Every year on September 12, people around the world celebrate Mindfulness Day. What started in 2011 as a way to raise awareness about the value of mindfulness has sparked many discussions around the subject—propelling it to public consciousness and changing people’s lives for the better. To take part in the conversation, we asked some of our team members what they thought of mindfulness. Here’s what they had to say:

I feel mindful when I enjoy the food I’m eating—eating slowly, without distraction from a smartphone or any devices—enjoying the smell of the food, tasting every layer, texture, and temperature. So it makes sense to me that in our culture, we’re told to eat in silence. Maybe the goal is to eat mindfully, be more grateful, and foster a good relationship with the food we eat because it’s the source of the energy we need to carry out our activities. I believe what you eat affects you holistically.

My kind of mindfulness is to lay down, listen to good music, and just flow downstream.

My idea of mindfulness is being alone in a library while smelling like Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille. Though you may not finish the book in one sitting (lol), just taking in the scent of the book, the warm lighting, and the stillness of it all is a form of mindfulness that you can practice when you’re so done with work and other stuff.

I always lose myself when I’m in front of the screen working in DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). Five hours would go by in an instant just like that.

To me, it’s about noticing that you’re already thinking of the next slice of cake while you still have one on your plate. It’s to mentally step back and realize just how amazing/absurd our thoughts and feelings can be instead of being lost in them like we often are. Observing our own mind is tricky, but I’ve found that the more you do it, the easier it gets. In a way, mindfulness is like a muscle, I guess.