Mindfulness offers an opportunity: being aware, that is, fully present in our lives, moment by moment, and avoiding harmful habits and humiliating addictions. We can start living with a better mental and physical equilibrium by simply applying a more gentle discipline to our attention, regaining time to look at things as they genuinely are and not as we usually perceive, fear or hope them to be. Finally learning to respond to stress, rather than merely reacting to it, can foster a different and more peaceful relationship with life's complexity.

Gherardo Amadei is a physician, psychiatrist, and psychotherapist and a professor at the Bicocca University in Milan, where he is also the director of the Postgraduate School of Life-Cycle Psychology. He trained in mindfulness practice at the University of Massachusetts Oasis Institute of the Centre for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society.