We all are too busy in our busy and hectic lives. No one even considers that how stress is working as a serious pathogen in our life and unfortunately, we all are not paying attention to it.
Even most of us don’t have 5 minutes to sit down calm and de-clutter our mind. Being relaxed and calm can make our lives better and happier.
A simple breathing technique can work as a magic for a stressed up mind. Still unconvinced?
Well, stay in a relax position, close your eyes and then take a deep breath.
Done?
How’re you feeling?
Meditation is a most popular technique to get rid of the stress out of your life, but recently, mindfulness, a latest version of the meditation, is the best way to unwind your mind.
It’s inevitable for your mental and physical well-being to take out few minutes for getting the mental spaciousness, balancing your mind-body and achieving a positive sense.
Mindfulness- the way to get stress-toxins out of your mind
Though, exercise, Yoga and healthy eating are the well-known forms to charge up your mind and body and stay away from toxin, but, mindfulness is the relaxation technique, offering de-stressing vibes to your mind.
Today, mindfulness is playing a critical role in our society. People practicing mindfulness are amazed when they see that how their quality of life is improved.
In fact people also revealed that their concentration power is amplified, blood pressure is controlled, stress is vanished, memory is enhanced, and emotions are more positive. In other words, mindfulness technique is the treasure of benefits.
Mindfulness is all about awareness. By practicing mindfulness, you can sustain your thoughts, emotions, feelings, external environment knowledge in the present moment, and physical sensations.
Does it sound like meditation? So, what’s the difference between meditation and mindfulness?
Meditation is related to sitting in a quiet and relaxed environment with eyes closed and keeping your attention to achieve peacefulness.
However, mindfulness is directly connected to the practice of awareness. So, you don’t need any specific environment; you can do it any time and any place.
Are you having a really busy schedule? Extra 15 minutes are more than enough to let your brain nerves soothed off. So, try all the following mindfulness techniques in these 15 minutes and get a positive vibe!
1- Breathe mindfully
Practice mindful-breathing whenever you get some extra minutes, regardless, you’re at work or in a shower. Just follow these steps precisely and get the magic instantly!
- Choose the down time! It can be your breakfast preparation time or the minutes when you’re drinking coffee in a restaurant. It’s totally up to you what time are you choosing.
- Start shifting your focus to the aspects of breathing. It can be your chest’s movement or the sensation of how air is coming out of your nose.
- Be in this state of awareness up to 5 minutes and then come back to normal involuntary breathing
Note that how your breathing is changing your while working on different activities. When you breathe slowly, your heart rate slows down as well. This state leads to the optimal relaxation to all the cells of your body, including brain cells.
2- Eat mindfully
Don’t get too much surprised? Yes! Mindful eating is another way to boost your sensation power. Eating while socializing around could also drive stress. To practice mindful eating, you should avoid socializing.
- Select the convenient and suitable mealtime
- Take a first bite and get the feel of 5 sensations; touch, smell, sight, touch and sound
- Eat slowly and chew your bite up to 15 times
- Get engrossed with how you are eating.
- Complete your meal with the sense of appreciation.
If you want better results, get your meal and eat it alone. Little things are often missed in our fast-paced life, but if we correct them, they can leave a huge impact on our overall health.
When you eat slowly, your body gets the time for the proper digestion of the eaten food. Additionally, healthier digestion can keep you away from the common physiological triggers of the stress.
3- Do Yoga mindfully
This time when you practice yoga, be different! Get into the Yoga pose that you love to and bring your full awareness to your physical and emotional sensations while passing through the poses.
Notice that how successfully you are attaining poses and how your body is de-stressing as a whole.
Make sure that your attention is entirely on what part of body are you moving and where is it going.
Try to decrease the number of poses and spend more time in a single pose. It works superb due to the addition of physical element in the technique.
Physical activity boosts the energy levels and helps in releasing the positive chemicals into your brain.
The fruits of doing Yoga mindfully are improved performance and memory, increased focusing ability,
4- Body scan meditation
Set a time and place where you can sit comfortably without any such distractions and disturbance. Keep your eyes closed and sit in a cross legged position.
Secondly, bring your attention to your toes initially. Then, bring attention to your feet, ankles, calves, knees, hip etc, to your head. Though, if you’re experiencing frustrated and bored, take this as a challenge!
Body scan meditation let your sensations encouraged that we often ignore in our lives. Whenever you feel tension or cervical pain due to the excessive stress, starts practicing the body scan meditation!
With the help of the body scan meditation, your pain tolerance will be increased, whereas, muscle tension and stress will be reduced.
Stress is the root cause of every medical problem. Mindfulness is an excellent technique to prevent any disease and the best part about this method is it is devoid of any side effects.
As you know that taking antidepressants can have some side effects and complications, mindfulness is a purest way to get most of the stress eliminated from your mind. What would you prefer, mindfulness or medication? Think wisely and make a decision!
REFERENCES:
https://www.fix.com/blog/mindfulness-techniques-to-reduce-stress/
http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/mbsr-mindfulness-based-stress-reduction/
http://www.pocketmindfulness.com/6-mindfulness-exercises-you-can-try-today/
I have to ask because this was recommended to me… How exactly do I do a body scan? Like I understand what it is going to do and how it will help, but I never have actually been able to make it work for me. I have looked at videos and now found them very useful. I would love to reduce my stress induced neck pain. It is horrible some days.