The last few months have been pretty unsettled for me: new job, back at uni, accepting that I’m going to living with my parents for the next couple of years while I study, trying to build myself a routine and keep busy whilst not overworking myself. Whilst I haven’t necessarily felt stressed on too many occasions, I often find it difficult to switch off. To combat this, I’ve been practicing a spot of mindfulness. Whilst I find meditation quite challenging (which I plan to address by undertaking a mindfulness course in the new year), what I have found to be of benefit is mindfulness of day to day living, which I would really recommend to others for stress reduction and general mood-boosting.
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| Gingerbread latte makes me smile, and mindfulness adds to the enjoyment! |
Examples
of activities you can do this with are eating (really taking the time to eat
slowly, notice the colours, smell, textures and taste of every mouthful) and
showering (noticing how the water feels as it makes contact with the skin, the
smells and feel of products used, and so on).
Personally I find mindful eating less easy to implement into everyday
life as you really need a good half hour per meal, but what I have enjoyed on
the odd occasion is the mindful consumption of a gingerbread latte (one of my
favourite winter treats!).
Many of
us live such hectic lives, and taking a few minutes to be mindful can really
help to ground us and switch off from that for a short time, which is really
beneficial for wellbeing. You don’t have
to pick certain activities or times of day to practice everyday mindfulness; it
is also about generally allowing yourself to notice things. Those hectic schedules we have means we rush
around and often don’t appreciate how amazing the world around us is: a
beautiful sky as you drive home from work, the fresh feeling of crisp, cold air
on your face as you step outside on a cold but glorious day, the feeling of
treading on a crunchy leaf as you walk from the car to the office. Being more in tune with your senses in this way
can work wonders for your mood and it’s so easy to do!
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| Really noticing things reminds us how amazing the world is |
I’ve
been making an effort to notice things more over recent weeks and will share a
couple of examples here. Something I’ve
really noticed is that I’m taking a lot more joy from other people’s happiness:
perhaps I’ll see a child walking down the street hand in hand with a parent,
both with big smiles on their faces or giggling at a joke they’ve shared; the
simple fact that I notice this rather than being wrapped up in my own
thoughts makes me smile. When I listen
to music I really listen to it, noticing all the different layers of
sound and how they make me feel. And the
very incident that inspired me to write this post: just today someone pulled
out in front of me on a busy road – it’s debatable whether he should’ve done; I
wasn’t travelling fast and he may have thought I was letting him out – my
initial reaction, as is usually the case when I’m in my car, was to be
annoyed. Then I looked at the guy in the
van and he gave me a big cheeky smile, the campest wave of the hand I’ve ever
seen in my life and blew me a kiss. So,
instead of being irritated I chose to be entertained and cheered by the guy’s
reaction, and in fact it brightened up my day!
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