The secret is out that mindfulness is good for you: good for anxiety and depression symptoms, good for stress relief, good for mental and physical health, and good for relationships.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a practice that can be more formal and premeditated (no pun intended) when engaging in activities such as guided meditations, body scans, or mindful walks. Mindfulness can also be more spontaneous, such as pausing to take in the colors of Pikes Peak or your partner’s eyes, taking a deep breath to calm the nervous system, or pausing to notice what your body is feeling and telling you. Mindfulness can be as lengthy or ephemeral as you like… as long as you are bringing your awareness to the present moment with curiosity, and not evaluation.
Mindfulness for all occasions
Want to savor the moment or escape the spiraling of your thoughts? Perhaps pause and make room for a 5 senses exploration.
Want to tell your inner critic to STHU nicely? Try a self-compassion meditation.
Feeling tension in your body? See if any of it can be released through a progressive muscle relaxation.
One of the aspects about mindfulness I have enjoyed is the sense of inclusion it can offer, even when you practice alone. Bringing your attention to your body and the environment-- while non-judgementally noticing the brain’s wax and wane of thoughts integrates the mind-body-nature connection--and creates a sense of oneness, which is often a very spiritual, if not stress-relieving experience.
Recently, my favorite time to practice mindfulness is as I crawl into bed. Instead of spiraling into the mind-numbing scrolling of social media or news before passing out, I’ve been listening to guided meditations. I was satisfied listening to re-runs of the free meditations offered through Headspace, and still think the 10 minute versions are wonderful for introducing the practice to mindful-newbies.
However, I’m even more excited to try mindfulness before sleep now that Calm is extending all of their easy-to-navigate mindfulness options free for 30 days at calm.com/calmhealthtrial (note: I get no kick-backs from this link and wouldn’t tattle if you used multiple emails to extend the offer).
Calm has meditations for sleep and bedtime stories for adults, as well as meditations for relationships, stress relief, self esteem and more. This is a much better offer than the 7-day trial you receive if you go to the app without the link.
What are you waiting for? There’s little to lose, and much to gain--plus, I’m eager to know what you think about the bedtime story read by Matthew McConaughey, who has a surprisingly relaxing voice to help you find those zzzz’s.
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