5 Mindfulness Exercises to Calm your Anxiety

5 Mindfulness Exercises to Calm your Anxiety

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“Mindfulness is about being fully awake in our lives. It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness of each moment. We also gain immediate access to our own powerful inner resources for insight, transformation, and healing.” –  Jon Kabat-Zinn

Life goes by incredibly fast. Like WAY too fast. And if we don’t stop to appreciate it once in awhile, it is going to pass us right by (I’m pretty sure there is a great movie quote about this — I’m usually so good at those).

Thriving is about being awake in our lives

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and according to Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is a way to get there. I don’t believe you can truly be thriving without taking in the beauty and amazingness of life. Even the ordinary in life needs to be noticed and appreciated.

But it requires that we step back for a moment and just be.

YOU DESERVE TO THRIVE!

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So I’m going to introduce you to some of my favorite mindfulness exercises that will help you just be.

That will increase your awareness of yourself, your feelings/thoughts, and your surroundings.

They will temporarily release you from any anxiety, negative feelings (positive feelings too! – sorry – but I promise it will help you feel those positive feelings stronger!), pressure from others, overwhelm, or anything that you might be feeling that may be bringing you down even if it is just for a moment.

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Note: I know I’m emphasizing the benefits of mindfulness on difficult emotions, but mindfulness exercises are beneficial at any moment. When you are feeling good, its great to practice mindfulness so that when you aren’t feeling so hot, you will have an easier time.  Mindfulness is a practice. It is something you can do every day. I advise introducing it into your routine during the day — some like to start the day off with a mindfulness or meditation and some like to end the day with it — so that you can deepen your practice and deepen your ability to focus on the present moment.

Ok, so without further adieu. Here they are:

1. Breath Awareness

The bread and butter of meditation. Breath awareness is solely about the breath and applying all your focus to the slow in and out as it moves through your body.  The breath awareness exercise is just as it sounds: you are just bringing your attention to your breath. How it feels. The way it moves in and out of your body. The life-giving energy that flows from it.

I recommend starting with a couple minutes so that you can get the hang of it, not overwhelm yourself, or cause anxiety because its hard and “you’re not doing it right.”  This isn’t about right. It is about creating a grounding practice for yourself that will calm and ease your anxiety. Your breath is always flowing. It is always there. So it is always something you can turn your attention to if life becomes a little too much. It is loyal and ever flowing.  

2. Progressive Breathing

This exercise builds off of breath awareness and expands your control over your breath. Whereas in the first exercise you were allowing your breath to just be and notice it, in this exercise you will be controlling the breath. This is helpful when your breathing becomes heavy or pressured, you are worried, anxious, or unsure, or you are simply needing your mind to calm the #@$& down!

You can alter this however works for you, but the basic principle of progressive breathing is following a simple pattern: breathe in, hold, breathe out…breathe in, hold, breathe out.  I recommend starting with just 1 second intervals to get the hang of it and as you begin to feel comfortable, you can add a second to each interval.  Continue to add seconds to the intervals (as you continue to feel comfortable) up to 10. This will seem impossible at the very beginning as you are manipulating your breath, but as you progress deeper you will find that your lungs expand and 10 seconds is very manageable. 

3. Body Scan

The body scan is one of the first mindfulness exercises I learned and fell in love right away. A body scan is pretty much what it sounds like, a mental scan of your body.

The body scan is about bringing your attention to each and every one of your body parts as you move from your toes to your head. I tend to move up one leg, move over to the next leg, and then up the body, starting with my big toe. You can do it anyway you like, put your own spin on it, or do it exactly how I do it, the most important thing is bringing your awareness to your body.

4. Alien Objects

Alien objects is one of my faves. It forces you to develop a completely new perspective on everyday objects.  It results in a gratitude for what is around you and allows you to notice more and be mindful throughout your day.

You can use any object you choose (the object I choose in the exercise is a cell phone, which ended up turning into an exercise on letting go of your phone – maybe that’s a sign I need to do that more!). You can even do it with food – called mindful eating.

Take the object you choose and imagine you have never seen it before. You have no idea what it is, only what your senses can perceive of it. No prior knowledge to its functions or why someone would want it. Notice how the object feels, its weight, its texture. Imagine that this is the first time you have ever held this object.  

5. Breathing Colors

Breathing colors is a modification of the breath awareness practice. It uses all the same principles of the practice, but it adds in a more visual piece by giving your breath a color.

