness, mindfulness meditation is still powerful.

This type of meditation focuses on mindfulness as a goal.

Guided mindfulness meditations can help to keep your practice on track. They’ll often tell you what to focus on and when, while leaving plenty of space for you to simply breathe and experience the meditation.

Guided mindfulness meditation is also one of the best places to begin your mindfulness practice. Because they step you through the processes, you learn what to do while trying it out for the first time. Once you’ve worked with the meditations for a while, other mindfulness exercises should become easier.

Mindfulness Meditation Apps

We have a separate post that reviews 8 different meditation and mindfulness apps (you can see it here). Some of those apps focus strongly on meditation, while others have a mindfulness emphasis instead. But, most of them have at least some mindfulness meditations.

Headspace and Calm

Headspace and Calm are the most well-known apps. They’re both beautiful, function well, and have many meditations. Countless people have had good experiences with them (Calm currently has a 4.3 rating on Google Play from more than 423,000 individual ratings. Headspace boasts a 4.5 rat in g, with more than 237,000 ratings).

But, both apps offer surprisingly little for free.

You need to join their paid membership to get access to everything. That’s a problem, as Calm costs $84.99 per year, while Headspace costs $139.99 yearly.

Medito

Medito wasn’t included in our earlier list of mindfulness apps, partly because it is new.

While the app isn’t as elegant as Headspace or Calm, it was created by a non-profit, making it a much less expensive choice. Plus, it’s the only free meditation app I’ve seen that is also ad-free.

In fact, everything on the app is free – and there’s a lot to choose from.

You can donate to support the company. I noticed a banner advertising this occasionally, but it was unobtrusive and easily dismissed. It’s nice (and unusual!) to find a company that doesn’t pressure you into spending money.

Other Options

If your elderly parent has a phone or a tablet, then meditation apps are an easy option. But, sometimes you’ll need to take a different approach.

Mindfulness meditations on YouTube often work well and there are many to choose from. You can also look for DVDs and CDs with guided meditation, like the ones below:

Are There Risks?

Two seniors trying to do yoga and laughing

With mindfulness’s current popularity, you’ve probably already heard about many of the benefits.

You might even assume that there aren’t any risks, but that’s not the case.

Let’s be honest here.

No approach is good for every person all of the time. There are too many differences between us for that to ever be the case.

This is why you should always pay attention to yourself, including any mental or emotional shifts. If mindfulness ends up making you feel very anxious or sad, then you may need to step away from the practice.

Or, consider sticking to short meditations and not practicing too often.

For Anyone Depressed or With Anxiety

If you have any mental health condition, like depression or anxiety, please talk to your doctor before getting started with mindfulness. Mindfulness can help in both these areas. There are even entire books and programs dedicated to using mindfulness in this way – like the book The Mindful Way through Depression.

Despite this, mindfulness isn’t always the right people.

Some people find that their symptoms get worse in the short term. This could be a serious issue, especially for anyone who is already struggling to cope.

Similarly, be cautious with mindfulness if you have any other mental health condition or a history of trauma. There may be unexpected impacts.

Be Careful About Overdoing It

It’s also easy to get a little obsessional about mindfulness, especially when you first begin. This could mean that you spend hours per day meditation or try to be in a constant state of mindfulness.

While opinions vary about whether you should be mindful all the time or not – it’s clear that mindfulness isn’t helpful if you’re forcing yourself to be in the state to the point that it takes away from other things.

For example, trying to be mindful while talking to someone could mean that you miss some of what they have to say. Similarly, trying to be mindful may make problem-solving more difficult, especially for problems that take all of your attention.

The best approach is often to allow things to grow naturally.

Be Prepared for Resistance

You might encounter some resistance if you’re trying to introduce mindfulness to a senior in your life. While mindfulness itself has a long history, it’s still pretty new in the United States and is often seen as somewhat ‘new age’.

Working through mindfulness exercises at the same time as the senior might help them to get on board. You could also look for classes or sessions at local senior centers. The senior might feel more at home in that environment, as there are other people of a similar age.

Indeed, the social benefits of such classes might be enough to encourage the senior to try them out – regardless of what they think about mindfulness itself.

Final Thoughts

Mindfulness for seniors does offer surprising benefits. It’s also an easy practice to implement, as you don’t need any equipment or specialized knowledge. You can easily find mindfulness meditations on YouTube or through apps that can teach you the techniques and get you started.

It’s also important to be wise. Mindfulness might not be ideal for everyone and people will connect with some mindfulness practices more than others. This isn’t a problem at all. Simply experiment and allow things to grow organically.