Find Your Calm With the STOP Mindfulness Technique

Quick Win

Mindfulness techniques help you relax and refocus. Doing them regularly can combat the long-term effects of stress.

Try This Today

• S stands for Stop. Stop what you’re doing and put your thoughts and actions on pause.
• T stands for Take. As in, take a deep, relaxed breath (or two or three). Feel your belly rise and fall as you inhale and exhale. This shifts your focus to what’s happening in the present moment.
• O stands for Observe. Bring your awareness to what’s happening around and within you. What sounds, scents and other stimuli are your senses picking up on? How does your body feel — do you notice tension or pain anywhere? What thoughts and feelings are you having?
• P stands for Proceed. Now that you’re more grounded and self-aware, return to what you were doing with a renewed sense of calm.

Why

Devoting just a few minutes a day to a mindfulness practice like the STOP technique (which was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic, now the Center for Mindfulness at UMass Memorial Health) may support your brain health. One study of 42 adults ages 1845, published in Behavioural Brain Research in 2018, found that those who meditated for 13 minutes per day for eight weeks saw greater improvements in mood, attention and memory than those who were assigned to listen to podcasts. Mindfulness techniques have also shown promise in the fight against cognitive decline. In a 2020 pilot study of 28 older adults with mild cognitive impairment, published in Clinical Interventions in Aging, those who underwent an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program (also developed by Kabat-Zinn) felt less depressed and had better immune system function compared to those who were assigned to an eight-week cognitive training program.