4 Quick Mindfulness Techniques for Busy People
Today we are going to discuss 4 quick mindfulness techniques that you can use anytime you want to free up your mind from the unwanted stress caused by negative thoughts and emotions.
Mindfulness meditation has gained a lot of popularity in the past few years but people still have a lot of misconception about it. Contrary to what a lot of people believe, mindfulness is not a difficult thing that you will have to learn from a master, but it is something that you can practice on your own at your home without the need of any guidance.
Practicing mindfulness whenever you get time during the day has numerous benefits on your psychological as well as physical health. It can provide you with the peace of mind that is essential for the healthy functioning of your brain. A small break from the incessant flow of thoughts will enable you to gain more control over your thoughts and emotions so that you can work more efficiently.
Since it is not possible for everyone to sit and meditate for hours, here I am going to give you 4 quick mindfulness exercises that you can use anywhere anytime.
1 – Mindfulness Eating
Eating is something that most people do absent-mindedly, the busy life has made all of us to quickly eat our food without giving much attention to it or we prefer to watch television while having our meals.
Your mealtime is something that you can use for practicing mindfulness and since it is what we do very often throughout our day, it also gives us the opportunity to make mindfulness a habit.
Mindfulness eating is something that I learned a long time ago while attending a meditational retreat and since then I have used it very often to bring my mind into the present moment.
Here are the steps to do this:-
1. Look at what you are eating attentively, watch the color of your food and observe it without commenting about it in your mind.
2. Now, observe how the food smells and also watch how you feel about whatever you are eating.
3. When you eat, be attentive to the various flavors of your food, chew it properly while enjoying the taste. You can also close your eyes if you want to.
I remember that my meditation instructor made me guess the fruit I was eating (with my eyes closed) while he asked various questions about how the food smells, how it tastes, how it makes me feel, etc.
2 – Mindfulness Listening
This is something that you can choose to do whenever you want. You can do it while having a conversation with someone, while listening to your favorite music or you can simply observe various sounds in your surroundings.
We are always pre-occupied with the thoughts about various things related to our lives, the voice inside our head hardly lets us concentrate towards what we are trying to listen. Most of the times when we are having a conversation with someone, we are either making judgments about what the other person is saying or we are trying to come up with an answer even before they have finished talking.
Steps to be a mindful listener:-
1. Listen to the song, the other person or the sounds from your surroundings without labeling or judging what you hear.
2. Be totally unbiased and curious like a child. Think as if what you are listening is the most important thing in your life.
3. If the thoughts come, observe them without getting involved in it.
4. While you are focusing on the sounds, be aware of how it is making you feel. If any strong emotion comes up then become aware of that as well.
3 – The Power Pause Technique
This is a method that I have read from a book written by John Haricharan, I have also created a post on the power pause technique before and here I will be giving you a brief idea about it. This method is partially based upon mindfulness but it is so effective that I had to put it on this list. You can use it during the situations where you are overwhelmed with negative troublesome thoughts.
To do this, kindly follow these steps:-
1. Stop
Whenever you are having a lot of negative thoughts or emotions, the first and the most important step in this process is to break the flow of such thoughts. For doing this you will have to convince yourself that you can continue to think about the situation a few minutes later but let’s just take a short break.
2. Visualize
Once you have succeeded in temporarily shifting your focus from the negative thoughts, the next thing you have to do is to imagine a totally different life situation where you are happy. Keep in mind that you don’t have to visualize about the solution of your problem, just remember to keep your imagination totally unrelated to the present situation. All you have to do is to feel good while imagining something that makes you happy (you can also use music for doing this).
3. Gratitude
Once you have finished the visualization, use your happy feelings to express a heartfelt “thank you” to the universe. Express your gratitude with a strong faith in the power of the universe that it will solve your problems.
The power pause technique helps you to minimize the effect of the unfavorable situations upon you.
4 – Heart Energy Cleansing
This is a method that I have been using for a long time. It is something that I have been naturally doing after I learned the heart chakra meditation. It is a very simple method that helps you to work on your emotional reactions towards various life situations.
All you have to do is to focus towards your chest area (near the place where our heart is located) and feel the energy around this place whenever something causes a strong emotional disturbance in you. Sometimes this energy can also be felt around your head, it feels like a heavy feeling around your body. Just observe this feeling without trying to get rid of it, allow the thoughts and emotions that you are feeling to be as it is without getting immersed in it.
Doing this exercise more often will give you the power over the situations that were beyond your control previously.
These were some quick methods for you to practice mindfulness on your own. But if you feel that you are either very new to these techniques or you are too busy to be able to effectively perform them, then I strongly recommend you to use the program named “7 Minute Mindfulness” that guides you through short 7 minute mindfulness sessions that can help you to achieve the peace of mind even during a very busy day.
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