Difference Between Mindfulness and Mindlessness (With Table)

In today’s life, most hectic schedules affect emotional health most. Stress levels and anxiety levels are touching sky limits giving access to bad lifestyle habits. People tend to find a temporary solution that is severely harmful to their health. These solutions include smoking, drinking, and many more. They all are addictive, and an individual will never know who much he is trapped in the addiction until it ruined them. For being cautious of these drugs, awareness is important. Awareness of mindfulness and mindlessness can help. They are continuous actions taken by the body according to the situation.

Mindfulness vs Mindlessness

The main difference between mindfulness and mindlessness is that mindfulness is the state of mind being aware of the present world and noticing everything around in the conscious world. Whereas, Mindlessness is the state of being lost in the past thoughts and always following the same routines and ignoring the present world.

Mindfulness is involvement in the present. Learning to be mindful is not a complex process, and it does not require anything special. It’s just actively noticing New things from your surroundings. It is the process of stepping out of your daily life and stop following your daily routine and rules, which you keep following every day.

Mindlessness is not being in the senses or struck to be in any other period. The time can be related to your past or future or nothing. Nothing here means not knowing anything and following the same routine every day because that is needed to be done. It indicates bad mental health or the influence of bad habits in lifestyle.

Comparison Table Between Mindfulness and Mindlessness

Parameters of Comparison

Mindfulness

Mindlessness

Definition

It is a state of mind where a person is present in the present and notices the changes happening in present.

It is a state of mind where the mind is not active to know the changes in the present.

Acceptance for change

A mindful person is open to new changes and most of the time encourages it.

A mindless stated person is struck among their past and deny to any change happens.

Best time

A mindful person chose to be in present and adapt to the situation accordingly.

A mindless person chose to be attached to the past and refer to the situations from there only.

Opportunities

A person present at the same time grabs opportunities to change according to getting most of the benefits.

A person present with a past state denies changes that’s why loses a lot of opportunities in the present.

Source

Mindfulness came with the choice of being present in the current state of time.

Mindlessness either came with the experience of past or continuous practice for a long period.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the state of being completely aware of their surroundings. It is the feeling of complete involvement of the mind in the present. When a person in this state, they will actively start noticing their surroundings. They will start to realize that they don’t always have to follow routines, and they can explore new things.

Everyone might think they are in the present when they are in a mindless state. Most people would mix up mindlessness with ignorance. Mindlessness is a state of not being in the present fully and just fixed in their past. In this state, People keep following their routines unconsciously. Most of the people are usually present in this state and won’t realize it themselves.

It can be achieved by maintaining the balance of the three states of life. i.e. mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. By maintaining good relationships, we can be stable emotionally and boost up our mental health. Workouts and balanced life can help in your physical states.

The consequences of bad physical health can also affect your mental and emotional state. Meditation can help in mental health and the spiritual world.

What is Mindlessness?

Mindless is a state of mind where the mind is inactive. This could be because of past practices and experiences. For better understanding, take a situation where you travel a route regularly, and after a time, you are fond of the route. You will complete the routine without thinking for once, or the way you unlock your cell is an example of activities you perform with mindlessness.

In this situation, an individual is unable to accept the change in the present time as in most of the period; the subject is unable to notice the change in the surrounding. The disadvantage of this habit can be the loss of the opportunities available in that period.

Most people can detect this when anyone else is performing or leading their activities with mindlessness, whereas they are unable to recognize when they are doing the same. The source of mindlessness can be categorized into two types: first, when a person is mindless because of the experience and can conclude the upcoming situations and results or when that person is repeatedly performing that activity for a long period and established a habit out of it.

Main Differences Between Mindfulness and Mindlessness

  1. Mindfulness is a state of mind where a person is present in the present and notices the changes happening in the present, whereas mindlessness is a state of mind where the mind is not active to know the changes in the present.
  2. A mindful person is open to new changes and most of the time encourages it, whereas A mindless stated person is struck among their past and deny to any change that happens.
  3. A mindful person chose to be in the present and adapt to the situation accordingly, whereas a mindless person chose to be attached to the past and refer to the situations from there only.
  4. A person present at the same time grabs opportunities to change according to getting most of the benefits, Whereas A person present with the past state to deny changes that’s why loses a lot of opportunities in the present.
  5. Mindfulness came with the choice of being present in the current state of time, whereas Mindlessness either came with the experience of past or continuous practice from a long time.

Conclusion

The idea of being aware of the surroundings has many benefits for a person as they can be conscious about their next actions or reactions to a situation. Same way, awareness about a medical condition or how things work and how they should work can help in taking the next or action or move for better circumstances in the future. Precautions are always better than cures, so knowing about the problems can help you in a way in which you wouldn’t regret later. Take care of your life as it is precious and important. You die once, so as you live only once.

References

  1. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jclp.20237
  2. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-015-0456-x
  3. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1080/j.1440-1614.2006.01794.x
  4. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1987-33471-001
  5. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1996-06401-003
  6. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/mindlessness-and-brainlessness-in-psychiatry/A7CC0408096AACC543F3C3229CBF7031