How can Mindfulness help you learn a language?

The practice of meditation and mindfulness brings numerous physical and mental benefits but what may be surprising is that it can also be greatly beneficial in learning a foreign language. When you take up another language, it requires lots of practice, skill and discipline and may sometimes be overwhelming or frustrating if you’re making slow progress.

It’s good to know that the whole process requires only 20% skill and 80% the right mindset. This simply means that your mind plays a crucial role in learning and if you train and strengthen it through mindfulness and meditation, your results will be exceptional.

Meditation and language learning

Meditation has its roots in Hindu traditions of Buddhist India and Taoist China and while it’s relatively new in the western culture, it has gained substantial popularity among all people regardless of their background, economic status and cultural identity.

More and more people are meditating today to help their physical and mental health, relieve stress and even learn languages. Meditation can help in training your mind to pay more attention regardless of whether you find the subject interesting or not. When you manage to be attentive effortlessly, the entire learning experience will be more enjoyable and the more present you are, you’ll be able to notice more what is happening in the given moment.

It quiets your mind

We hear with our ears but it’s our mind that enables us to listen. Therefore, the main distractions to our effective listening aren’t the lack of skills or outside noise, it’s our restless minds that create inner noise and take us out of the present moment. Through meditation, we can quiet our mind and cancel out this inner noise.

It’s normal to have thousands of thoughts a day and when you start meditation, shutting them down won’t be easy. However, through practice, you’ll be able to conquer your mind and detach yourself from your thoughts. That is how meditation helps you become mindful.

To meditate and practice mindfulness, you don’t have to be in any specific space or sit in a specific position. You can practice it anytime and anywhere – on the train during your commute, before the class or even during lunch. The goal is to establish a daily meditation habit to strengthen your mind and shut down the inner noise so you can improve your focus and motivation.

It offers emotional balance

It’s often the case that it’s our unresolved emotions and anxiety what breaks our concentration. By lingering on the negative aspects of our lives and worrying, we stop ourselves from finding peace. Meditation can increase your emotional intelligence and the capacity to handle complicated feelings. It’ll also give you more self-awareness which can help you develop your creative side so learning a new language will be easier and smoother.

It improves focus and concentration

It’s easy to get overwhelmed and distracted with so much information out there and this makes it even more difficult to stay focused and motivated. Daily meditation practice can help in rewiring your brain so that you can be more resilient in your desire to learn and make progress. The mindfulness you gain in the process will also help you ignore the information overload.

Once you gain your inner peace, your brain will be ready to receive new input and you’ll be able to focus better on learning the phonics of a language and notice the subtle differences that exist between certain sounds, forms and words. This will improve your fluency, pronunciation, reading skills, spelling and you’ll be more motivated to engage in real conversations.

It reduces stress and increases energy

In addition to providing more mental and emotional clarity, meditation and mindfulness can help reduce stress and boost your energy. Most people waste their energy on worrying and with meditation, that energy can be redirected to processing information more efficiently and being more connected with the present. You will experience a certain lightness that will also help you feel more liberated and confident when speaking a foreign language.

Finally, with more mental clarity, your visuospatial processing will improve which plays a vital role in learning a language, especially if there are many info graphs, pictures, flashcards and games.

If you’re planning on learning a new language, it might be that your dedication and perseverance won’t be enough, but with some meditation in the game, it’ll be a much smoother and easier process.