How to stay mindful every day - even when you are busy

in #health7 years ago

First of all, what is #mindfulness? Sure it sounds cool and esoteric but do we actually know what it means?

For me being mindful means being focused on the present moment, seeing what is happening around me. Most people are constantly living in the future, planning their holidays or thinking about what they will be doing the next day, the next minute, or in the past, thinking about things they regret. This way they are not really living, just surviving, always waiting for the future which never comes, because we can only ever be in the present. Being mindful means you’ll be able to stay in that present moment, enjoy and appreciate it.

Womens-Work-475x350.jpg
source

Practicing mindfulness will make you more resistant to stress and it will contribute to your overall happiness, because real happiness comes from within. Outside circumstances can make you feel good temporarily, but you won’t be happy even if you live in a million dollar mansion if you are stressed out. Through practicing mindfulness you’ll slowly notice that you’re just more content and happier even though your outside circumstances haven’t changed. By focusing on the here and now, you’ll be less likely to get caught up in worries about the future and it can even help you deepen your connection with others. It can even improve your physical health. Scientists have discovered that it may help treat heart disease, lower blood pressure, reduce chronic pain, improve sleep, and alleviate gastrointestinal difficulties.

But how do I practice mindfulness?

Below we will give you some tips that you can easily incorporate into your daily life and experience all those benefits of mindfulness. Most of these tips are things we do daily. They have proven to work for us in our quest for mindfulness.

  1. Start your day with 9-12 sun salutations. Every day I wake up, put the kettle on and I say hi to the new day with sun salutations. #sunsalutations are the basic staple of the yogic world and they serve as #meditation in movement. They help reduce depression, anxiety and stress while building mental focus, concentration and deep breathing. Doing this sequence right after waking up will help you set your intentions for the day to be mindful and focused on the present. And least but not last, they are a great full body exercise.
    how-to-do-the-sun-salutation-sequence_53711aa4c881f_w1500.jpg
    source

  2. Meditate daily. I know it can be difficult to bring yourself to sit down and switch your mind off. But it’s all just a question of practice and habit. After a few weeks of practicing it will become second nature to you and you’ll look forward to your meditation practice. There is no need to sit cross-legged on the floor for hours at a time, just a few minutes every day will do the trick. Take just 10 minutes in the morning to sit at a quiet place, close your eyes and focus on your breath. Thoughts will keep coming, but you just let them go and go back to your breathing again. Don’t get angry with yourself for not being able to do it for long enough, be gentle with yourself, acknowledge the thoughts and let them go. After a few days you’ll be able to do it a bit longer. In the evening, if you have another 10 minutes then do it again, sit down and focus on your breath. Meditation will help you so much in your mindfulness practice.
    images.jpg
    source

  3. Become present during the day. Choose an activity that you do quite often, like washing your hands or sitting down in your car to go check in with yourself and see how you feel. Take a few deep breaths, become fully present and just carry on with the task you were doing. This way you’ll remind yourself to stay mindful in your every day activities too. It will work like a very short meditation.

  4. Know what your #goals are. Write down what you want to achieve in the short and long term. Maybe you want to earn enough money to go travel for a year so you decide to work long shifts. Or maybe you want to lose weight. Write it down so you know what you’re working towards. Then write down the steps you have to take to achieve those goals. They can be mini steps or bigger ones. Just make sure you have a plan to achieve what you want. Yes it is important to be in the present moment, but having goals is also important, as it gives purpose to your daily activities, so you will know exactly why you get up early, or why you make sacrifices.
    Career-Goals.png
    source

  5. Make a list of things you need to do every day. It can be a virtual list in your head or one on a piece of paper. These tasks should bring you closer to your goals. In the evening have a look at the list and see how many tasks you’ve completed, and how they got you closer to your goals. Ticking things off a list and knowing you got closer to your goals will give you a sense of achievement.

