6 Mindfulness Exercises You Can Try Today

(source: http://www.pocketmindfulness.com/6-mindfulness-exercises-you-can-try-today/

In this busy world of ours, the mind gets pulled from one place to the next, scattering thoughts everywhere and leaving us stressed, highly-strung and often anxious.

Most of us don’t have five minutes to sit down and relax, let alone 30 minutes or more for a session of meditation!

But it’s essential for our wellbeing to take a few minutes each day to cultivate mental spaciousness and a positive mind-body balance.

So… try using these simple, practical mindfulness exercises to empty your mind and find some much-needed stress relief and calm, present awareness amidst the madness of your hectic day.

1. One Minute Breathing

This exercise can be done anywhere at any time, standing up or sitting down. All you have to do is focus on your breath for just one minute. Start by breathing in and out slowly, holding your breath for a count of six once you’ve inhaled. Then breathe out slowly, letting the breath flow effortlessly out back into the atmosphere.

Naturally your mind will try and wander amidst the valleys of its thoughts, but simply notice these thoughts, let them be for what they are and return to watching your breath.

Literally watch your breath with your senses as it enters your body and fills you with life, and then watch it work its way up and out of your body as the energy dissipates into the universe.

If you’re someone who thought they’d never be able to meditate, guess what? You’re half way there already! If you enjoyed one minute of this mind-calming exercise, why not try two?

2. Mindful Observation

This exercise is simple but incredibly powerful. It is designed to connect us with the beauty of the natural environment, which is easily missed when we’re rushing around…

Pick a natural organism within your immediate environment and focus on watching it for a minute or two. This could be a flower or an insect, the clouds or the moon.

Don’t do anything except notice the thing you are looking at. But really notice it. Look at it as if you are seeing it for the first time.

Visually explore veery aspect of this glorious organism of the natural world. Allow yourself to be consumed by its presence and possibilities. Allow your spirit to connect with its role and purpose in the world. Allow yourself just to notice and ‘be’.

3. Touch Points

This exercise is designed to make us appreciate our lives by slowing the pace down, coming into purer awareness and resting in the moment for a while.

Think of something that happens every day more than once, something you take for granted, like opening a door for example. At the very moment you touch the door knob to open the door, allow yourself to be completely mindful of where you are, how you feel and what you are doing. Similarly, the moment you open your computer to start work, take a moment to appreciate the hands that let you do this, and the brain that will help you use the computer.

The cues don’t have to be physical ones. It could be that every time you think something negative you take a mindful moment to release the negative thought, or it could be that every time you smell food you take a mindful moment to rest in the appreciation of having food to eat.

Choose a touch point that resonates with you today. Instead of going through the motions on auto-pilot, stop and stay in the moment for a while and rest in the awareness of this blessed daily activity.

4. Mindful Listening

This exercise is designed to open your ears to sound in a non-judgemental way. So much of what we see and hear on a daily basis is influenced by thoughts of past experiences. Mindful listening helps us leave the past where it is and come into a neutral, present awareness.

Select a new piece of music from your music collection, something you’ve never heard before but makes you wonder what it might sound like.

Close your eyes and use headphones if you can. Don’t think about the genre or the artist. Instead, allow yourself to get lost in the journey of sound for the duration of the song. Allow yourself to explore the intricacies of the music. Let your awareness climb inside the track and play among the sound waves.

The idea is to just listen and allow yourself to become fully entwined with what is being played/sung, without preconception or judgement of the genre, artist, lyrics, instrumentation or its origin.

If you don’t have any music to hand that you’ve never listened to before, turn on the radio and turn the dial until something catches your interest.

If you don’t have a radio then take a moment to simply listen to the sounds in your environment. Don’t try and determine the origin or type of sounds you hear, just listen and absorb the experience of their texture and resonance with your being. If you recognise the sound then label it with what you know it to be and move on, allowing your ears to catch new sounds.

