Calendars – Emails – Texts – Meetings – Deadlines | Stress surrounds us. With our ability to carry our work and smart devices anywhere worldwide, we may begin to sink into a personal mindset of “all work all the time.” We might be able to carry on for a little while, but the stress that naturally rises from this mindset can overwhelm us if we don’t take some time to practice mindfulness.
Now, you might be thinking of mindfulness as sitting cross-legged in a dark room for hours on end, burning incense and chanting mantras. Fortunately, mindfulness is not another time-consuming task we have to add to our day, but short exercises we can do throughout the day.
Mindfulness is achieved through focusing our awareness on the present and calmly acknowledging our
state of mind, emotions, and bodily movements. In this sense, practicing mindfulness is a brief pause in the flow of our days, a chance to set our minds at ease before we return to work.
We can begin a mindfulness exercise by muting or turning off distractions, closing our eyes, and taking a deep breath, clearing our minds of any stresses or worries. Then, while taking stock of what emotions we are feeling, and how they make our body react, we focus on reaching a calmer state of mind. After we do this for just a few minutes, we not only can come away with a greater awareness of our bodies but can reorient our state of mind.
Sparing just a few minutes may go a long way.
Check out these other great resources on mindfulness:
- Mindful.org
- Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world by Mark Williams and Danny Penman
Categories: Brain Health, Mindfulness