  6. Do some yin yoga in the evening. Yin yoga is slow, relaxing, passive yoga that will help you unwind at the end of the day. You will find many yin yoga classes on YouTube. Again, 10-15 minutes is plenty, you don’t need to do more even though you may well end up wanting to stay on the mat longer.
    wl_yinyogachart1111.jpg
    source

  7. Try to break up your daily routine. Do a few little things differently, like taking a different route to work, drinking tea instead of coffee in the morning or using your left hand instead of the right one to eat your breakfast. Go to work on a different route, try to observe things around you. This will give new stimulation to brain and keep it active. We don’t want the brain to get bored by doing the same old things every day because it will start deteriorating.

  8. Take #adaptogens. They are great natural healers that support your adrenals, the glands that manage your hormonal response to #stress and help you cope with anxiety and fatigue. Each one does something a little different, but on the whole, adaptogens help your body handle stress and they boast your overall #well-being. Choose the best one for you based on the specific problem you’re experiencing.
    We always take some adaptogens in the winter, which is when you’re more likely to get depressed. We take Rhodiola and Ashwaganda and they have been our best helpers. There are many others though, some will help with your #mood, others with #sleep, some will boost your immunity, or even improve #libido. So choose the best one based on the ailment you’re experiencing.

fight-stress-with-herbs.png
source

Choose just a few of the above tips and start using them tomorrow. In a few days you’ll notice a difference in the way you’re feeling, we can guarantee that.

Sort:  

Thanks for the post

I hope you found it useful and will come back later and enjoy our other posts too:)

You got a 33.33% upvote and resteem from @ebargains courtesy of @peterveronika. Thank you for using the @ebargains UPVOTE and RESTEEM bot.

If you are looking to earn a passive no hassle return on your Steem Power, delegate your SP to @ebargains by clicking on one of the ready to delegate links:
50SP | 100SP | 250SP | 500SP | 1000SP | 5000SP | Custom Amount

You will earn 80% of the voting bot's earnings based on your delegated SP's prorated share of the bot's SP pool at the end of EACH voting round! That is up to 38.5% APR! You can also undelegate at anytime.

Nice post but tip 1 is totally not practical here

Thanks! Do you mean it's not practical for you?

Thanks for sharing these tips, much appreciated! I never knew about those sun salutations, those look very helpful, I'm definitely going to try those out! :)

I hope you'll enjoy them! I think they're awesome :)

This was very helpful to see! I’ve been aware of my needing to get better about this for some time now. I’m going to try and remember these things throughout my day starting with this one! Thanks, can’t wait to hear more :-)

That's awesome! We're really happy to help, use these tips to your liking :)

Really enjoyed your post , I love yoga 🧘‍♀️

Thank you! I love doing yoga too.

Thanks for sharing happiness very nice post

Thanks, I hope you can use some of the tips in your daily routine!

Hmmm interesting....I found myself doing some points, some I might try and some are probably just not for me...

Regarding meditation - do you think having an absolutely exhausting and probably even little body-harming martial arts sparring (jiu jitsu) counts as a meditation? I've been thinking about it for a while - I just always get to the weird zone of mind, kind of separated from body...and afterwards after sparring, I feel suuperlight as if I've just got all the stress of me...I guess that it's such strong physical experience, it reminds me what really is important and makes me feel present...do u think it counts for meditation?

It probably does if you're not thinking while you're practising it, if you can let your mind go and just concentrate on the movements. But I've never done ju jitsu so I don't know :)

Resteemed many posts from your blog to my 950 followers
thank you+

I hope you found it useful and will come back later and enjoy our other posts too:)

Исчерпывающее руководство :)
И всё верно.

Thank you!

I hope you found it useful and will come back later and enjoy our other posts too:)

Yeasumm you have to have goals if not you'll be staggnet, make goals and smash them!

Yes, keeping in mind your goals and making steps towards them can be very rewarding, which is a much needed feeling in our life.

I have been practicing this quiet a lot these days. Love Eckhart Toole

I love Eckhart Tolle too! I listened to all his books at least twice :)

really motivating

I hope you found it useful and will come back later and enjoy our other posts too:)

Thanks for infomation~

I hope you found it useful and will come back later and enjoy our other posts too:)

I love this thanks for sharing.

