It does wonders for our mental health to practice mindfulness as often as possible. This is because of its effects on the mind, body, and soul: meditation is a powerful tool that can help transform our thoughts, feelings, and neurological patterns.
To become mindful takes practice. It’s not something that happens overnight but instead comes with years of daily dedication, work, and patience. So how do you cultivate mindfulness?
This post will explain just that so that you can become your most mindful self.
Body Scan
Practice scanning your body for a minute. Start with the bottom of your body: your toes, feet, ankles. Move up through the body and deliberately check each part as you get to your head. This is just about checking in with your body and moving through, so it doesn’t have to be a slow practice.
Add Mindfulness Minutes
If you have a minute to spare, put down your phone and just breathe. Be in the moment and experience the present: what is around you? What can you feel? Examine these feelings and moments and simply just be still for a minute.
Understand Your Thoughts and Emotions
We go through many emotions every single day. From sadness to happiness, anger to confusion, we are humans that feel. Next time you’re reacting to an event or trigger, ask yourself why you’re feeling these emotions. What is making you react in this way? Is there a different way than you could process this?
Once we realize that we don’t need to be as reactive as we think we do, we understand that our emotions do not define us. They are just simply reflective of what we are currently going through.
Feel Things Deliberately
Mindfulness is the present. It’s about being there in the moment and feeling the thoughts, senses, and feelings that are all around you. From the leaves crackling to the wind rushing past. Try and feel it all.
Pay Attention To Your Breathing
How’s your breathing? Is it deep or shallow? Into your chest or your belly? Does it feel different if you breathe differently? Does it change when you’re calm? Does it differ when you’re upset, angry, or frustrated? How do you calm yourself using your breath - do you have a specific technique?
These are all tactics to use to try to cultivate mindfulness.
Mindfulness Meditation
This is the most important way to cultivate mindfulness. It takes time and practice to become mindful, and the specific mindfulness meditation will truly help you to get there. This is one of the most popular, oldest, and most well-known methods of meditation.
It involves meditating while focusing on the moment-to-moment awareness of what is happening in that present moment. You use your breath to create a calming anchor, which in turn helps you focus while alleviating stress and anxiety.
In fact, the Society for Integrative Oncology recommends mindfulness meditation for alleviating depression and anxiety.
Use the Reflect Orb
The Reflect Orb is a biofeedback device for meditation that measures your physiological signals and reflect them back to you, helping you learn how to control your daily stress.
The Orb is synced with the Reflect App, augmenting your experience with data and insights while deepening your understanding of your personal journey to relaxation and well-being.
Cultivating mindfulness won’t be done in a day. It takes years of dedicated practice to get there. But, it isn’t a goal to achieve, and then stop practicing: once you have cultivated mindfulness it will become a way of life.