You are imagining that your breath has a color, whichever color that you choose, and as it flows in and out of your body, you see that color. Imagine the color become bolder with each breath you give it.

I often have my clients choose in in-breath color and an out-breath color, but you could only choose one color.

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Mindfulness: It’s All the Rage these Days

Mindfulness: It’s All the Rage these Days

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Mindfulness is a huge buzz word these days.

Everyone is talking about it and how important mindfulness  can be for our mental health. It can also mean something different to everyone and there is no “one” way to practice mindfulness (which can be overwhelming, but also encouraging as well).

So what is mindfulness?

John Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as, ““The awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.”

I love that.

“Paying attention on purpose.”

That’s powerful stuff, because we often don’t. Seriously, we really don’t. Even if you think you are the master of paying attention, we miss so much when we are whizzing through life, when we are incessantly on our phones & social media, constantly in “communication” with others (I saw communication, not connection – there’s a key difference there), and always looking for the next “thing.”

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Mindfulness is being completely in the present moment.

To put it simply, just being.  Away from the noise of the outside world, your work, your kids, your partners, or technology. Just being with yourself in the present moment. Being with your senses. Noticing how you feel, what you smell, what you see, what’s going on inside of you. Bringing your attention and awareness to your body, how you move, how your muscles feel, how your breath flows in and out. You can be mindful of your emotions, mindful of others, mindful of your time, etc. It simply means that you are noticing. Noticing what is going on around you.

Mindfulness is about taking a non-judgmental stance on whatever is happening around you.

Thoughts are inevitably going to enter your mind, that’s ok, but taking a mindful approach towards them requires you to notice and observe without judgement.  In the mindful space, everything just is. It is ok. It is truth. It just is.

For example, during a mindfulness exercise, I may start thinking about the 100 things on my to-do list. I might begin listing the blog posts I need to write, the laundry that needs folding, the emails I need to respond to, the friend I need to text or call back, or mommy-daughter adventures I want to take.  All these thoughts are ok. I’m not going to get down on myself for thinking about important things I need to do during a mindfulness exercises when I’m “supposed to” be not thinking about anything.  No. These thoughts are ok, they are real, and they are my truth. But, I also have plenty of time to think about these things later. So, when thoughts pop into my mind, I acknowledge them (or else they will grow! and you will go on tangents like WOAH – I definitely know this from experience).  One way that I acknowledge them is by literally stating in my mind that I’m thinking. “I’m thinking about my to-do list right now” or “I’m thinking about my adorable little baby right now.” I also then tell myself that I have plenty of time to think about that later (maybe I already have a set time to think about my to-do list).

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Me thinking about my to-do list right now is not going to get anything crossed off, it won’t benefit me to add anything to the growing list, and it won’t do me any good to be constantly thinking about it.  Even though we think we are being productive, we’re not.  Mindfulness for that very moment is the most productive thing I can be doing right now.

There is a reason why they call mindfulness and meditation a “practice.”

It is because it takes work. Its not easy and mindless. Its something to work on each and every day and can always be improved. And I think that is something extremely important to remember. You will not be perfect. You will fail. I know that may turn off a lot of you, but I’ll say it again. You will fail. And that is OK. It is absolutely alright. And if you’re a perfectionist, this is a perfect thing for you to start doing that can ease your perfectionist anxiety (although it will be VERY uncomfortable at first).  But even though you will fail, you will absolutely get back up again, you will get better, more competent with your practice, and feel GREAT while doing it.  It is about ACCEPTING yourself, imperfections and all.  If you’ve been good at everything in your life so far, then I’m sure you’ll be “good” at meditating….eventually…but right away, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you won’t be. You’re going to have thoughts creep in and interrupt your peaceful meditation. And once again, its OK.

That’s the joy of mindfulness.

Everything is ok. Everything just is.

The moment just is. You just are. You can just be. And when we’re inundated with the fast-paced world of technology and constant to-do lists, just “being” sounds pretty darn nice (although I know that that raises the anxiety level of some of you that have difficulty just sitting still and not “accomplishing” anything).  

If you’re wondering how to actually put this into practice, you’re in luck.

Head on over to my post in my Mindfulness Series where you will learn 5 exercises that you can do right away, no matter what level you are (and it doesn’t require joining a yoga studio — although yoga is a pretty awesome mindfulness practice, maybe the ultimate mindfulness practice because it gets you to sweat too!).

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