Although formal mindfulness practice is extremely important for developing the capacity to concentrate and be aware, practicing informally is crucial for establishing the continuity of mindfulness so essential to making our everyday lives more enjoyable and less stressful.

A good case in point is conversation. Ask yourself this: When you are speaking with someone, how often are you in touch with your body, your thoughts, and your emotional mood? Most of the time we are on automatic pilot, acting on our habitual responses without much awareness. This is certainly true of our conversations. Our minds tend to get completely lost in the verbal play of energy. The body and mind are often separated during conversation, and as we speak our stress response begins operating without our even being aware of it

Have you ever noticed how excited and a little disoriented you can become after a talk with someone? And this isn't just true of stressful or challenging conversations. Even after the friendliest discussion, we can often feel tense or disembodied, just because we've expended so much energy without being aware of it.

And this disembodied experience happens when we are listening, too. When listening, we often put 100% of our energy on the other person, trying to be a good listener but stepping out of body awareness to do so. Yet this very energized attentiveness can make us tense.

The fact is, talk — whether chitchat at the water cooler at work or a heated discussion about politics with your spouse — can often make us tense, mentally scattered and drain us of energy. But it doesn’t have to be this way. A simple mindfulness practice during conversation can keep us mentally centered and physically energized and calm. The result is that our mindful presence during and after a conversation remains intact.

Here’s how it works:

As you speak, keep your focus on your breath and body sensations. Notice the breath as it enters the body, and be aware of it as it leaves. Also notice the touch points of the body -- your sit bones and shoulders on the chair, your feet on the floor, your hands in your lap. Don’t be as concerned about what exactly it is you need to say or how people will perceive you as you say it. Your words will be just as comprehensible as before, but they’ll be more in tune with your inner presence, integrity and authenticity. One way of visualizing this is that as you speak, let the words come more from your body and less from your head. When you practice this mindful speaking, you might notice that you won’t speak as fast as before, and you may often pause before speaking. That’s good -- it means you’re not as caught in what you’re saying and you’ve maintained your awareness. Stress will not gain a foothold.

When listening, put most of your attention on your body sensations and your breathing and much less attention on the words the person is speaking or the person themselves -- you’ll still hear all the words and understand them just as well, but you’ll do so with more presence of mind and awareness. Indeed, when you stay connected to the body and the breath while listening you can often pay attention more deeply than before.

Mindful conversing takes practice, and you’ll find that you’ll often lose your awareness while speaking. But as in any mindfulness meditation practice, the moment you notice you haven’t been present, you are being present. And you can start over again. Mindful conversation is an accessible way of bringing more presence and satisfaction to the moments of our everyday lives.