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Mindfulness Meditation Exercises: How To Use Your Powerful Mind

Mindfulness Meditation Exercises

The fact that mindfulness meditation exercises can help with relaxation and anxiety after only 10 minutes is an important finding from researchers you can use to great advantage in your daily life and at work anytime.

Big final exam coming up? Got a presentation for the big wigs work? Will you be meeting new people and want to remember details about them so you can connect with them later? Perhaps spending a little time learning how to meditate prior to these events can help you easily accomplish these very important tasks.

5 Minute Meditation – Setting Intentions For Your Highest Good

The world today has totally changed the lifestyle of each and every person in the world. You can almost see it through the foods that we eat and the way we communicate with other people. Even in the workplace, it has improved the system that we have. Advanced technology and AI is responsible for making great changes in our lives.

The outcome of these advancements has really improved the world. But the only downside to this improvement is on the health. And because of the lifestyle that you have developed from the work that you have right now, are you still healthy? But of course, all of the people would probably say that they are healthy only on the outside. But their mind says no. Have you ever heard of mindfulness meditation exercises?

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Aside from the usual physical workout that you can see to some people, there is also a mindfulness meditation exercises that you can try. Stress is the number one factor that can cause many health problems. If you think that stress is just okay in your line of work, then you may not even be human anymore.

You could already be a robot that doesn’t even feel pain and other hardships in life. But if you are really stressed out because of your work, then it is really high time to do some self-meditation. The mind has the power to make changes in your life. So by thinking positively, you can break away from stress. How?

Here are some mindfulness meditation exercises that you can do to stay calm and find relief from stress:

  • A game of Fives – This mindfulness meditation exercise allows you to notice the five different things around you that were unexpected to happen. It could be the things that you see, feel, smell, and hear. You will have to let your mind explore these wonderful things that although they happen unnoticed still happen for a reason.
  • Mindful Listening – This exercise will help you to break away from the past that you have experienced so you can come into your present awareness. To start this mindfulness meditation exercise, all you have to do is to select a song that you have not yet heard of and just let yourself be carried away by the song. Listen to it without judgment or preconception on things like the artist the genre of music and others.
  • One Minute Breathing – This is being considered to be a mind-calming exercise that is really great in starting your self-meditation. You can start this exercise by breathing slowly in and out. You will have to do repeatedly do it in the span of one minute. This will relax your mind as if it is taking your thoughts into green peaceful valleys or a wonderfully calm environment.

These are just a few of the different mindfulness meditation exercises that you can try. There are many ways on how you can combat our stress through the power of the mind. It had been known to be practiced by ancient people. That is why if you really want to stay healthy, mindfulness meditation exercise is worth a try.

Guided Mindfulness Meditation For Busy People

If you respond skillfully to a situation, you are a mindfulness person. Mindful meditation is characterized by having a positive mindset and a non-judgmental attitude. Mindfulness is the power that helps you recognize a state of satisfaction and happiness. Every day should be appreciated. Even the moment you breathe must be considered as a gift.

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There are people who are always busy with their works. If the mind is preoccupied with many things, the tendency is to be stressful. This is the reason why there are guided meditations for you. Even if you are very busy, always find time to relax and appreciate every moment.

Mindfulness Meditation Exercise Guide

Look for a comfortable and quiet place. A good place for meditation is not necessarily dark. The temperature in your meditation space should not be too high or too low. If you are in a very warm space, you cannot focus on what you are doing. Same thing if you will meditate in a cold place. In order for you to be comfortable when meditating, find for a nice comfortable quiet place.

3 Easy Steps To Start Your Own Meditation Practice At Home

Choose a posture where you will be comfortable. You can stand, sit, or walk. Every posture has its own advantages. Before you choose the best posture, it will be helpful to research and study first. If you are doing daily meditation, it is better to study the advantages and restrictions of the posture that you practice. If you are a beginner, do not try several positions of meditation at the same time. You may be discouraged. Start from the basic and as time goes by, you can try other positions.

Practice your mindfulness meditation exercises. After choosing the best posture, develop focus, and calmness. Listen and examine the parts of your body like bones, hair, head, heart, muscles, stomach, and teeth. Begin focusing on one part then feel the location and the task of the specific part.

For example, if its the heart, try to understand the function of it. See to it that you are focusing only on one thing at a time. It is also important to know how the heart reacts to the tension and tiredness that you feel. By doing this, you will be aware of the importance of taking care of everything around you.

5-Minute Mindfulness Body Relaxation Scan Meditation

When doing mindfulness meditation, you can utter mantras or affirmations either mentally or verbally. Make sure that this meditation method will not distract you. Otherwise, just focus your breath to keep you centered and awake.

Learn how to let go. One of the most important ways of meditation is the release of stressful states or problems. Think of the activities you did for the previous days. This will make you aware of the positive and negative attitude that you had during that time. With that information, you come up with an appropriate solution.

Guided Meditation – Manifesting From the Deep Self

If you want to be successful in your mindfulness meditation exercises, it is important to follow the given techniques step by step. If you are feeling distressed, you need to talk to an expert meditation teacher.

You can get tips and advice from an experienced meditation teacher. Mindful meditation is usually done with closed eyes. It is important to know the benefit of the mindfulness meditation exercises so that you will have healthy and worry-free living.

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Understanding Mindfulness As An Inspiring Superpower

Understanding Mindfulness

Understanding mindfulness meditation is a form of meditation in which one learns to be mindful, both about the thoughts that occur in one’s head due to the outside forces that exert themselves upon the mind, as well as mindful of the actions that one makes to affect the surrounding environment.

This type of meditation was developed from the Buddhist Vipassana meditation in which the Buddhists would meditate for hours on end, focusing only on the mindful side of their own minds. This meditation also relieves stress in a secondary fashion, making it perfect for improving your mindfulness towards the outside world, as well as unwinding from the stress that you endure on a daily basis.

How do you practice this mindfulness superpower?

Understanding mindfulness meditation is best practiced in a quiet area in which you can relax and focus. To begin practicing your understanding of mindfulness meditation, begin by sitting with crossed legs on a soft cushion, or sitting on a chair with your back completely straight. Close your eyes and begin to focus on the movement of your stomach or abdomen while you are breathing in and exhaling.

5-Minute Mindfulness Body Relaxation Scan Meditation

In addition, you may focus on the breath as it is exhaled through your nose, which works better for many people than the other method of concentration. Do not push thoughts out of your mind, but when thoughts do rise up in your head, simply let them go and return your focus to the movement of your abdomen or the feeling of your exhaled breath through your nose.

When you do realize that your mind is beginning to wonder, do not beat yourself up. Rather, simply accept that the thought has entered your mind, and let it go so that you may continue meditation. Many people begin by practicing this form of meditation for simply 10 minutes a day in order to create a starting point.

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It may be difficult to keep your mind clear for 10 minutes, but once you are able to focus your mind completely and meditate easily for this length of time, you will be able to begin raising the amount of time that you are able to meditate.

With practice, understanding mindfulness meditation will become easier and easier but do remember that you will not become a monk in a single day. It may take some time to build up to meditation for longer periods of time, and this is completely okay. Everyone is different, so go into this with an open mind and keep pushing forward in order to improve both your meditation techniques and yourself.

What is the Goal of Understanding Mindfulness Meditation Techniques?

Your basic understanding of mindfulness is when you are aware of the moment you are in and not the past moments or the future. Mindfulness meditation is used to help relieve stress. Through using mindfulness meditation techniques you will be freed from the thoughts of your past and you will not have to worry about your future.

There is peace found in the fact that you are only thinking about what is in the here and the now and that will make you feel a lot better. Understanding mindfulness meditation techniques are not that hard but they are the most important thing you will need to learn about meditating and getting the peace you want.

One of the exercises you can do to help you to lower your stress is to teach your self to focus your attention on your breathing with real-life cues. For example, every time the phone rings you will simply stop and focus on your breathing.

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This will immediately bring your focus on to the current situation of the here and the now, and not anything in the past or the future. You will have to choose a cue that works for you because not all the time when the phone rings will you remember to stop what you are doing and take a moment to just breathe.

Using real-life cues to help with understanding mindfulness will be very helpful to snap you back to reality and get you out of the autopilot way of thinking.

Another exercise you can do is to conscious observation. During this exercise of mindfulness meditation, you will pick up an everyday object and only focus on this one object. Let your mind be one hundred percent taken away by this object and nothing else.