5. Fully Experiencing a Regular Routine

The intention of this exercise is to cultivate contentedness in the moment, rather than finding yourself caught up in that familiar feeling of wanting something to end so that you can get on to doing something else. It might even make you enjoy some of those boring daily chores too!

Take a regular routine that you find yourself “just doing” without really noticing your actions. For example, when cleaning your house, pay attention to every detail of the activity.

Rather than a routine job or chore, create an entirely new experience by noticing every aspect of your actions.  Feel and become the motion of sweeping the floor, notice the muscles you use when scrubbing the dishes, observe the formation of dirt on the windows and see if you can create a more efficient way of removing it.

Don’t labour through thinking about the finish line, be aware of every step and enjoy your progress. Take the activity beyond a routine by merging with it physically and mentally.

6. A Game of Fives

In this mindfulness exercise, all you have to do is notice five things in your day that usually go unnoticed and unappreciated. These could be things you hear, smell, feel or see.

For example, might see the walls of your front room, hear the birds in the tree outside in the morning, feel your clothes on your skin as you walk to work, or smell the flowers in the park, but are you truly aware of these things and the connections they have with the world?

– Are you aware of how these things really benefit your life and the lives of others?

– Do you really know what these look and sound like?

– Have you ever noticed their finer, more intricate details?

– Have you thought about what life might be without these things?

– Have you thought about how amazing these things are?

Let your creative mind explore the wonder, impact and possibilities these usually unnoticed things have on your life. Allow yourself to fall awake into the world and fully experience the environment.

By becoming mindful of who we are, where we are, what we are doing and the purpose, if any at all, and how everything else in our environment interacts with our being, we cultivate a truer awareness of being.

This helps us learn to identify and reduce stress and anxiety and difficult, painful and perhaps frightening thoughts, feelings and sensations.

Mindfulness exercises help center the mind and restore balance to our lives, tempering that “monkey mind” that persistently leaps from branch to branch. Rather than being led by thoughts and feelings, often influenced by past experiences and fears of future occurrences, we are able to live with full attention and purpose in the moment.

Mindfulness is right at hand.  Try it for yourself right now. Take 60 seconds to notice the sensations in your hands, such as warm/cool, heavy/light, moist/dry, pulsing, throbbing, etc.  Simply rest your attention in sensations as they appear and dissolve. If you experience tightness or tension meet the experience with acceptance and invite the hands to soften and relax.

This simple mindfulness practice can radically shift your tendency to be completely absorbed in thoughts and emotions throughout your day and help you reconnect to your senses.  So the next time you feel dull, overwhelmed, anxious, anger, depressed, etc., take 60-seconds to connect to your body and notice the positive impact.

Three Step Breathing Space

Finding time for mindfulness practice may be challenging but the benefits are well worth our effort. Research shows that doing brief 3-5 minute mindfulness practices 3 times a day will have beneficial impact on your health, well-being, productivity and overall life satisfaction.

To support your effort do the following practice whenever you have a few minutes,  however it is best to put a couple times on you calendar each day to help you prioritize your practice.

The following guided mindfulness practice is excerpted from The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness, book by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn

The three-step breathing space is used as both a foundational mindfulness practice that can be used one or more times each day, as well as a practice to respond to challenging situations and feelings that arise during your day. This practice helps you to intentionally separate an unpleasant experience into thoughts, feelings, and body sensations which allows the mind to respond more creatively to the challenges you face each day.

STEP 1. BECOMING AWARE

Begin by deliberately adopting an erect and dignified posture, whether you are sitting or standing. If possible, close your eyes. Then, bringing your awareness to your inner experience, ask: What is my experience right now?

What thoughts are going through the mind? As best you can, acknowledging thoughts as mental events, perhaps putting them into words.

• What feelings are there? Turning toward any sense of emotional discomfort or unpleasant feelings, acknowledging their presence.
• What body sensations are here right now? Perhaps quickly scanning the body to pick up any sensations of tightness or bracing.

