It can be challenging to escape the hamster wheel of demands, duties and deadlines during the day. We’ll show you mindfulness techniques that can help you become more relaxed.
Mindfulness techniques to combat stress
Stress is one of the biggest health risks of our time and it also makes you unhappy, depressed and leave you drained in the long run.
It can be difficult to escape all the deadlines, obligations, requirements, duties and deadlines.
The good news is that simple mindfulness techniques can help you slow down and reduce stress. I’ve compiled a small list of mindfulness tips to help you get started.
What does mindfulness actually mean?
Mindfulness has been a widely used word in recent years and can encompass a variety of methods, techniques, and even modalities.
Mindfulness stems from the art of meditation, with the goal of concentrating the mind on the here and now and calming it down and taming the monkey mind.
It’s important not to evaluate the moment and the perceptions in it, but only to perceive it, and experience what is happening in a nonjudgmental and noncritical way.
Science shows that mindfulness is not just a fad, countless studies have shown that simple mindfulness exercises make you more satisfied and happier, reduce stress, and are also healthy.
Take time out from everyday life
No matter how much you have to do sometimes you just need a break. Many people make the mistake of sitting in front of the TV during a work break or scrolling through social media. The problem with this is that the brain receives more and more input and cannot come to rest and unwind.
Real time-outs allow you to have completely rejuvenating and restoring experiences without bombarding yourself with new information.
So invite yourself to real rest and a quality reset.
Enjoy a hot bubble bath, take a brief walk, or lie in the garden a little bit longer. Enjoy not having to do anything for a moment.
Just relax and be.
Meditation to go exercise
The meditation to go is a wonderful exercise to focus your thoughts on something and thus to escape the constant spiral monkey mind of thoughts.
This way you learn to consciously take a break from everyday life (even in the midst of the chaos) and naturally come to rest.
Do a body scan
This exercise can help you feel better, reduce stress, and improve your bodies awareness. Make sure that you are undisturbed for at least 10 to 15 minutes and sit or lie down comfortably. When you are tired, a sitting position is recommended so that you don’t fall asleep.
First, focus on your breath and just observe and watch it. How deep or shallow is it? Where can you feel the breath moving inside? Do you notice how your chest or abdomen move rise and fall when you breathe? You don’t have to change anything, just feel what is in a nonjudgmental way.
Then you slowly mover your minds eye throughout your body with focused attention.
Focus on your feet, pause and feel, lower legs, pause and feel, knees, thighs, lower abdomen and so on until you get to the head, always pausing for a few seconds or longer before moving on to the next point.
Also in this part of the exercise, just notice what is there without evaluating it or attaching a story to it.
If you feel any tension, pain or discomfort at any point in your body, just simply observe it and try to relax into it. If it doesn’t work right away: no problem.
Just know that any and all sensations, tensions, and discomforts will come to pass, so just observe and then move on to the next region of the body.
To end, just bring your attention back to your breath and then return to everyday reality.
This exercise is great if you feel overwhelmed or stressed, it has a way of calming the nerves and recalibrating the senses.
Relaxation techniques help reduce stress and help you to to become more mindful, balanced, and present with everything and all aspects of life.