This does mean think about what kind of object it is or what it looks like, you simply just look at it for what it is. During this exercise, you will feel a sense of heightened “nowness”. Observing something to the point you are simply staring at it for what it is will really give you the feeling of being awake.

Understanding mindfulness meditation exercises and how they are designed to help you stay in the present moment instead of being stuck in thinking of everything you have done and everything you have to do. They are there to help you stay less stressed and keep you focused on what you need to get done. Use these exercises to help you get through the day and keep you from worrying about everything you have to do.

Understanding Mindfulness For Health and Happiness

Understanding Mindfulness For Health and Happiness

Meditation, the word has different definitions proposed by different individuals, and also the meaning differs for different contexts. Meditation has been practiced in this world right from antiquity. The actual meaning of meditation is that it brings about calmness in the mind. The calmness is referred to as an increase in concentration towards life. Meditation basically is practiced to achieve complete soundness within.

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Many different people have defined meditation in multiple ways, for e.g. it is used to self-regulate body and mind or it is referred to as the state of regulations that bring in the body and the mind in control for effective utilization and balanced life.

To talk more about understanding mindfulness, it has been practiced for so long and has its name etched in most of the religions that have existed until now. Those times when science was in the dark, they have believed that meditation brings a lot of changes in the body. Those changes were for the good and thus suggest that meditation is an important part of life.

All religions that exist in the present-day world have the word meditation mentioned in their holy books. Among them, Hinduism is considered the first religion to have this meditation in practice. Meditation is done by focussing the mind on any particular thing, it is believed that meditating the concentration power would increase, and one can be a much better judge of things in life.

Usually, when we see anybody sitting with cross legs and eyes closed, they are quickly judged to be meditating. Many of them might use beads or some may just sit quietly chanting some mantras. In the end, it’s all like that one achieves a full state of soundness and calmness. This in turn is a health benefit of meditation.

There is a lot of health benefits associated with understanding mindfulness meditation. The following list will cover the major benefits:

1. De-stress: Meditation helps body de-stress. Stress is not healthy and can be fatal at times. Meditation calms the body down and helps the body respond in a much better way during stressful situations.
2. It lowers blood pressure and a higher heart pump rate: meditation relaxes body muscles and fills the cells with energy.
3. Reduces anxiety.
4. Boosts immunity.
5. Increases concentration and intelligence.
6. Increases self-compassion.
7. Provides peace of mind.
8. Boosts the internal energy, as an inner source of energy levels get elevated.
9. Harmonises the endocrine system.
10. It decreases muscle tension and headaches.

The list doesn’t end here but has a lot more benefits of understanding mindfulness. The process brings out an internal purity within and cleanses the soul. The time that meditation takes is just 15-20 minutes a day, but these 15 minutes can really change the way of life and bring in a definite positive transformation within you.

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Being Present In The Moment: Why You Avoid Being Mindful

Being Present In The Moment

There are many reasons that people resist being present in the moment. Once you learn and practice your mindfulness meditation method you will find yourself not living in the past or the future.

This is very important for your mental chatter to slow down and stop allowing the past or future to be your constant focus. This process will allow you to stop living and being stuck in the rut of the same thoughts over and over.

They constantly dwell on thoughts of the past or the future. The reason that they do that is that they’re not completely happy with the present. It’s not where they want to be and they’re not who they want to be.

The real benefit of mindfulness is that you can find total acceptance and peace by living in the present moment, who doesn’t want that for their lives. People resist being present in the moment because of fear about what they don’t know.

Being Present In The Moment: We’re afraid of losing control

When you’re faced with changes, not knowing what those changes are and how they’ll affect your life can foster resistance. One challenge we all have in our lives today is that change has become aligned as a negative experience instead of embracing change as a path for us to open up to all the new possibilities in our life.

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When someone doesn’t fully understand what mindfulness is, that can cause them not to want to understand and learn how to be mindfully in the present moment and the value that it holds. They resist the change because they don’t know what it’s all about.

It is often that many people simply don’t understand that being present in each moment could help them in any way. It is strange that we find comfort in what we are familiar with, even if that comfort is something that makes us unhappy with our current life.

It’s easy to stay where they are instead of reaching out for a meditation method that could bring lifelong benefits and positive change in their lives.

Living with the fear of the unknown as staying only with what is comfortable in our lives, you have a structure that brings resistance to change in their lives, not just within mindfulness meditation. This time in someone’s life can also cause them to resist being present in the moment.

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If they’re going through a time where things are wonderful in their present, they can be reluctant to be mindful because they don’t want to rock the boat. This can also happen when they are having a bad experience within the present moment.

They get comfortable and fear changes in their lives because if they rock the boat, things could only end up in an even worse situation.

Often people will resist being mindful in the present moment because anything that could cause them to get outside of their normal routines even if there is much to gain from the experience. Because they don’t have a good grasp of mindfulness, they can’t understand the positives associated with it.

When someone is always looking back in their lives and only remembering how good things “used to be”, it’s very difficult to live in the present because we are resisting living mindfully each day.

If they have a mindset of how good things are going to be “in the future,” then they can resist being present in the moment. They have mentally created boundaries in their lives and their emotions won’t allow them to move beyond these self-imposed boundaries.

When we base our self-esteem and self-love on where we used to be or where we may be going, they incorrectly believe that to be mindful in the present that they may lose themselves. What they need to understand is that there is so much to gain in their lives just by doing this simple process called mindful living.

benefits of living in the present moment

Being Present In The Moment Mindful Activities You Can Use Throughout Your Day

Going through life, we do so many things automatically. When you do something over and over, it can reach the point where it becomes a mindless task. We have the ability to perform and complete a task, then you realize that while your body completed the task, your mind was engaged in something else entirely.

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Mindfulness can help you learn how being present in the moment can truly change your life, to refocus your mind so that you are present and active in your experience of life and not just habitually moving through your life on autopilot. Often people think that with meditation it will be a time-consuming process where you have to hide away and sit for hours to learn mindfulness.

While you can enjoy sitting quietly, it doesn’t have to take a long time. In fact, if you don’t want to or don’t have time to just be still and practice mindfulness, then you don’t have to.

You will find many ways to be mindful during your daily activities without having to stop whatever you may be doing at that time. Once you understand this, you will find that like very busy people who have been able to easily get into the habit of performing mindful activities on a daily basis.

One simple way to practice being present in the moment is by brushing your teeth. You have brushed your teeth for so long that you don’t even need to think about that action. Instead of brushing your teeth on autopilot, take the time to focus on the steps involved in this routine.

Feel the bristles of the brush as they cross your teeth and tongue. Pay attention to the thickness of the toothpaste of the flavor of it. While you’re brushing your teeth, pay attention to the process, and don’t let your mind think about worries or negative thoughts.

An additional way to be mindful throughout your day is to simply do mindful listening. Often throughout the day, there are many sounds of life that you wouldn’t even notice these sounds because you are not listening with focus and mindfulness.

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Wherever you are, you can take a few seconds to listen to the sounds. You may what seems like the first time in hearing the beautiful sound of a bird singing, or maybe the curious sound of distant thunder or just a gentle breeze on your cheek.

You can practice mindful listening to popular music or with instrumentals. Take some time to sit quietly and experience each note and instrument while you tune all other sounds except the music.

Being present in the moment can be practiced by focusing on breathing. It doesn’t take long and can be done at any time of day and in any place.

As you are focused on your breath and inhaling very mindfully and deeply, then focus on the breath that you’re exhaling. Always keeping your mind focused on the movement of your lungs and abdomen and bring in the air and then when you release the breath.

Really focus and feel the air in and out of your lungs and feel all the sensations as you perform this simple but immensely gratifying experience.

I want you to also realize that mindfulness can be practiced with almost any activity such as eating a meal, walking mindfully on a lunch break, cooking, cleaning, or even taking a bath or shower. You will soon discover how rich life really is on a daily basis.

Living in the moment meaning

Trusting Your Intuition By Being Mindful About Circumstances

You’ll face a variety of circumstances in your life. You know that how you view those circumstances will either help you live a better life or can create a situation that you don’t really want to happen.

When you practice mindfulness and being present in the moment, you’ll learn how to cut through the inner dialogue in your brain to find the ability to trust your intuition. When you trust your intuition, you’ll discover that you’re making better decisions about all of the areas of your life.

