If you follow me on social media, you will have seen a fair few photos of our gorgeous little cat, Juno. We re-homed her from a less-than-ideal environment over a year ago – and, despite being a bit stressed out when she arrived, she is becoming a calmer, happier, more affectionate creature day by day.

As well as being absurdly cute and strokeable (when she’s in the mood), she has taught me a great deal about how to be more mindful. Why? Because animals, like small children, are completely, utterly, 100% mindful, all the time. They exist entirely in the moment, with no worries about the future or rumination about the past.

Juno loves our garden, which we have rewilded and so, especially at this time of year, is like a jungle – with a tangle of grasses, wildflowers, trees and shrubs. This makes it cat heaven. She stalks through the undergrowth, pursuing her prey (mostly flies, thankfully – I am dreading the day she catches something bigger).

And I watch her in this wild, verdant world – ears and nostrils twitching, sensitive to the slightest movement and most subtle sound. This is mindfulness at its most rich, raw and vibrant – a profound sensory experience, with no distraction from a pesky human brain, reminding you to send that email or worry about the unfunny comment you made on FaceBook.

How animal brains differ from ours

One reason Juno can be so mindful is because her brain is very different from mine. The region of my brain that allows me to write this post, be a psychotherapist, read books, and so on, is the ‘cortical layer’ of the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the large frontal lobes just behind my forehead. The PFC makes my brain and yours a supercomputer, which is good (writing, being a therapist) and bad (worrying, ruminating, panicking about things that will never happen).

Cats – as far as we know – can neither worry about the future, nor ruminate about the past. That’s why their life is a never-ending stream of now-ness, with a total absorption in the present moment. Buddhist monks spend decades meditating in chilly Himalayan monasteries to achieve this level of mindfulness! That’s because it’s not easy for us, with our highly evolved brains that enable us to develop complex language, build cities and fly spaceships to Mars, but make it exceedingly difficult to stay quietly present in the present moment.

What we can learn from cats

So we have a lot to learn from creatures with more ‘primitive’ brains. First, try introducing more mindfulness into your day. A simple teaching that might help with this is, as far as possible, do just one thing at a time. If you are reading this right now, just read it. Don’t listen to the radio, or grab your phone every few seconds. When you’re reading, just read.

If you listen to music, try switching your phone to Airplane mode and just listen. When you’re having a family dinner, try getting everyone to put their devices, switched to silent, in a kitchen draw. Try really listening to your partner, or kids. I mean really listening. Not just waiting for them to finish so you can say the thing you think they need to hear. Just listen, deeply and attentively – they will love it.

And we know, of course, that developing these mindful muscles in the brain offers a whole host of benefits for our physical and mental health. Mindfulness, whether formal meditation or informal, listening-to-music practices, has been proven to reduce depression, anxiety and stress. It can also help to lower blood pressure and improve sleep.

And, perhaps most importantly, being more mindful helps us be fully present in the moment-to-moment unfolding of our lives. As far as we know, this is the only life we get, so I think we should squeeze every drop of joy, meaning, richness and experience from it, don’t you?

Be more Juno – your mindfulness teacher and mine.

Sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan