07/21/2026
another excerpt from Arnold's page ... try this Instant Health Boost!
“Be More Mindful” Finally Has a Number
You've heard the advice a hundred times. Stressed out? Be more mindful. Mid-argument? Be more mindful. Slogging through a rough season of life? You guessed it…be more mindful.
It sounds nice. You'd even like to do it. But two things get in the way: nobody tells you what being mindful means, and nobody tells you what it's worth.
Let's fix both.
Being mindful just means paying attention to what's happening right now — your breath, your coffee, the person across the table — instead of running on autopilot while your head replays yesterday and rehearses tomorrow. That's it. Noticing your actual life as it happens, without immediately grading it good or bad.
Now the worth. Researchers reviewed 56 studies covering more than 24,000 adults and asked a straightforward question: do people who are naturally more mindful also feel less stressed?
The answer was yes.
The scientists found that mindfulness and stress overlap by about a sixth. The other five-sixths of your stress comes from everywhere else, like your job, your sleep, your money, your relationships, and the 143 notifications hovering over you on your phone.
It might not seem like much, but offsetting one-sixth of your stress can feel like a massive win.
Before you think this doesn’t apply to you, here’s the most interesting part: Nobody in these studies was taught to be mindful. Researchers just asked people two things on the same day: how mindful do you feel, and how stressed do you feel? So we can't say which one causes the other. Maybe being mindful shrinks your stress. Maybe having less stress makes it easier to be mindful. It's probably a bit of both.
If you want to see if mindfulness can make a meaningful difference for you, start with something small. You don't need an app, a subscription, or a 30-day challenge.
When you’re bored and want to use your phone, notice what you’re to avoid. Eat one meal without a screen and pay attention to the flavors. On a walk, name three things you can see and three you can hear.
Just notice what's in front of you, and don’t try to make sense of it all. That's mindfulness.
Will it lower your stress? No promises, but it costs nothing, and you might be surprised by what you discover.