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You’ll want to begin by focusing on where you are in the present. Take some deep breaths and concentrate on breathing. Unfortunately, circumstances are often the deciding factor that we use to make our decisions.

We look at the circumstances and think that we can see the whole picture, but we don’t. Your circumstances never tell you the whole story. So what happens is you can make choices based on what’s not even a reality.

These circumstances can cause you to react to using your emotions. You’ll end up second-guessing yourself when you don’t practice being present in the moment. When you do practice mindfulness, you’ll be fully present, which means that you won’t be looking at the circumstances to be the deciding factor in your choices.

What mindfulness does to help you is it teaches you to not get caught up in whatever is going on around you. It shows you how to take a step back and stop, refocusing your thoughts on where they should be.

You’ll learn how to respond by using your intuition. Your intuition is something that you simply know instinctively. Many people use their intuition to determine whether the action they want to take is a right or wrong decision.

When you second guess your intuition, you’ll get knots in your stomach because you’re not one hundred percent convinced that you’re doing what’s right for your life. Mindfulness allows you to tune in to your intuition.

Using your intuition correctly and tuning into those feelings, you don’t have to spend time thinking and trying to second guess your decisions. When you spend a lot of time thinking over the choices that you make, it can cause you to become overwhelmed with choices and ideas.

This can make you begin to experience self-doubt in your abilities to make decisions. Trusting your intuition can prevent you from overthinking your decisions. When you overthink something, you can go over and over it in your mind.

It can cause you to not make any decisions because you’re so afraid you’re going to mess up. It can also cause you to become frustrated and make a choice just to get it over with.

Being present in the moment and practicing mindfulness can help you with any circumstance. Over time and with the practice of being mindful you will feel a greater sense of peacefulness in your life and a newfound trust in yourself to allow your intuition to guide you through life. It’s a great way to live.

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How Being Mindful Can Create Your Best Life Ever…

Being Mindful

By being mindful, you can create a life that brings you great relationships, enables you to meet your life goals, and sets you free from negative emotions.

Looking around, you can see that people live in many different types of lives. Most people living their lives today aren’t really really conscious of living in the present moment. In addition to this, we are so locked into our day to day routines that we don’t take the time to learn how to live a life for what is best and true for ourselves.

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What Is Being Mindful and Living In The Present

Mindfulness means that you’re specifically in the present. When someone is being mindful, they’re aware of and paying attention to the moment that they’re in, not mired down in the past or future.

When you practice being mindful, you focus your mind purposefully. Have you ever driven from one place to another and at the end of your destination, you weren’t aware of the sights you saw or how you arrived there?

If so, you weren’t practicing mindfulness. This concept is worth examining each area of your life. You can go through life on autopilot. This means that you can sit down and have a meal, but because you’re not being mindful or practicing mindfulness, you won’t even be aware of what you had to eat in terms of the portion or even the pleasure of tasting it.

For this reason, you can have dinner and then later in the evening you can’t even remember what you had eaten for dinner just a few hours ago. The reason that you can go through life and miss things is that the mind has a tendency to blank or go through the motions when you’re doing something you’ve done numerous times before.

Being mindful is putting a stop to allowing the mind to simply wander unchecked. It means that you direct your mind back to focus on whatever it needs to focus on. It may sound counterproductive, but by learning how to practice awareness of your thoughts, you can be less productive and miss out on the incredible life that you could have had.

Techniques Of Mindfulness: Why Mindfulness Is Important For Living

The art of mindful thinking has its roots in Buddhism and the practice has been around for thousands of years. Not only was it practiced to enhance spiritual connectivity, but also to bring calmness, focus, and improve the brain’s ability to think.

Many research papers show how you can create a life worth living by learning and practicing mindfulness. There are physical health and emotional well-being boosts that can be had when you are being mindful

When you become aware in the present moment, it can soothe your emotions and help strengthen your immune system. Many of the concepts of mindfulness are used in different meditation processes, the end result is increased self-awareness and can eliminate negative and repetitive thought patterns in the mind.

Mindfulness helps center the user and cause them to choose to live fully active in today rather than focus on the past or get caught up in what might happen in their future.

How To Be Mindful

How To Be Mindful and Make Better Choices

You might be surprised to learn that some of the choices that you make in life, you’re making without being fully aware of the present moment. When this happens, the choices that you make aren’t really the ones that can give you the best outcome.

This can impact your entire life. But when you living and being mindful throughout the day, you can make better choices and change your life to let it become the one that you’ve dreamed of living.

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One of the areas where mindful thinking can help you make better choices is in the area of eating. You already know how to eat each meal of the day without even thinking, it’s something you learned early in life and it has now become automatic for you.

This is because it’s easy to eat while you’re busy with things unrelated to eating.

It’s easy to eat while you’re reading, while you’re talking on the phone or while you’re watching a movie. What happens then is that you miss being in the present while you’re eating.

This means that the taste and pleasure you can get from the food you’re eating will be missed which can lead you to simply eat food from lifelong habits such as your food choices and the amount of food you eat. This will allow you to eat a much healthier diet which will benefit all aspects of your life.

Plus, when you eat without being mindful, it can be easier for you to not connect the emotions to what you’re eating. If you’re an emotional eater, not using mindfulness when eating, can cause you to overeat and not even be aware of how much you are eating. This can wreak havoc on your health and work towards the body you want to have.

But if you practice being mindful, this practice can help you learn not to link your emotions to food.

Another area where mindfulness can help you is in your relationships. When you enjoy great relationships, you feel better physically and you can enjoy less stress which will have a direct effect on your happiness. Mindful thinking can help you have harmony in your relationships.

This is because you won’t feel as stressed, so whenever there’s an issue, you won’t immediately react to what you perceive is going on. By being mindful, you’ll be focused on being present during the interaction with the people in your life.

What this will do is help you better understand what someone else is saying and feeling. This will help you to not react defensively which is often the main cause of many modern relationship stress issues.

Being mindful can help you respond to relationship interaction in an appropriate way. There is a great value by being in the present moment with another person, you can put the past behind you and not worry about what may happen into the future with your relationship.

You can give that person all your attention when you are in the present moment with them. Your mind is in the hear and now, not off in the future somewhere. Being mindful helps you tune in to the people in your life.

Being mindful makes you more in tune with how the people in your life are acting by seeing the emotion behind the action and behind the words they speak alowing you to be much more empthetic to their actions.

This will allow you to not become defensive by not reacting to your conditioned thoughts that can wreak havoc in relationships. You can then put your problems aside and interact on a personal level based on truth and not your preconceived ideas.

When you practice and learn mindfulness, it can help you make better decisions that will positively impact productivity. By using mindful thinking, you can stay aware of the present rather than focusing on what’s coming later.

Being aware of where you are in this present moment will increase your focus. When you’re unfocused, it’s too easy to let your mind start to think about what else is coming your way that you have to get done.

Being mindful helps you accomplish tasks by keeping you on track. It can be easy to start working on something, only to start thinking that maybe you forgot to respond to a phone call, or you forgot to write an appointment down on the calendar.

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So off you go to deal with these other tasks and before you know it, you’ve lost productivity. When you experience the “monkey mind” with a cascade of thoughts, this will affect your effectiveness and raise your stress levels because you can’t seem to get anything done.

Staying in the here and now and being mindful, is what mindfulness can help you with. When you can focus, you’ll make better choices and you can create the best life for yourself.

Being Mindful Is a Natural Therapy for Improved Mental Health

Being Mindful Is Therapy for Improved Mental Health

When you think of how the brain works, mindfulness can help focus the mind on all the good things in your life instead of the negatives that we often put more energy into.

Do you know how an untrained puppy will run around when you take it outside? It doesn’t want to listen because it’s not focused on you. There are too many exciting things outside – like the wind pushing a leaf across the grass, the neighbor’s dog, a car passing on the street, or kids out playing.

In a flash, the puppy takes off after the leaf or the neighbor’s dog or heads toward the street. The puppy hasn’t learned or been trained on how to focus, anything and everything is up for grabs. This could of course end up in the puppy experiencing something other than a positive outcome.

Just like something detrimental can happen with an untrained puppy, a mind that doesn’t practice being mindful can also experience negative consequences. If your mind is allowed to jump to just any thought at any time, most likely those thoughts won’t be productive for you.

Your mind will start to think about situations that caused anger in life. You’ll start thinking about wanting to get even. You’ll feel sorry for yourself that your life isn’t like someone else’s, who seems to have everything.

