Notice your surroundings, watch a sunset, take some deep breaths outside, connect with nature, put the phone away. Mindfulness tip Look for opportunities in your busy day to practice mindfulness. That is why it’s even more important to take opportunities to practice mindfulness, even if it’s just for a minute, to re-centre yourself, to calm yourself, to breathe, so that you can have moments of rest. It’s showing no signs of slowing down and consequently more and more people are getting burnt out. Perhaps you use lists or lists upon lists or maybe you have so many lists that you don’t know where to start! Life is also fast and we’re bombarded with information on a daily basis: images, videos and pictures every day on facebook, Instagram, apps, you tube, etc etc. Breathe in for a count of 4, hold for a count of 4 and breathe out for a count of 4.You can use the words “opening” on your inbreath and “soften” on your outbreath. Try to make your inhalation a little bit longer, deeper and wider. Count the length of your outbreath and then your inbreath.If you want to change your stress levels, you simply change your breathing pattern and rate. You take over 20,000 breaths every day and your breath is a direct indication of your stress levels. If your breath is short and rapid then your thinking will most probably be the same. That is, look for opportunities every day to do things differently Tip #3 Your breath If you normally say no to everything, say yes. If you get up in the morning and have a shower then your breakfast, try getting up, stretching for 30 seconds then having your breakfast followed by a shower. Take a different route to or from work if possible. The more habitual our actions the more we kind of “go through the motions” that is autopilot and we can live our whole lives like that. One is multitasking the second is autopilot. There are two patterns of behaviour that take us out of the now. If I asked you what you did yesterday, how much would be able to tell me? Do you remember the commute if you had one, or the phone calls or the tasks that you got done?Ĭhances are you didn’t notice very much as we learn to live on autopilot, when we have the same routine every day we tend to switch off. Breathe: Bring your attention to your breathing is it shallow, panicked, slow, long or something else? Gently soften your breath, you can even say the words “softening”, “opening” silently.What do you see, feel, hear, taste, and smell? What do you notice that you never noticed before? Be curious Pause thinking about what you’re caught up in. Pause: stop what you’re doing, put everything down.
Mindfulness tip: At moments throughout your day: I remember one student telling me she wrote it on a post-it and had it on her steering wheel, another told me he put it on his computer and loved it as no one else knew what it meant!
This little acronym is great for helping you do just that. We need moments in our day to stop and breathe, to ground and centre.
We’re often rushing around, reacting, panicking, fire fighting. In this brief article I share with you simple ways to bring mindfulness into your life for calm, presence and peace of mind. Mindfulness is about living in the now, being in the now, dwelling in the moment because that is the only moment you have.
0 kommentar(er)