I hope you found it useful and will come back later and enjoy our other posts too:)

Good stuff. I have to do a lot of these things for basic body maintenance to optimize my oracular capacity.

That's great, I hope these tips will help you in your mindfulness practice!

Wonderful post with great reminders! I practice yoga 6 days a week and would go crazy without it. Namaste!

Wow that's a lot more than I do! I do my sun salutations every morning but there are days when I don't do any other yoga than that. But I go to the gym almost every day and that takes most of my energy

Upvoted and Resteemed! Thanks for your support!

images.png

To have your post resteemed by @crystalhuman please send a minimum of 0.5 STEEM/SBD and leave a link in the memo

Have a wonderful day :)

This Post has Resteemed to 5000 Followers by Steemit Viral and also shared on Facebook,Twitter and Linkedin

Send 0.05 Steem or 0.05 Steem Dollars to @irfansardar use the URL in the memo

Wow... Long article but very interesting to read. I've stuck on my daily routine from 8 to 5, and it makes boring. I think I would try your advise, thanks

I hope our tips will work for you, you can work around your 8 to 5 job to fit them all in easily if you want. Good luck!

New_Intro2.gif

This post is Powered by @superbot all the way from Planet Super Earth.

Your post will Appear in the feed of 1300+ Followers :)

So don't waste any time ! Get More Followers and gain more Visibility With @superbot

follow and vote me please

Your payment to @crystalhuman has been received. Unfortunately that account is low on bandwidth right now. I have resteemed you from this account and once I have bandwidth again on @crystalhuman I will resteem there as well. Thank you and sorry for the delay. You get an extra upvote and resteem though :)

Thanks! We'll use the service again.

Resteemed by @resteembot! Good Luck!
Curious? Read @resteembot's introduction post
Check out the great posts I already resteemed.

ResteemBot's Maker is Looking for Work

Awesome post... thanks for sharing this post

I hope you found it useful and will come back later and enjoy our other posts too:)

good post....tips for health
doing good job
thanks for this post
DQmYaFp5ZVptCqvdvcwdx1q4PXVMku1BtStLmW3JKjwnC9V_640x480.jpeg

Thank you! I hope you can use some of our tips in your daily routine.

Hello I like your post I just gave you an upvote Make me a visit on my blog and if you like something of me an upvote too.

Thank you!

I think there is a whole part of mindfulness which sits in the metta as well. Share and love as much as you can. Make others happy.

Lately I have struggled to do this and my ego grew, and I started thinking people were not giving me enough. I have been feeling more lonely.

Being mindful is putting your ego on the side. When I care for others, I feel less lonely, and I find love everywhere.

Be happy.

It's the same with me! When I concentrate on being compassionate towards others I feel much more spiritual. Do you know the loving kindness meditation? Google it if you don't, maybe you could give that a try :)
Lot's of metta to you!

Yeah I know it. It is sometimes spelt love and kindness :).

Check out my post on the mindfulness project, it might interest you. I am currently editing a documentary about this place as well. https://steemit.com/travel/@astralaglae/may-all-living-beings-be-full-of-love-and-kindness

You won't believe it but I've actually been there, I spent 3 weeks with Christian and Anja in 2014! Wow such a small world! I'm gonna check out your post about them now :)

That's amazing! Where were they then? I think they might have moved in the meantime. I had an amazing time there, very powerful.

Yeah, that's funny :)
They lived in the forest monastery on the edge of the village then, but they were planning to move away, I think they got a house from the village

Congratulations, your post has been featured in issue #3 of The Make It Healthy Project MAGAZINE!

This post was upvoted and resteemed by @resteemr!
Thank you for using @resteemr.


@resteemr is a low price resteem service.
Check what @resteemr can do for you. Introduction of resteemr.

This post is resteemed and upvoted by @bestboom

this post was resteem by @mulyaabadi get more +7000 followers attention and more upvote...

This post was resteemed by @steemvote and received a 19.01% Upvote