Next thing you know your mind is completely emersed in negative thinking because it was allowed to exist in that future or past thinking instead of the present moment. The thoughts you have in your mind that you keep thinking of either knowingly or not can either create a good life or a troubled life.

When your mind isn’t being mindful, it can wander off into thinking about things that cause you to feel stressed out. It can cause you to feel anxiety. You may get angry from the stress and become even more bitter.

Left alone, the mind that’s not focused on mindful thinking can lead you to bouts of depression. Learning mindfulness techniques can help you focus on being present and can help you understand how your past actions have affected you.

Mindfulness keeps you centered on today, not yesterday and not tomorrow. There are various techniques using mindfulness that can help improve mental health. Among these are mindfulness stress reduction and mindfulness cognitive therapy.

Ways To Practice Mindfulness

Common Techniques For Being Mindful: Ways To Practice Mindfulness

There are several techniques that you can use to harness mindfulness. The first one is meditation. Most people understand that meditation is available to them and can learn the basics to learn how to meditate. To learn and practice mindfulness meditation techniques, you need a quiet and comfortable place to sit and learn how to calm your mind.

You will need to become aware of your breath at the moment and center your focus on your in and out-breath. Concentrate on your breath, paying attention to your inhaling and exhaling.

Mindful meditation is different than other meditation methods because when thoughts pull you away from the moment you’re in, you must then concentrate only on your breath, so you can refocus your mind for the rest of your meditation. During this time, you should have a non-judgmental attitude toward whatever it is that runs through your mind.

It might be hard to understand and learn how to keep your mind focused in the present moment. The habit of not knowing how to focus and of allowing your mind to wander will be a challenge when you’re trying to concentrate on your breath and nothing else.

Besides meditation, you can choose to practice the mindfulness technique of deep breathing…

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Taking breaths isn’t something that a lot of people are aware of. We do it without thinking about it. But when you practice deep breathing involving mindful techniques, this can relieve stress, boost your energy levels, and help you achieve calmness.

One technique is achieved by breathing through the nose in short breaths for a few seconds. This mindful method awareness is a practice that helps you to refocus on the present moment only.

Another technique is to count the deep breaths that you take for a few seconds. You would focus on breathing in through the nose and exhaling slowly through the mouth.

The object meditation technique is used in being mindful is to help raise the level of focus that you have. For this practice, you just need to pick out any object in the room and focus only on that object. Experience every aspect of that object learning and noticing anything and everything about it.

Your awareness should only be about that item such as a vase or a chair or whatever object you choose. You keep your focus on that item until it is all that your mind is aware of.

When your thoughts start to drift away, you consciously pull them back to the item that you’re looking at. Walking is another technique used in mindful practices.

Make sure that you’re in an area where you can walk unimpeded. Place your focus on what’s around you. Take in the five senses that are present in your surroundings – such as what you can hear or smell or see.

Breathe normally while walking and be completely aware of how you pick up your foot and put it down as you take each step. Focus your mind on how each foot feels as it connects with the ground.

Pay attention to how your body is working as you walk. Keep your focus on each movement that you make as you are walking, step by step, notice the swinging motion of your arms, how fast you walk, and any other elements around you as you walk.

Being Mindful: Snapping Yourself Out of a Past or Future Focus

What’s already happened is long gone. No one can change the events or emotions that have already passed. It’s human nature to look at the past and feel nostalgic, or even fearful or angry – but the trouble comes in when we focus on the past by allowing it to steer our actions in the present moment. Let it all go and focus on the now.

By living in the present moment, you can create your best life, forget the pain of the past and the fantasity of the future. A life of potential fullness can easily be lost by looking at life in the past or dreaming about the future.

When you focus too much on the past, you can place limits on living your best life, this is the same for when you constantly live in the future as well. The future isn’t here yet. You don’t want to waste the quality of the present on what might happen in the future.

Usually, what you focus on for the future, when it arrives, is different from what you thought it would be. To have the best life possible, you need to aim for keeping your focus solely on the present.

It’s true that everyone can have times where the past or the future seems to be all they can focus on. But you can change that. You change it by living in the now.

Meditation For Beginners: 20 Practical Tips To Quiet the Mind HERE…

When you’re working on something, don’t work on several things at once. When you have your meal, focus only on the meal in a very mindful way. the food will taste so much better. When you’re spending time with someone, don’t split your thoughts by trying to pay attention to the other person while at the same time opening mail or answering an email.

Don’t always be thinking about what’s coming next. Being mindful in the present and fully aware of your actions. Slow down. Don’t move through life so fast that you are just trying to get it done as fast as possible.

Stop overcrowding your day by multitasking your way through everything. Highly productive people, focus only on the task at hand. Learn how to give your complete attention to the present moment. It will take some time, but successful people do this all the time.

Try to simplify your life – too many items on your todo list or the ingrained habits and a fast-paced life creates mental clutter in your life. This happens when you take on so much that you feel as if you don’t have time to think.

Take a break on purpose. It’s a rare person who can just “be in the moment” unlike most people who are multitasking all the time. For a set amount of time every day, stop. You might have heard the phrase “take the time to stop and smell the roses” and this is the same principle.

Learn Simple Mindfulness Techniques: How Can You Be More Mindful?

Take the time to stop and be present. During this time, take in every aspect of your surroundings, notice every detail that you put your attention on. Notice the day. The scents on the air. The beauty around you.

When you take the time to practice being mindful, it allows you to not only create the best life you could ever dream of, but you get to savor it, too.

When being mindful becomes apart of your life and you start practicing this process, you’ll notice how many others are not living in the present, and you’ll be grateful that you’re no longer chained to the old way of living.

by

Mindfulness and Meditation – Discover Your Personal Power…

Mindfulness and Meditation

Mindfulness and meditation are a powerful combination of resources for living a productive and complete life. Our busy, complicated lives sometimes bring a wave of negative emotions: sadness, jealousy, depression, grief, anger, confusion, anxiety, and stress.

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy sometimes to succumb to the naturally powerful nature of these emotions and allow ourselves to be troubled for hours, days, or weeks on end.

On the other end of the spectrum, happiness, gratefulness, joy, relief, comfort, and contentment are also emotional pieces we feel at times as we go throughout our lives. True happiness and emotional freedom are what all mankind strives for!

Although self-care is an important concept, many of us fall short in taking care of ourselves. Just as we take care of other aspects of our lives, our physical and emotional health must also take a front-seat priority. The consequences of failing to care for ourselves include a diminished immune system and other health issues.

Self-Love Meditation: How To Truly Love Yourself HERE…

Mindfulness and meditation, in general, can help you handle your emotions, achieve lower stress levels, feel happier, and enjoy peace and satisfaction with your life.

Psychologists, counselors, and therapists the world over have recognized the power that mindfulness and meditation can bring to our lives if we choose it. Luckily, anyone can harness the benefits of mindfulness with regular practice.

“You have considerable power to construct self-helping thoughts, feelings, and actions as well as to construct self-defeating behaviors. You have the ability, if you use it, to choose healthy instead of unhealthy thinking, feeling and acting.” – Albert Ellis

What is Mindfulness Meditation?

It may surprise you to learn that the origins of mindfulness and meditation reach back thousands of years. Meditation was developed by Buddhist monks who turned meditation into a spiritual element of their “enlightenment.”

What do you think of when someone mentions meditation? Do images of religious monks sitting in circles and chanting “oh hmm” form in your head? Perhaps you’re a little skeptical of meditation and feel that it would take you hours each day in trying to get the technique right. Well, think again!

Mindfulness and Meditation – What It Is Not:

  • Spending time thinking about the world and all the wonders in it
  • Contemplating the great, deep mysteries of life
  • Some magical practice thought to bring good luck to your life
  • A spiritual practice reserved only for those in highest connection to their Creator
  • Daydreaming or fantasizing about what your perfect life looks like

Yes, mindfulness and meditation in the modern world may have some of these mythical connotations, but mindfulness is actually much simpler.

In simple terms, mindfulness and meditation are ways to achieve a calmer state of mind. Mindfulness is essentially a subform of meditation.

Although mindfulness and meditation originated with non-western practitioners ages ago, it’s cultivated and studied by scientists, psychologists, and doctors all over the world today.

How Do We Define Mindfulness?

In order to achieve the inner peace that mindfulness can bring us, it’s important to consider what the practice of mindfulness actually is.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, who is largely credited with bringing the popularity of mindfulness to the United States and refining it through his renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, defines mindfulness like this:

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.”

