How to Live in the Moment: Definition & Tips

When people talk about living in the moment they are often talking about mindfulness, or “paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment” (Kabat‐Zinn, 2003). ​This type of mindful, present-focused living keeps you out of your head, stops you from ruminating on things that went wrong in the past, and lessens the amount of time you spend worrying about what could go wrong in the future. And engaging in rumination or worry have all sorts of negative impacts on our well-being. As a result, living in the moment can enable you to enjoy the moment more and feel like your life is more meaningful or fulfilling.

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Mindfulness interventions have been shown to have positive effects on both anxiety and depression (Khoury et al, 2013).  That’s in part because when we get stuck in our heads we might not be able to notice the good things that are right in front of us. 

But learning how to be more present isn’t always easy. If we are the kind of person whose mind wanders and we are always imagining or thinking about something, how do we pull ourselves back to the present moment? Here are some strategies and techniques to try.

Guided mindfulness meditations can help you build the skills that make it easier to live in the present moment. They do this by teaching you to focus on your bodily sensation and your breathing. By practicing focusing on your breath, you are really practicing focusing on presence. Below is a mindfulness meditation for you to try.

When our minds wander we are less present in the moment. Maybe we are reviewing our ToDo list in our minds, thinking about what exactly a colleague meant when she said “You’re cute.” Or maybe we’re just off somewhere because life in the present moment is boring, depressing, or bothersome.

Although we might think our mind wandering is helping us, the research shows mind wandering almost always makes us less happy. So next time you find yourself off somewhere, try to pull yourself back. We’re actually better off being in the present, even if the present involves doing things we don’t really want to be doing (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010).

The raisin exercise involves using all five senses to explore a raisin. First, observe its appearance, noticing each crevice. Then notice how it feels in your hand. Then put it up to your nose and notice its smell. Then put the raisin on your tongue and pay attention to how it feels. Then bite into it and notice how it tastes. Finally, chew and swallow it, noticing how it feels going into your body. This exercise can help you become more aware of your senses and physical experiences. You can extend this skill to other things in your life to help yourself be more present. 

Gratitude is thought to be an orientation towards noticing and appreciating the positive things in the world. Gratitude is strongly related to well-being (Wood, Froh, & Geraghty, 2010), and it can’t exist without first living in the present moment. That’s because if we’re not present, we won’t notice all the things around us that we might be grateful for—things like the smell of fresh-cut grass, the feel of the wind on our cheeks, or the sight of a flower growing between sidewalk squares in the middle of a city. By working to practice gratitude, we’ll help cultivate our “awareness” skills and remind ourselves of the positivity that can come from staying present.

Forgiveness is not an easy thing to do, but if we want to be more present, it can be helpful. All resentments do is keep us mentally trapped in the past instead of being able to be present now and move toward a better future.

In one study, a group of participants underwent a forgiveness intervention. The intervention focused on:

• taking less personal offense
• blaming the offender less
• offering more understanding of the offender and
• offering more understanding of oneself. 

These practices resulted in significant decreases in anger (Luskin et al., 2001). This suggests that by forgiving, we can let go of anger that keeps us mentally stuck in the past and unhappy in the present.

Rumination is “a mode of responding to distress that involves repetitively and passively focusing on symptoms of distress and on the possible causes and consequences of these symptoms” (Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008). When we ruminate, we stay fixated on our problems, our feelings, or our experiences, and we don’t take action to resolve them. As a result, rumination is associated with greater levels of depression and anxiety. 

When we live in the present, we may still have negative emotions about things that happen to us. But instead of turning them over and over again in our minds, we take actions to change those emotions in the moment. For example, if we’re mad about something our romantic partner did, instead of thinking about how rude they were and how mad we are at them, we go and talk to them, tell them how we feel, and request that they behave differently next time.

Just as rumination focuses our attention on the past, worries focus our attention on the future. Often we spend the present thinking about all the bad things that could happen. But when we do this we not only waste time worrying about bad things that might not even occur, we miss out on the good things happening in the present moment. That’s why it can be helpful to explore scientifically tested anti-anxiety strategies if we want to be more present. Some helpful tools to check out come from Acceptance & Commitment Therapy.

Box breathing is a type of controlled breathing that involves taking slow breaths in and out.  Focusing on our breathing helps us practice focusing on something that is happening in the now while also calming down our physiology and reducing stress.  If you want to try box breathing, check out the video below to be guided through it.

The body scan exercise involves bringing attention to your body. Close your eyes and shift from one region of the body to the next, paying attention to any sensations you notice. For example, do you notice tightness in your back, a knot in your stomach, or an itch on your foot? By practicing paying attention to what’s going on inside of you at this moment, you can build your skills and hopefully make it easier for yourself to stay present. Here’s an audio version of this exercise if you’d like to be guided through it.

Taking a few moments each day to record what you notice can be another good way to stay present in the moment. You could keep these notes in your smartphone or grab a bullet journal to keep lists of the things you notice and appreciate once you start paying more attention. 

Placing reminders in places you’ll regularly see them is a good way to be sure you stick to your goals. If your goal is to live in the moment, write “live in the moment” on a sticky note to attach to your fridge or grab a nice “Live in the Moment” sign to place on your mantle.  You can get “Live in the Moment” wall art to attach anywhere you’d like. Or you could even wear a “Live in the Moment” bracelet to keep this reminder with you in each moment of each day. Regardless of the strategy you choose, finding ways to remind yourself that living in the moment is important to you is an important step to sticking with it.

Now that you have some ideas for how you can cultivate the skills that help you live in the moment, it can help you to create and write out a plan that you can stick to. Here are some tips:

1. Create a list of the things you plan to do to live in the moment.
2. Be specific. Note down when, where, and how you’ll do these things. For example, if you plan to practice mindfulness, schedule it in your calendar during some time when you won’t be distracted. 
3. Think about how you’ll overcome barriers. I don’t know about you, but I easily get stuck in my head and often revert back to old habits when stressed. This is why I keep a little multicolored stone near my bed. When I find that I just can’t get out of my head, I pull it out and name everything I can about the stone—its color, shape, lines, texture, etc… This forces me out of my head long enough to short-circuit unhealthy thoughts and get my grip on reality back.

Here are some more things to read that can help you build this skill.

• Kabat‐Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness‐based interventions in context: past, present, and future. Clinical psychology: Science and practice, 10(2), 144-156.
• Khoury, B., Lecomte, T., Fortin, G., Masse, M., Therien, P., Bouchard, V., … & Hofmann, S. G. (2013). Mindfulness-based therapy: a comprehensive meta-analysis. Clinical psychology review, 33(6), 763-771.
• Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science, 330(6006), 932-932.
• ​Luskin, F. M., Thoresen, C., Harris, A., Standard, S., Benisovich, S., Brunning, J., & Evans, S. (2001). Effects of group forgiveness intervention on perceived stress, state and trait anger, self reported health, symptoms of stress and forgiveness. Altern Ther Health Med, 7, 106.
• Nolen-Hoeksema, S., Wisco, B. E., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2008). Rethinking rumination. Perspectives on psychological science, 3(5), 400-424.​
• Wood, A. M., Froh, J. J., & Geraghty, A. W. (2010). Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration. Clinical psychology review, 30(7), 890-905.