Mindful Living Mindful May
Is your mind constantly wandering? Do you have a hard time concentrating? Are your thoughts and experiences clouding your judgement?
Mindfulness meditation practice may help wandering minds to focus and fully experience the present moment—all by applying nonjudgmental thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Mindfulness is a way of living and a method intended to pave the path for a complete awakening.
Mindful Living Tips:
Sometimes we are overwhelmed by certain situations and may lose our ability to cope with the pressure. Recognize negative thoughts and gradually learn to dismiss them by focusing on the positive side of each situation. Be aware of stress inducers by identifying the underlying causes. Develop an action plan with a healthy coping strategy such as deep breathing or simple physical activities that could help with stress management.
Do not always worry about your to-do list. Spend quality time with family, socialize with friends, and more importantly allow yourself your own personal time. When time permits, unplug from social media and technology. Go outdoors to connect with nature and get some fresh air. Meet new people or reconnect with your kith and kin through face to face interactions. Listen to your loved ones with full attention. Listening enables you to be sensitive to the other person’s emotions and helps to accurately understand what they are trying to convey.
Practicing mindfulness does not wipe out life’s problems. Instead, you are training and preparing your mind to stay composed by being more cognizant of the negative thoughts and emotions that originate from stressful situations. This practice leads to greater acceptance of yourself and your circumstances and may thus impact your approach and reactions to different situations.
Mindful Living Topics
Healthy Eating
Mindful Eating can be described as making intentional choices of what and how much we are eating; and being aware of what is motivating us to eat.
We know that even a modest reduction in body weight has been shown to reduce risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes; so becoming more aware of our food intake as well as what motivates us to eat can help us achieve better health.
Try to:
Determine motivation behind eating…sometimes environment and emotions suggest we eat when we aren’t hungry.
Before tasting, observe your food with all your senses
Eat slowly and without distraction
Exercise
Practicing mindfulness could help eliminate issues or thoughts that often act as barriers to a healthier life. Being mindful for exercise means to use our awareness of our body and thoughts to have enjoyable, safe and beneficial exercise. Regular exercise or 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per week, has long been touted as a key factor of healthy living, especially to decrease risk of chronic diseases, like heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes.
Try to:
Take a moment to assess your body for pain and aches, and adjust your workout goals if needed.
Remember that exercise is self-care.
Use proper posture during exercise and everyday activities to prevent injury.
Focus your attention on your movement or your breathing pattern.
Parenting
Parent child conflict and stress is induced when parents are less available especially when they are busy, stressed, tired, overwhelmed, or preoccupied with other thoughts. Practicing these mindfulness skills will enable healthy parent-child relationship and improve psychological health and emotional wellbeing for parents and children.
Try to:
Listen with full attention.
Accept the traits and behaviors of yourself and your child.
Be supportive of your child’s emotions (even if they are negative).
Attend to his or her needs with love and kindness.
Accept the fact that parenting can be challenging.
Be aware of emotional triggers (feelings or judgments from parent’s own childhood).
Establish family rules and rituals to encourage parent-child bonding.
Avoid worrying about your to-do list and allow for your own personal time and time for your child.
Digital awareness
Use of technology changed the way we approach our work and daily activities. Time spent on digital devices replaced our time spent exercising, bonding, and bring creative. A digital detox will help you unplug and disconnect from technology and to reconnect with friends and family.
Try one:
Start your morning routine without your phone or other digital devices.
Allow at least an hour each day of screen free time.
Turn off social media notifications
Take breaks from social media to go outdoors
Encourage screen free family meals to reconnect with family members
Avoid screens in your bedroom
Use paper and pen for note taking instead of using digital devices
Stretch your body every 30 minutes while sitting or using your computer
Avoid talking or texting while driving
Coping with Stress
Stress can affect our bodies and minds in powerful ways; from raising our blood pressure, to causing muscle pain. Becoming mindful and being able to identify how stress is affecting our thoughts and body is the first step in learning how to cope with stress healthfully.
Mindfulness starts with breathing. Try to only focus on your breathing for a few minutes. Acknowledge sounds or thoughts without judgement and then return your focus to your breathing.
Try a Body Scan. Focus on one part of the body at a time for several moments. Focus on your toes then gradually moving your attention to the soles of your feet, then up your legs and body.
Speak to yourself kindly. Think of someone for whom you have unconditional love. Then address yourself as if you were talking to that person.
Mindful May
We’re kicking-off "Mindful Living" for the month May!
So, print out this calendar to keep track with the daily posts, tips, and tasks.