Let’s have a look at your ability to achieve mindfulness and harness one of its benefits. So for just a few minutes, close your eyes and focus your attention on your breathing. Do this without judgment, and don’t try to change your breathing (or stop it from changing). Just be aware of your breathing – focus your mind on your breath as it goes in and out… in and out.
Done? Improved memory has been suggested as a benefit of mindfulness, so let’s see if this is the case for you.
Study this list of words for about 1.5 seconds each: garbage, waste, tip, disposal, broom, trash, heap, dump, refuse, sack, junk, rubbish, bag, recycle.
Now put this column aside and list as many of these words as possible. How did you get on? Compare your list with the original to find out.
Answer Most people get around 7 correct, whether they do the mindfulness training or not.
That’s right, I was pulling your leg about it improving your memory.
Oh, and did you write the word bin? When this study was done under controlled conditions, mindfulness failed to improve memory and increased the likelihood of a false memory: “recalling” a word that was not there. Presumably this happens because mindfulness encourages judgment-free thinking. So if the word bin popped into your mind (quite likely, given all the related words), the mindfulness training makes you less likely to think: “Did I actually see that word?” Something to ponder… judgmentally.
For a fully referenced version of this article, go to benambridge.com. Fancy some more quizzes? Order Psy-Q by Ben Ambridge (Profile Books, £8.99) or £6.99 from bookshop.theguardian.com