Chinese calligraphy for mindfulness

The Chinese calligraphy for mindfulness is made up of two different characters.

The top character means “presence” and the bottom one means “heart.”

Therefore, mindfulness literally means “the presence of heart.”

The ideogram (also known as an ideograph) opposite is a beautiful piece of calligraphy created by the esteemed Japanese-born calligrapher and writer Kazuaki Tanahashi (to whom acknowledgment is made and gratitude expressed).

Mindfulness is experiencing and focusing on the present moment.

Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we’re always focused on things and events of the future.

For example, we’re constantly looking forward to the last day of the workweek while we’re at work, and what our weekend plans will bring. We look forward to our summer vacations. We look forward to the holidays. We look forward to our birthdays. We look forward to the end of the day when we get to crawl into bed.

Mindfulness Activities For Better ProductivityHERE…

In this sense, we’re never truly focused on the present moment, which is the purpose that mindfulness and meditation teach us. Mindfulness is a way to focus on the present moment, to create awareness, an acute, keen and specific consciousness of ourselves and to center ourselves right now in the present, not sometime in the future.

“The best way to capture moments is to pay attention to. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

The Case for Mindfulness

Doctors and other experts are always coming out and telling us the next best thing since sliced bread that is supposed to benefit us in some way. Examples include dark chocolate being good for overall heart health, small amounts of wine reducing risks for heart disease and diabetes, and coconut oil boosting the immune system.

The same is true for the practice of mindfulness and meditation. Mindfulness has been studied and shown to have huge benefits for your overall health.

The difference is that you’re not putting anything into your body with meditation. Coconut oil, dark chocolate, and wine are substances that you ingest to strengthen your physical health.

On the other hand, mindfulness meditation is a behavior shift that uses nothing more than the sole power of your focus and attention.

Empirical, measurable data has come forth showing that mindfulness and meditation can help to lower stress and physically help the body than many other things put together.

Understanding the Term Meditation and Its Many Benefits

For example, Carnegie Mellon University researchers worked with two groups of individuals. The researchers subjected the first group to just three 25-minute mindfulness training sessions, while the second group was a control and were trained in critical thinking skills.

During this study at Carnegie Mellon, both groups were then subjected to a public speaking test and a math test. Stress levels were measured in each group. The group which was trained in mindfulness experienced lower perceived levels of stress than did the other group.

Consider, too, these other research-backed benefits of practicing mindfulness and meditation:

  1. Lowers depression. Several research studies, including one published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 2010, show that mindfulness meditation is just as effective as someone taking antidepressant medication.
  2. It helps our focus. Research has shown that the regular practice of mindfulness, or even receiving training in mindfulness, can help strengthen our attention, memory, and can also help us tune out distractions.
  3. Increases compassion and empathy for others. Researchers at Northeastern University conducted a study where participants who had been exposed to mindfulness training and meditation sessions were significantly more likely to help someone in need over those who received no such exposure to meditation.
  4. It creates positive changes in brain structure. Researchers imaged the brains of 16 different people before and after they received training in Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress-Reduction program. Findings revealed that the portion of gray matter in the brain involved with the regulation of positive emotions was greatly enhanced.
  5. More benefits. Numerous other studies have been performed that show that mindfulness meditation also enhances our physical health, lowers stress levels, eases anxiety, enhances relationships, and provides a powerful boost to our overall mood.

As you see, research shows that mindfulness and meditation packs a powerhouse of physical, mental, and emotional benefits. And they’re all available to you, for free! Let’s see how you can harness these benefits for yourself…

“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” – Amit Ray

Step-by-Step Guide to Mindfulness Meditation Script

Practicing mindfulness meditation does take time, effort, and patience. However, the advantages that you receive from this practice are certainly worth it.

You don’t need to practice mindfulness on an Olympic-level.

You can achieve results with as little as 20 to 30 minutes per day.

Follow these easy steps to practice mindfulness meditation:

  1. Start out in a quiet place. For mindfulness or any form of meditation, you can practice anywhere at any time. However, the easiest place is a quiet one, free from any distractions.
    • Some places that you may be able to practice include in your car, at home, or even at work if you have a private office atmosphere.
  1. Get comfortable. Many people sit in a lotus-style type of position, in which you sit cross-legged with the feet resting on the opposing thighs. This is not necessary, however.
    • You can sit cross-legged with your feet resting underneath your knees. Feel free to sit in a desk chair, on the floor, or any seat where you can get comfortable for a few minutes.
  1. Breathe. Close your eyes and take several slow breaths, focusing on inhaling and exhaling deeply. Do this several times.
    • You’ll become more relaxed as your muscles and cells receive more oxygen and your mind slows down.
    • Continue paying attention to the air that’s coming in and going out.
  1. Notice physical sensations. As you focus on the air you take in and let out, also notice the sensations throughout your body.
    • Pay attention to the weight of your body in your seat, noticing whether you’re perhaps leaning further to the right or to the left. Pay attention to your body’s temperature — so you feel warm, cool, or in the middle?
  1. Pay attention to the noises around you. Just let the noises be and notice their presence.
    • Whether it’s the whistling of the fan, the hum of the air conditioner or heater, or the chatter of people’s voices outside, just notice that these sounds are also present during your meditation.
  1. Notice when your mind wanders. It’s perfectly normal — especially for beginners — to wander off in thought, thinking about this, that, or another thing that pops into your mind.
    • When your mind wanders, just quietly bring your attention and awareness back to your breath, noticing the air slowly going in and going out.
  1. End your mindfulness session when you’re ready. Slowly open your eyes. Stretch. What do you feel at this moment in time? Are you more relaxed, calmer, or more focused?

When you first start mindfulness meditation, you’ll most likely find it difficult, if not impossible, to keep your mind from wandering. However, as you get more practice, it becomes easier to clear your mind and focus on your breath.

5-Minute Mindfulness Body Scan Meditation Mp3 & Download

The key is to practice it consistently.

Benefits of a Mindfulness Meditation Script

When we use a mindfulness meditation script for ourselves, there are countless benefits to this type of practice. Unlike silent meditation, using mindfulness meditation script actively prompts us to continually refocus our attention on the present moment and on our direct experience of mindfulness and meditation practice. This continual refocusing enhances the inner journey, which helps us to heighten the benefits of our daily mindfulness meditation practice.

If you are reading a mindfulness meditation script for your own personal practice, this type of mindfulness exploration can help you to quietly and calmly tune into the world within at your own pace. We typically turn to audio recordings for our mindfulness practice.

While such recordings are incredibly beneficial at facilitating our sense of personal awareness, reading scripts provide an added challenge of concentration, commitment, and focus. Reading a mindfulness meditation script and then moving through the exercises provided allows us to move at our own pace.

This allows us to sit for as long or as little as suits our needs at any given moment. We enhance our ability to sit with silence and with the vast openness of our awareness when we practice this way.

Mindfulness Meditation Script

Three Mindful Breaths Meditation

A Short Mindfulness Meditation Script

Let’s begin by taking a moment to settle your body into a comfortable position. You can close your eyes or keep them slightly open with a soft-focus looking downward a few feet in front of you.

Allow your spine to lift and your shoulders to soften.

Today we will practice three mindful breaths.

Begin by taking a slow gentle inhale breath, resting your attention on the sensation of the air passing over your nostrils and filling your chest and abdomen.

Notice as the inhale ends and shifts back through a slow gentle exhale. Notice the sensations in the body as the air passes back out.

Rest for a moment and begin again. Take a long, slow inhale directing your attention to the sensation of air as you breathe in and long slow exhale noticing sensations. Once again resting at the end of the exhale and continuing through one more breathe, in and out.

End Of Mindfulness Meditation Script

Daily Integrated Mindfulness and Meditation Practice: Before eating your next meal today, complete another ‘Three Mindful Breaths’ practice.

Mindfulness and Meditation Practice Reflection Question: What impact do you notice when you stop and take three mindful breaths?

A daily mindfulness and meditation practice will help us to quiet the mind, naturally encouraging us to relate to the world through our intuition and through our direct senses. It empowers us to enhance our lives in healthy ways, so the benefits of such practices are infinite.

A mindfulness meditation script provides a framework for this honest inner exploration, setting the stage for personal and powerful insights to arise authentically and with impact within our personal world.

“Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn’t more complicated than that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.” – Sylvia Boorstein

Making Mindfulness a Habit

As a science, researchers study mindfulness and meditation in order to discover answers to the questions they have about the benefits of mindfulness. As a way of living, mindfulness is just that: being mindful and living in the present.

As a practice, cultivating mindfulness requires training. Any type of training requires dedication and practice. Practicing requires that you devote your time and attention to the matter.

If one is to make mindfulness a habit, therefore, it requires time, attention, and training.

Avoid making excuses for your failure to cultivate mindfulness; it is easy to fall into this trap.

There are many who give meditation or mindfulness a one-off try and then decide that the amount of time they attempted to practice mindfulness was simply not worth it because they didn’t see any immediate benefits to it.

There are others who sincerely want to make a change in their life and decide to practice mindfulness, only to give up a few days later because “it’s too hard” or they “don’t have enough time.” That is, they make excuses for why mindfulness doesn’t work for them.

There are still others who want to change the story they have in their heads about who they are, what they can accomplish, and how they’re going to achieve the goals they have laid out in front of them.

These people realize that mindfulness and meditation can completely change their lives in exchange for only a few minutes each day. They can become healthier, less stressed, happier, more at peace with themselves and their situations and much less distracted as they accomplish what they set out to do.

Mindfulness Techniques

Prioritize Your Mindfulness Meditation & Take Action

A great psychologist and researcher, Albert Ellis, constructed a theory of cognitive thinking that said that individuals have power over their lives to choose healthy behaviors instead of negative, unhealthy ways of living.

To make mindfulness meditation a habit, consciously choose when you’re going to practice it and then do it:

  • Mornings. You might want to use early mornings as a way to refresh. Wake up and immediately use this time to practice mindfulness to recharge and get ready for the new day.
  • Evenings. Or perhaps you would prefer to set aside time before you go to sleep as a way to let go of all the negative thoughts and events throughout the day.
  • Lunchtime. You could even use your lunch hour as a way to not only catch a short break from work, but also to calm your nerves should you find that anything in the first half of the day has caused you to feel stressed, distracted, or depressed.

Regardless of the time of day you choose to practice mindfulness, it’s critical that you carve out time daily to devote your energy to creating a healthier you!

“Mindfulness isn’t difficult, we just need to remember to do it.” – Sharon Salzberg

Other Meditation Styles

While mindfulness and meditation have been empirically studied as well as promoted throughout the United States and other countries, there are certainly other styles and forms of meditation that you can practice.

Regardless of which type of meditation you choose, the number one issue of importance is its priority in your life and whether you make time to practice it.

Your Inner Self: 4 Easy Steps To Awaken With MeditationHERE…

Other types of meditation include:

    1. Mantra-based Meditation. This is a form of meditation that uses a specific phrase or sound, otherwise known as a “mantra.” While mindfulness focuses primarily on one’s breathing and bodily sensations, mantra meditation focuses on a repeated sound, chant, or phrase.
    2. Visualization Meditation. This type of meditation relies on specific imagery for a goal or accomplishment that you hope to achieve.
    • Visualization meditation is often used in sports and has been shown to enhance an athlete’s performance.
    • With visualization, your focus is on your desired outcome. You imagine a detailed picture of what the outcome looks like, feels like, and smells, sounds, or tastes like.
    1. Moving Meditation. Some people prefer this type of meditation because it requires exercise, such as walking. Moving meditation is actually a yoga practice combined with mindfulness.
    • Sometimes called “Breathwalk,” this technique encourages you to synchronize your breath with your footsteps, while still focusing on bodily awareness and sensations like breathing.
    1. Body Scanning Meditation. This meditation involves bringing awareness first to one specific part of the body and then moving on to others.
    • For example, you focus on the physical sensations, stress, or tension in your left arm and then intentionally release all tension in that area. Repeat with your right arm, and then with other areas of the body until fully relaxed.
  1. Several other types of Mindfulness Meditation. There are also a few other different kinds of mindfulness which you can practice when you focus on your breathing. These include mindfulness listening, mindful immersion, mindful observation, and mindful awareness.
    • These other forms of mindfulness meditation involve setting your attention to a specific thing or task and paying attention to the details.
    • For example, mindful immersion is a form of mindfulness where you immerse yourself fully into the task at hand, thereby creating an entirely new, unique, and fresh experience.

As you set out to create a routine for practicing mindfulness and meditation, choosing to mix up the style of meditation can be beneficial if you feel monotonous or bored at times. For example, perhaps in your first week, you can practice mindful listening while choosing to practice moving meditation in the second week.

“Meditation is to be aware of what is going on: in your body, in your feelings, in your mind, and in the world.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Take The Mindful 20/30 Challenge

As we go throughout our lives, there are literally thousands of decisions that we face each day. We’re challenged with decisions from the moment our alarm clock startles us awake until the time our minds drift off to sleep at the end of the day.

It is estimated that the average adult makes about 35,000 decisions in a single 24-hour period:

  • To hit snooze on the alarm clock or get up and start the morning
  • What to eat for breakfast and how many servings
  • What to wear: green or the blue shirt? What shoes match the outfit?
  • The decision to take the dog out for a short walk before leaving for work
  • Should you go into work or call in sick?
  • Whether we let a traffic or road rage incident dictate our mood for the day

On and on the decision wheel constantly spins. Yes, we’re faced with problems, tasks, drama, stress, workloads, good news, bad news, indifferent news, world news, and mass amounts of information. We’re bombarded with this data on a daily basis and we’re expected to know what to do with it.

Our senses, physical bodies, emotional health, and spirit routinely experience an information overload!

Living in the present, being mindful, and deliberately practicing mindfulness is one way in which we can tell our bodies and our whole selves to slow down.

Brainwave Entrainment: Achieve Deep Relaxation and Emotional Balance

With a warring of our inner selves telling us that we’re literally so busy that we don’t have time to slow down, each one of us must make the decision to challenge ourselves to stay true to ourselves and live in the present.

Practicing mindfulness is a purposeful way in which we can literally be free of distractions. However, making the decision to practice mindfulness is only the first step.

Making the commitment to mindfulness and meditation while resolving to incorporate mindfulness as a habit and daily routine takes effort. With a commitment and then a strong resolve to make it happen, you’ve almost won the battle to create a healthier self!

Taking The Challenge – The last step is to take action…

If you’re up for the task, challenge yourself to put mindfulness into practice for 20 minutes each day for 30 consecutive days.

Follow these steps:

  1. Set aside at least 20 minutes.
  2. Find a quiet space in which to meditate and experience the power of being mindful.
  3. Choose to practice mindfulness at the same time each day for these 30 days or choose different times of the day, but ensure you take the time for mindfulness each day.
  4. After the 30 days is over, reflect on how mindfulness has impacted, affected, or changed you.

Did you complete the challenge? If not, it’s okay – just try it again!

“Now is the future that you promised yourself last year, last month, last week. Now is the only moment you’ll ever really have. Mindfulness is about waking up to this.” – Mark Williams

Mindfulness Meditation Benefits

Researchers and scientists who have studied the effects of practicing mindfulness and meditation often deliberately choose people who haven’t had any exposure to mindfulness or meditation training.

This shows that, even with no prior training, a novice can reap the benefits of beginning mindfulness.

Some of these proven benefits include:

  • Lowering stress hormones in the body
  • Increase in energy
  • Increase in mental focus and stamina
  • Enhanced memory and attention
  • Boost to the immune system
  • A decrease in blood pressure and heart rate
  • Lower fatigue
  • Stronger brain functioning
  • More effective processing of emotions and pain
  • Increase in self-awareness
  • Increase in compassion and empathy towards others
  • Better sleep quality
  • Lower rates of depression

Even though it may be difficult to understand how sitting in a quiet space for a few minutes each day can impact our lives, mindfulness and meditation can completely change our perspective, outlook, physical, emotional, and behavioral health.

Unfortunately, some people mistakenly think that mindfulness is something “new-age” or something deeply spiritual that’s out of reach for the typical person. Fortunately, neither of these things is true.

Indeed, mindfulness is a practice just like many other things that we do to attempt to regain control of ourselves and create a healthier life.

With mounds of research at the helm, combined with a deliberate, purposeful action of making mindfulness a daily routine, you can transform the quality of your life.

You can practice mindful breathing, mindful listening, mindful observation or choose one of the many other forms of mindfulness and meditation. Channeling your focus and attention for just 10 to 30 minutes each day is enough to set you on the path to a healthier life.

