I am affected by a very strange sounding affliction: a chronic inability to properly inhabit the stretch of time we call the present. Regardless of what situation I find myself in, or how lovely that situation may be, I am very rarely able to truly experience it because my mind is often somewhere else entirely.

This sounds harmless enough in theory, like mentally teleporting myself to the Bahamas whilst my body endures another thankless hour in the UL. Unfortunately, the reality is far less enjoyable than it sounds. My thoughts are constantly jumping, against my will, to things from both the past and future that are totally beyond my control. An outsider may see me enjoying a peaceful hour in a coffee shop, but in reality I’m not actually there: I’m re-living an unpleasant conversation that’s been messing with me for weeks or furiously fretting about all the things I need to do before the week is out. The consequence of this is that I have very little mental energy left for the situation at hand – which means huge chunks of my day can pass in a haze of disengagement and dissatisfaction without me even realising.

I’m not alone in this problem. Harvard psychologist Matthew Killingsworth points out that “our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the non-present,” and living in this permanent state of distraction has a detrimental impact on our attention spans, creative output and general enjoyment of life. In his 2010 study, Killingsworth found that people are markedly less happy when thinking about something other than the task they’re currently meant to be engaged in. Only 4.8% of a person’s happiness was attributable to the actual activity itself, whilst their mind-wandering status accounted for a far more significant 10.8%. More worryingly, lingering unduly on the past or future is having a serious impact on our mental health: experts at the University of Exeter have shown rumination to be a supporting factor in a range of psychological disorders such as depression and anorexia.

Thus Killingsworth’s conclusion that “a wandering mind is an unhappy mind” seems to ring true. But if focussing our mental energy on the present is the key to greater happiness, why don’t we do it more often? What is it about the present that makes it so hard for us to truly, fully experience?

One reason is sheer anxiety. The present always contains a dizzying number of possibilities that could theoretically be materialised: every day, we all fend back our own barrage of worst case scenarios and the niggling ‘what if?’. As time progresses and only a very tiny number of our worries actually do come into fruition, the others are subsequently forgotten (or, more accurately, shifted to the new present). This means that for the most part, our experience of the moment is tainted by a low-level, background anxiety that trails around us like an unwanted cloud.

“Starting each day in the knowledge that something will make me smile today… helps them to pass a bit more happily.”

On the flip side, when we picture versions of ourselves in memory, we don’t recall the worries that then-us was preoccupied with. Memories are highly selective. Our brains are very good at stripping away boring, irrelevant fodder to produce a few perfect storyboards far more meaningful than the situations which gave rise to them. When we look back through rose-tinted glasses, we see a kind of post-production present: the ninety minutes of film that made it to the cinema screen, not the hundreds of hours on the cutting room floor.

Viewed in this light, it’s clear that the age-old advice to ‘live in the moment’ – while undoubtedly helpful – is actually very difficult to put into practice. So, it is little wonder that techniques to help us do so are gaining increasing popularity.

“When we look back through rose-tinted glasses, we see a kind of post-production present.”

The primary player in this field is mindfulness, a form of meditation that involves focussing our attention on the present. Mindfulness teaches the importance of observing the thoughts, feelings and sensations offering themselves in each moment and accepting them in a compassionate, non-judgmental way. This practice has found tremendous success in helping people to better understand their thought processes, deal with symptoms of anxiety and experience a greater sense of peace. Mindfulness courses are increasingly being offered by universities across the country as a way of supporting students’ mental wellbeing.

Third-year classicist and current President of the university’s Mindfulness Society Amelia Williams went on the eight-week university run course in Michaelmas of her second year. “It basically changed my life,” she said, “The university mindfulness course taught me, essentially, a radical self acceptance which has transformed my relationship with both myself and other people.”

Mindful practice can operate on many levels, from formal, instructor-led classes down to simple exercises which can be easily incorporated into our daily routines. An example of this is devoting a few minutes each day to reconnecting with our bodies and the sensations they’re experiencing: the texture of our clothes against our skin, the sounds enveloping the space around us, the pressure of the ground beneath our feet. Former director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre Professor Mark Williams says this is part of learning to observe the present with clarity: a skill integral to improving the way we regard ourselves, our thoughts and our lives.

Mind your head: mindfulness interview

In taking up this practice myself, a serendipitous consequence I have noticed is that I am increasingly finding joy in life’s smallest, simplest settings. Before, I’d never really stopped to appreciate the satisfaction of picking up my tea at just the right temperature, or the pleasure I find in watching morning sunlight filter through my curtains. Of course, this isn’t to say I’ve given up my ambition for bigger pleasures, nor that my problems have been solved by these smaller ones. But starting each day in the knowledge that something will make me smile today, even if only fleetingly, certainly helps them to pass a bit more happily.

So whilst living in the moment may not come naturally and shouldn’t be billed as some miracle cure-all, it definitely has the power to do us a lot of good. Our brains are already doing their best to help us experience the world in a way that keeps us safe, and fulfilled, and happy. Think of focussing on the present as way of clearing out the mental clutter and letting them do their jobs in peace