Mindfulness basically means nothing but attention. For the present, for all that is there – without wanting to change it. But that can be difficult, especially when we’re not feeling well. Then (negative) thoughts lead a busy life of their own, we are stuck in the past or digress into the future, chewing through events that could possibly happen once. And then we blame ourselves for having thought too much again.
Thoughts and feelings come and go. That’s natural. We only get into the notorious brooding carousel when we mentally block something or evaluate it too strongly. Often, it is not the actual things that trigger certain emotions in us, but what we think about these things.
By daring to allow unpleasantness, without evaluating, pondering or distracting, the stress level decreases. Meditation helps a lot in such situations.
Even with children, everything in the head sometimes goes haywire. Stress and performance make the whole thing worse. Thinking is basically nothing bad. On the contrary, it can even trigger happiness – z. For example, when we solve a problem, make someone happy, or learn something new.
Mindfulness can be trained
Mindfulness exercises help. They help parents and children to become masters of their own world of thoughts, to feel body, senses, needs and feelings, to let stress pass, …
To go through life more carefully, however, requires a certain continuity and practice (not for nothing, there are now mindfulness trainers). The longer parents and children stay on the ball, the more successes will be noticeable.
What benefits does mindfulness have?
Meditation helps us to become aware of our mental processes, freeing ourselves and making the mind stop dominating us.
In addition, it has numerous benefits, such as a reduction in stress levels, structural changes in our brain, increasing gray matter, improving our cognitive capacities such as working memory, verbal reasoning, and stimulating creativity.
It also protects us from mental illness, gives us a broader view of reality, prevents physical somatic illness, calms pain, helps us sleep better and makes us happier and more compassionate.
1. Mindfulness exercise: walking meditation
You always have to go somewhere. You can use this time to calm your mind, focus and strengthen yourself. Walking is an automated movement that is usually careless and busy with other things. Thinking, pondering, talking, eating – all that and much more can be done while walking. Walking meditation deliberately seeks to step out of this automatism and focus on the present moment and the activities of walking. You then perceive when your feet are touching the ground, where there is pressure, which muscles are going to relax and when, how the flowing movement of walking feels, what pace you are walking. This often makes walking slower automatically, breathing deeper, movements softer. So centered, you can no longer lose yourself in worrying thoughts about the past or the future. Everywhere you can create an inner space that makes it possible to get back into your midst. The path becomes the destination. It is a liberating feeling not to run after anything, but to relax into every single step.
2. Mindfulness Exercise: Breathing Meditation
Allow 10 to 20 minutes for this exercise. Seats upright and relaxed, eyes open or closed. Pay attention to your breath with a friendly attitude. Become aware of your breath without somehow controlling or manipulating the breath. Just let the breath come and go. Then discover the different aspects of breathing. Find out where the breath is most noticeable. Watch your chest as it raises and lowers. Feel how your stomach expands and contracts. Notice how the air enters the nostrils. Follow the breath carefully and stay in place. You can also take a full breath – from the nose entrance, throat down to the lungs and back again. The breath will change over time. He gets longer, be shorter. Feel this change.
As soon as you notice that the thoughts are wandering from the breath, let the thoughts drift and return lovingly and kindly to the observation of the breath. That will and may happen. When you finish this exercise, it is important not to put off the feeling of mindfulness immediately, but to hold it up a bit. So you can take it into the day.
3. Mindfulness Exercise: Pause
A nice way to return to mindfulness in a busy day is to be between work in the office, at home, and with children. It only takes a minute, but of course, it can be done longer. For some people it’s a luxury they can’t afford so they turn to college paper writing service to save some time for themselves.
You sit down or stand, connect with your breath for a few breaths, watch as it flows in and out of you. Then you turn your attention to the body. You can focus on the places that are being felt, or you can perceive the body as a whole. This strengthens the ego perception immensely. Finally, you still connect with your feelings and go to the questions: Who am I at this moment? How am I? Do it without judging, just watch lovingly.
4. Mindfulness Exercise: Mindfulness of eating
Take the first five bites of your meal consciously and carefully at least once a day. Feel into you first. Are you hungry or hungry? In what mood do you sit down at the table? Look at the food. How is it composed? Where do the ingredients come from? What does the food look like? Then take a bite to your mouth. Can you smell aromas and spices? Which sensations are triggered with you? Take the bite in your mouth. How does the food feel? What is the consistency? Start chewing now, but chew slowly. How does that feel when the food is crushed? How does it taste? When do you decide to swallow? What is happening, after you have swallowed the bite? Can you now perceive new signals – for example, how the body feels or whether the feelings change? Allow all sensations, whether pleasant or unpleasant. Just take it true.
5. Mindfulness Exercise: Gratitude
You can do this exercise every night. Before going to sleep, you go through the day, let rise, what has moved you. The focus is on the beautiful experiences, ie on things, people and situations for which you feel gratitude. To make it even better anchored, it makes sense to create a diary and note down the three things you were most thankful for on that day. It is important to connect with this feeling. Only if it remains in the perception for at least 20 seconds, it has a positive effect, which is also measurable in the brain.
A variant of this mindfulness exercise for the day is to put a handful of beans in your left trouser pocket in the morning and stick a bean from the left into the right trouser pocket with very good experience. This also increases the awareness of the good things that happen to you.
