5 Easy Ways To Practice Mindfulness

It is so easy to get caught up in our emotions and let them overwhelm us. Things we see on social media and our physical surroundings have a very strong influence on our feelings and mental health. If we let these feelings take over we can feel burdened and suffer consequences of poor mental health. A good way to combat this is practicing mindfulness.

Mindfulness is defined as “the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something”. More literally this means when we are present in the moment, considerate and aware of the emotions we are feeling, and able to regulate these emotions in a healthy way. Practicing mindfulness in our everyday lives is important and helps to increase our ability to take care of ourselves. It can also help to improve our relationships and decrease feelings of stress and anxiety.

With distractions like technology, social media, and even a busy schedule that takes our focus elsewhere practicing mindfulness becomes difficult. We get so caught up in what others are doing that we forget to check up on ourselves. This is why even when we are so social and involved we can feel unhappy and disconnected, because we are out of connection with ourselves.

There is no fast-track to mindfulness and it takes time to build a strong connection even with yourself. Here are a few easy activities you can do throughout your day to practice mindfulness:

Feel your heartbeat. Just feeling the functions of our body that go on constantly is a good way to center ourselves physically. Feeling and listening to your heart beat when you feel strong emotions is a way to sense the connection between our physical bodies and our feelings.

Feel your breath. Similar to your heartbeat, your breathing is an indicator of what you are feeling in the present moment. Taking deep breaths and doing breathing exercises is a super easy way to get in touch with your physical body and help to calm your mind.

Look around. Observing the world around you is an easy way to center yourself and live in the present moment. You can do this spending time outdoors whether you’re on a walk, hike, or even just sitting down for a moment. Look at the wind in the trees, people walking, squirrels climbing trees, etc.

Listen to yourself. Taking a minute to just listen to the voice inside of your head can be super helpful to become aware of what you are feeling. Checking in with yourself when you feel strong emotions can help to improve connectivity between yourself and others in these situations, and helps to improve your relationships when you are aware of what you are feeling and why.

Slow down. A great way to get in touch with the present is to just slow down. It seems like we are always rushing even simple tasks just to get them done, when we could rather spend the time doing these tasks as time with ourselves. Slowing down and spending this time just thinking about what we are doing and trying to feel ourselves more in the moment can help us to increase our consciousness. This takes more literally the phrase “slow down and smell the roses”.

These are just a few quick ways you can practice mindfulness throughout your day, but there are other ways to practice this too. Setting aside time to meditate each day is another way to practice mindfulness; however, practicing many smaller activities throughout the day can help to train ourselves to be mindful all the time and not just in a 5-10 minute meditation once a day.

Mindfulness Meditation:

A great way to get started on practicing mindfulness if you are wanting a meditation activity. This is easy to personalize and can last anywhere from 5+ minutes.

https://www.mindful.org/how-to-practice-mindfulness/