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Mindful Leadership Made Easy To Become A Better Leader

Mindful Leadership

Mindful leadership is a capacity that emerges when you learn to pay attention, openly and with curiosity, to what goes on in yourself, your team, in your immediate environment, in the organizational environment, and in the world around you.

Great leaders come in many different varieties, but mindfulness in business is one quality they have in common. Mindful management, contemplation, and compassion can make you and your team happier and more successful.

Mindful leaders do not let all the constant distractions interfere with their ability to prioritize what issues are most important and will receive their full attention. Mindfulness in the workplace will help you to engage more in conversations and come away from the distractions that occur during the day.

That’s why many major corporations are employing mindful leadership training for their employees and leaders to learn how to be more mindful. For example, Aetna says their mindful management training increased productivity by one hour a week and decreased medical claims by $9 million a year.

Discover the benefits of mindful leadership and greater consciousness for yourself. Try these suggestions for developing your own mindful style of leadership.

Are you looking to become more productive? More efficient and focused? Come and find out the power behind mindfulness.

As a leader, it is becoming critical to be able to become more aware and present – especially in our multi-tasking society. Come and learn the science and benefits behind mindfulness, multiple ways to practice becoming more mindful, and a couple of tools to take back home with you. This is an introduction to mindfulness for leaders that you won’t want to miss. Georgetown University Alumni Career Services

Developing Mindfulness In The Workplace

In mindful leadership training, you’ll need to focus on your inner self before you can change your external behavior.

Mindful management practices and training in mindful leadership will help you to lead by example:

1. Meditate daily. Put aside time each day to sit quietly. Focus on the here and now. Observe your thoughts without making judgments. Start out with brief sessions and extend your time as your concentration grows.

2. Breathe deeply. Pay attention to your breath. With each inhalation, draw energy into your body. With each exhalation, release stress.

3. Scan your body. Search your body from head to toe to find any areas of tension. Unclench your jaw and smooth your brow. Lift your chest and lower your shoulders.

4. Slow down. Create opportunities to encourage mindfulness throughout the day. Catch yourself when you’re starting to rush around. Pause and make your movements more deliberate. Think about the purpose of each activity.

5. Adjust your routines. Make ordinary tasks part of your practice. Chant while you vacuum or put on your clothes. Turn your attention inwards when you’re stuck in traffic or waiting for the coffee to brew.

6. Seek instruction in mindful leadership training. Look for mindful leadership training and meditation teachings online or in your neighborhood. Community centers and yoga studios may offer introductory sessions for free or at a very low cost.

Leading The Way With Mindful Leadership

If you like what mindful management in the workplace does for you, share your mindful leadership training with others. Lead with inspiration and integrity. As you strengthen your communication and decision-making skills, you’ll be able to reach your potential and help others to do the same.

Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader | Marc Lesser | Talks at Google

Marc Lesser, the co-founder of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI), has come to Talks at Google to share all of his insights, tips, and tricks on maximizing your impact, leadership, and effectiveness.

In this talk, you’ll learn about the distillation of a lifetime of business experience into seven simple, powerful practices for optimizing mindful leadership at work and living a full and meaningful life outside of it. Marc Lesser is CEO, executive coach, and author with more than 25 years of experience supporting leaders to reach their full potential, as business executives and thriving human beings.

Adopt these mindful leadership training habits:

1. Listen closely. Give your colleagues your full attention during meetings and casual interactions. Make eye contact and ask relevant questions. Show that you are interested in what they have to say.

2. Take breaks. Downtime prevents burnout and increases productivity. Design a quiet space where employees can go to relax and refresh.

3. Care for yourself. Mindful leadership balances self-care and serving others. Exercise regularly, eat a balanced diet and make sleep a priority. Healthy lifestyle habits will keep you strong and resilient.

4. Promote wellness. Consider starting a formal wellness program if your company doesn’t have one already. There are many ways to include mindfulness in business, from posting meditation resources on your website to observing a moment of silence before each meeting.

5. Encourage cooperation. An organizational culture steeped in mindfulness facilitates collaboration and connection. Create a shared vision and work together towards common goals.

6. Reward innovation. Have the courage to think creatively. Keep employees informed and engaged so they’ll feel more comfortable discussing new ideas and experimenting with change.

7. Continue learning. Whatever stage you’re at in your career, hold on to a beginner’s mind. Spend time doing research in mindful management and taking mindful leadership training courses. Be open to different perspectives and constructive feedback.

8. Provide reminders. Daily business needs and frequent interruptions can make it easy to lose track of mindfulness. Create triggers that will help bring you and your team back into the present moment. You might hang posters in the break room and program an hourly reminder on your phone.

Use the principles of mindful management to achieve work-life balance using mindfulness techniques.

Work plays an important role in our lives. As adults, we tend to spend the majority of our time at our jobs. And not just time, but our precious mind space too. Some of us get so caught up in our work that we miss out on cherishing the little things in our personal sphere.

How can we ensure that our time, energy, and attention is used in a balanced and effective manner? What is the best way to support ourselves in creating an effective work-life balance?

Mindful leadership training in business and meditation are known to provide the most sustainable support for balancing work and the other things in our life.

Try these strategies to use mindful management to help you achieve a healthy work-life balance:

1. Cultivate calmness and tranquility. In order to make wiser decisions and work smarter instead of harder, it’s important to be calm and composed. This quality can be cultivated through a simple practice of meditation.

At least 15 minutes of meditation practice, if performed consistently, can make a significant difference in the way we do things at our homes and offices. Being calm enables us to obtain confidence and to develop trust within ourselves, others, and the world in general. This powerful resource serves us in making better choices about how we spend our time, energy, and attention, leading to better work-life balance.

What makes you lose your calm? What kind of consequences are you facing when you make decisions that are rushed and made under the influence of stress? What can you do to cultivate more inner peace at work? And at your home?

2. Become a master of your mind. We tend to pay more attention to taking care of our bodies than our minds. In fact, we often take our minds for granted. The result is that we end up living a life where the mind is in control of our lives instead of the other way around.

What we experience as life is basically just a creation of our minds. Even though it may seem that our destiny depends on external circumstances, the truth is that the way we perceive those circumstances determines our experience.

Being a master of your mind allows you to create your own desirable circumstances and to place them into a balance that works for you. Mind mastery can be achieved through a daily mindfulness and meditation practice, which costs nothing except some time and dedication.

3. Observe and express your needs. A significant part of our frustration, stress, and suffering in life comes from our unmet needs. When we work too much, or too little, we can end up neglecting our wellbeing. Greater awareness of our needs brings a better balance and more satisfaction in our lives.

What unmet needs do you experience at your workplace? What can you do about meeting them? What is your current state of wellbeing from 1-10 (1 being poor. 10 excellent)? What can you do to make it a 10?

When you’re balanced and can meet the needs of your body, mind, and spirit, your energy levels rise and vitality increases, so you can start living in tune with your values, principles, and purpose.

4. Respond instead of reacting. The highest level of mastery in mindful management and mindful leadership can be seen as an ability to respond instead of reacting.

There’s a huge difference between the two. Reacting is like being on autopilot, letting your emotions control what you say or do next. Responding, on the other hand, presents a conscious, calm, and constructive action that promotes resolutions of conflicts.

To respond means to be in control of your own thoughts and behaviors. It helps you to be in charge of your life and supports you to set and stick to your priorities, such as a healthy work-life balance.

An ability to respond requires you to be present at the moment as much as possible. There are many online mindful leadership training resources on mindfulness in the workplace and meditation that can support you in embracing the power of now.

5. Save some time for self-care. Our work, friends, partners, and kids all need our care, energy, and attention. But where does this energy come from? How can we keep on giving?

If you want to be there for others in a healthy and sustainable way, it’s crucial for you to save some time for self-care: to slow down, relax, and engage in pleasurable activities that renew your energy and restore your spirit.

Self-care is never a selfish act – it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give the care it requires, we do it not only for ourselves but for the many others whose lives we touch. 

Caring about your wellbeing and incorporating a few of these mindful ideas can support you in achieving greater levels of harmony in your personal and professional life. Which one will you try first?

The Need for Mindful Leadership

Why the World Needs Mindful Leaders | Matt Thieleman | TEDxWilsonPark

We find ourselves today in a world of always-on change, fueled by technology. Yet our common humanity remains a constant. To thrive in a changing world, we need mindful leaders, who can connect with others, and remain calm and focused while dealing with complexity and ambiguity around them. Matt will tell you he started meditating before he even knew what it was, and he thanks the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the inspiration.

