Tip #5: Cultivating your Spirituality

The word "spirituality" generally makes most people cringe. And who can blame them? Most of the time, people who spout off about spirituality come off as abrasively inauthentic and shallow while conversely attempting to peddle meaningfulness and profundity. For anyone who devoutly practices a specific religion, for atheists who don't believe in things like "spirits" or "souls", and for everyone in between who doesn't want to be seen as a gullible, superficial lemming eat-pray-loving their way through life, the term "spirituality" will likely be met with extreme reproach.

But just because a vocal minority of people have a negative opinion about something doesn't mean that such opinions are accurate. Below, we're going to offer you some suggestions for cultivating your spirituality. Consider these suggestions from BuyForVita to be jumping off points from where you can begin a spiritual search.

Enhance your mindfulness

The dictionary defines mindfulness as "the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something". In the modern day vernacular, however, people used the word "mindfulness" most often when talking about meditation or other therapeutic techniques geared toward deprogramming the default setting of anxiety, fear, and worry that currently plagues most people's minds.

And before you dismiss meditation as hippy-dippy mumbo-jumbo baloney, you might want to take into consideration that most scientists and major news publications (Forbes and The Washington Post, to name a few) would disagree with that assumption. Indeed, recent scientific research has shown that meditation has the capacity to change the physical structure of the human brain for the better. In people who meditate regularly, their instances of depression, anxiety, insomnia are reduced and their emotional resilience (their ability to handle difficult or stressful situations) is significantly improved. Even if you've never meditated before, you can still reap the benefits of mindfulness training. Brain scans of people who were new to meditation showed distinct neurological changes after only eight weeks of practice. And these changes only became more robust with time and practice. As far as stress and anxiety in modern society goes, there are two main sources: the past, and the future. As anyone with PTSD can tell you, past pain and trauma can have a very real and negative affect on your present day life. Likewise, worrying about what might happen in the future can cause a crippling amount of distress in the here and now. But divesting your brain away from such thoughts, if even for only a few minutes a day, can improve your ability to cope with both.

Practice Gratitude and Nurture Your Relationships

Being thankful for all of the good things you have isn't just an excuse to stuff yourself silly with turkey once a year. If you really want to improve your overall quality of life, then acknowledging your gratitude for these sources of joy and meaningfulness should be a daily practice. If you have a specific person or entity that you wish to express your thankfulness to, by all means, knock yourself out. But even if you don't, you can still get some benefit from the exercise. Doing something as simple as looking into a mirror and saying "I'm thankful for my husband; he's an incredibly loving and supportive partner" is enough to create a beneficial chemical reaction in your brain. And we mean that literally. Thinking about things that make you happy release endorphins into the brain, elevating your mood and reducing instances of depression and anxiety.

Furthermore, being around the people we care about (and who care about us) stimulates the release of similar neurotransmitters in the brain. Multiple scientific studies show that even someone with the healthiest habits (non-smokers, non-drinkers, vegetarians, etc) will likely have a shorter lifespan if they report feeling socially isolated.

Connect With Nature

With the exception of the most recent few centuries, the vast majority of human evolution happened because we lived in tandem with the natural world around us. Living away from nature goes against every nucleotide in our DNA. Because we've severed our connection to the natural world so quickly and severely, it's causing a whole host of physiological problems from insomnia to Seasonal Affective Disorder and more. Therefore, it stands to reason that exposure to natural things - fresh air, natural light, clean water, and more - is an excellent way to rejuvenate not just your physical health, but also your mental wellbeing.

Again, we want to emphasize that the suggestions above are mere starting points. Test them out, see how they make you feel, and embrace that which genuinely improves your quality of life. Feel free to leave the rest. Have fun creating a more spiritually meaningful life for yourself, and good luck on your journey.