STEP 2. GATHERING

Then redirect your attention to focus on the physical sensations of the breath breathing itself.

Move in close to the sense of the breath in the belly…feeling the sensations of the belly wall expanding as the breath comes in…and falling back as the breath goes out. Follow the breath all the way in and out, using the breathing to anchor yourself in the present.

STEP 3. EXPANDING

Now expand the field of your awareness around your breathing so that, in addition to the sensations of the breath, it includes a sense of the body as a whole, your posture, and facial expression.

If you become aware of any sensations of discomfort, tension, or resistance, zero in on them by breathing into them on each in-breath and breathing out from them on each out-breath as you soften and open. If you want to, you might say to yourself on the out-breath. “It’s okay…whatever it is, it’s already here: let me feel it.” As best you can, bring this expanded awareness into the next moments of your day.

Over Christmas break our family visited Maui to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. The weather was of course wonderful, with clear blue skies and temperatures in the mid 80s.  Each day we experienced strong trade winds which moved the palm trees in a peaceful dance. In such a beautiful environment mindfulness is easy to touch with natural beauty all around.

A highlight of the trip, among many, was a visit with Ram Dass.  In my late teens Ram Dass  was an important influence in my spiritual journey which was inspired by reading his book titled BE HERE NOW.

Later in life I was fortunate to met Dass several times in the 90s during my time as a Program Officer at the Fetzer Institute.

My conversation with Dass on Maui this Christmas was quite wonderful and rich with insight.  Most important for me was a rekindling of my desire to serve society through my mindfulness teaching, especially serving those who are in greatest need of healing.

Our times are filled with so much focus on DOING and mindfulness offers a much needed antidote by teaching us to take time to BE fully in the moment with deep awareness and appreciation for where we are and what we have right now, without the compulsion to change or add anything.

What a gift I received from Dass, one I will always cherish.

A few tips on bringing mindfulness to work.  More tips are on the way so stay tuned.

Reduce Stress During the Workday

1. Take five to thirty minutes in the morning to be quiet and meditate, and/or lie down and be with yourself…gaze out the window, listen to the sounds of nature, or take a slow quiet walk.

2. While your car is warming up, try taking a minute to quietly pay attention to your breathing.

3. While driving, become aware of body tension, e.g. hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, shoulders raised, stomach tight, etc., consciously working at releasing, dissolving that tension…Does being tense help you to drive better? What does it feel like to relax and drive?

4. Decide not to play the radio and be with your own sound.

5. On the interstate, experiment with riding in the right lane, going five miles below the speed limit.

6. Pay attention to your breathing and to the sky, trees, or quality of your mind, when stopped at a red light or toll plaza.

7. Take a moment to orient yourself to your workday once you park your car at the workplace. Use the walk across the parking lot to step into your life. To know where you are and where you are going.

From: Engaged Buddhist Reader, Edited by Arnold Kotler, Copyright 1996 by Parallax Press

I have learned a lot from a group of elders i teach mindfulness to each week.  They taught me about the peace and tranquility that can be experienced as we age  along with the challenges of loss and change that comes with aging.

These women have lived amazing and rich lives, experiencing great achievements and great hardships as well. For most of these women transitioning  to living in a retirement community has been very challenging.

The stories they share come from the heart, come from love and carry deep authenticity and wisdom.  The stories speak to the challenges of aging, to the simple joy of a conversation, the love of friends and family, or the simple joy of watching snow drift to the ground.

Over the past 8 months our group has reported subtle changes in their lives as a result of mindfulness practice, they have learned to: deepen and appreciate the simple moments in life, take time to relax, let go of anxiety, appreciate what they can do, and let go of what we can no longer do.  In a nutshell they have learned to be more curios, open, accepting and compassionate with themselves and each other.

Each week we find ourselves celebrating our time together breath by breath, word by word, smile by smile.

And for me this time each week, with this amazing group of women is a circle of friendship I will always cherish.