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself? The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, she is present and can welcome all things. — Lao Tzu

There is a new normal of mindful leadership training for mindful management in business for managers, and staff. Increasingly, we have a short-term focus. We have less time for ourselves and less time for reflection. Demands are increasing while budgets are shrinking. And our organizations do not typically emphasize renewal.

Instead of encouraging the practices of mind, body, heart, and behavior that support renewal, our organizations unknowingly reward behaviors designed to deplete rather than replenish our resources, leading to dissonant, the opposite of resonant, leadership.

Mindfulness in business, while it may seem even harder to practice under such conditions, is more important than ever for mindful leadership training effectiveness. Most of us have what the Buddhists call “monkey mind” most of the time. That is, our thoughts are like monkeys, leaping from tree to tree, chattering wildly and distracting us from what we are doing.

Managing our attention in the modern environment of excessive distraction and information overload is critical to our health and happiness. Psychologist Ellen Langer asserts that mindful management and mindful leadership training in the workplace  can “increase our flexibility, productivity, innovation, leadership ability, and satisfaction.”

What Is Mindfulness?

The concept of mindfulness comes from Buddhism, and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has written about it
extensively. It is a technique that has been employed to successfully reduce stress and promote healing, most conspicuously by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn in his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

“Mindfulness is the process of deliberately paying attention to the present moment in a nonjudgmental way,” says Kabat-Zinn.

Adam Mentzell is the director of human resources for the audio publishing company Sounds True. He defines mindfulness as “the art of paying attention and seeing things in a fresh and nonhabitual manner.”

Mindful management in business not only helps us focus our attention, but may open us to possibilities and lead to better decision making. “According to Langer, mindfulness is a habitual state of mind in which old schemas are continually re-examined and redefined. Mindfulness includes openness to multiple points of view and a focus on process rather than the outcome.”

The Dangers Of Mindful Leadership

One of the dangers in leadership is a strong identification with a particular vision for an organization or one’s own point of view, leading to a sort of tunnel vision in which other perspectives and possibilities are not considered.

Why Mindful Leadership Is Essential For Success In Business

Mindfulness speaker and author Matt Tenney makes an inspiring case for why mindfulness is essential for success in leadership and business in this keynote speech. Matt helps leaders learn how to rewire their brains for better decision making, emotional intelligence, and happiness without adding anything to their schedules.

Schwenk warns, “Mindless identification may cause managers to think too narrowly about business problems and to focus only on information and solutions that do not threaten their image of the business. When strongly identified individuals face decisions, they won’t think about the decision from the perspective of multiple identities.”

Mindful leadership may expand a leader’s perceptions and lead to authenticity. “Deep knowledge about yourself enables you to be consistent, to present yourself authentically, as you are. We trust — and follow — people who are real, who are consistent, whose behavior, values, and beliefs are aligned.

We trust people whom we do not constantly have to second-guess … Through the purposeful, conscious direction of our attention, we are able to see things that might normally pass right by us, giving us access to deeper insight, wisdom, and choices.”

Clawson says, “When your center is clear and focused, you are more likely to have a powerful influence on others.” It is significant that in his list of six steps to effective leadership, “clarifying your center” is number one.  Mindfulness in the workplace can also help ensure that leaders are taking responsibility for their own contribution to organizational difficulties.

“In high-pressure situations…many people point outward: They find reasons for their problems outside of themselves. They blame others or the situation and they look for excuses. Good leaders point inward. They take personal responsibility for what is happening and what needs to be done, even when circumstances play a definitive role….” Boyatzis and McKee suggest that leaders ask themselves, “What is my part in creating this situation and what do I, personally need to do about it?”

David Lee urges, “If you’re serious about improving your ability to motivate and engage your employees if you’re interested in making it safe for people to speak honestly and openly, practice cultivating mindfulness.”

Langer sums up mindful leadership this way: “Mindfulness in business is attunement to today’s demands to avoid tomorrow’s difficulties.”

Getting Started by Stopping

Mindful management is more about being in touch with who you already are than about improving yourself, according to Brusman. “You’re developing a profound sense of honesty — the strongest foundation for genuine leadership, which creates authenticity in your efforts to lead others.”

Boyatzis and McKee say that mindful leaders often feel power stress, which means “subordinating everything to your own wants and needs. Compassion involves understanding others and acting to address their needs … For the leader feeling the effects of power stress, the place to start is by courageously asking a few basic questions: What am I doing here? What am I out to accomplish? Is this what I want in life? Am I being true to myself? Am I happy?”

McKee and Massimilian agree: “For many leaders, simply stopping to ask the question, ‘How am I, really?’ is in and of itself a kind of breakthrough, a detour from the path of frantically reacting.”

When problems arise in mindful management, leaders may be accustomed to moving quickly to solutions. But Heider suggests another approach. “When you are puzzled by what you see or hear, do not strive to figure things out. Stand back for a moment and become calm … push less, open out, and be aware. See without staring. Listen quietly rather than listening hard. Use intuition and reflection rather than trying to figure things out.”

A helpful acronym for mindful leadership practice is S-T-O-P, that is, Stop what you are doing, Take a conscious breath, Observe your bodily sensations, and then Proceed with whatever you were doing.

This spacious and mindful leadership training approach can actually facilitate organizational health. Tulku says, “When we recognize the quality of our feelings and emotions and come to see clearly the results of our actions, we discover that our very lack of awareness has contributed to our problems …

By working on ourselves through mindful leadership training, and by coming to know ourselves better, and then by sharing our growing strength with others, we create a base of support that helps to make our lives, and the world, a better place to be.”

Something we were withholding made us weak Until we found out that it was ourselves. — Robert Frost

How Mindfulness Can Enhance Mindful Leadership Qualities

While the concepts of meditation and mindfulness in the workplace are no longer new to the West, the notion of mindful leadership training emerged only recently. By exploring how mindful management is achieved through the practice of meditation, can enhance leadership qualities, as summarized from several Western theories as well as Buddhist principles.

Qualitative interviews with business leaders as well as discussions with monks reveal that only a few factors are underlying the enhancement of all mindful management leadership qualities. Strong connections between Buddhist teachings and psychodynamic concepts in the clinical paradigm were also found.

Mindful Leadership, Finding the Space to Lead: Janice Marturano

Talk by Janice Marturano, Institute for Mindful Leadership, at Wisdom 2.0 Business 2013. www.wisdom2conference.com.

Mindfulness and leadership

The term “Mindful Leadership” is gaining ground in the West and there are a number of recent studies on this subject. Bill George (2010, 2012), who is one of the major advocates of this subject, argues that the practice of mindful leadership training in business and leadership teaches leaders to pay attention to the present moment, recognizing their feelings and emotions, and keeping them under control. He further suggests that among several ways to practice mindfulness, meditation is the most introspective way.

A different angle of the study was taken by Dunoon and Langer, who looked at the dynamic quality of mindful management toward leadership (2011). They argue that mindfulness in the workplace enables leaders to see new or different things in a particular context, whether in the external environment or in their own reactions.

They listed three aspects of mindfulness in business and used them as lenses to consider mindful leadership training while focusing on actions to make headway with contentious problems.

The first is the alertness to multiple perspectives which allows leaders to notice without immediately judging.

The second is the active self-reappraisal which prepares leaders to step out of a particular framing and take a second look at their own thinking.

The third is the attentiveness to the use of language, e.g., use descriptive rather than judgmental languages, as well as conditional rather than absolute languages.

Note that the above studies did not specifically study how mindfulness in business can enhance leadership qualities at a more detailed level beyond self-awareness.

Mindful leadership emerges from regular practice. Practicing mindful management in the workplace will enable you to cope with the tough job of being a leader. It will help you to focus, collaborate better, and deal with challenging situations easier.

Mindful leadership is the key to turn your team from good to unstoppable. Additionally, mindful leadership training is a great way to control the long-term effects of stress on your mental, emotional, and physical health which team leadership can cause.

By using these Mindful Leadership strategies at home and the workplace, you will not only improve your ability to impact the world by effectively managing your business and the people that make your business successful.

You will also model something essential to your entire work organization: the deeply mindful environment and an effective interconnected relationship on all levels of management between caring for one’s wellbeing and growing a wildly successful organization. To your mindful leadership success!