How Mindfulness Helps You Find Time
For many of us, much of our lives is spent sprinting on a self-created, stress-inducing hamster wheel.
Mindfulness offers practical tools to help take back your time, get off the hamster wheel, and check-in honestly with yourself. By taking simple, five-minute mindful breaks, we can become more cognizant of our thoughts, body sensations, emotions, behaviors, and habits. We can more easily recognize when our body is in panic mode, or when stress has our shoulders up and our stomach in knots.
This ability to shift focus rapidly can be life-saving when we face actually dangerous circumstances, but it’s less helpful when we’re just trying to get by day-to-day. The multitude of demands on our time and attention tend to keep us in this stressed state, leaving a scant opportunity for creative thought, goal setting, or to even begin checking in to ask ourselves if we’re happy and fulfilled in our lives.
This article, originally published on Mindfulorg website, they share how mindful breaks helps find the time.
We can pause to take a few deep breaths, allow the brain time to register that there is no immediate threat, which then allows our body to gradually calm down. It’s from this place of calm and stable attention that we’re able to think more clearly and choose our responses, rather than react out of impulse.
When we choose to practice mindfulness, we open up space for intentional planning, goal setting, and creative thought. When we choose mindfulness, we choose to no longer be exhausted and overwhelmed by putting out fires (in our mind, anyway). We choose to reflect on our values, guided by clarity about our strengths as well as the areas where we’re ready to grow. We notice what fuels our energy, what depletes us, what to delegate, and what to focus on. We have the energy to step out of our comfort zones, challenge ourselves, and overcome barriers to achieve success in the areas that matter most to us.
Connect in the Morning: Before you dive into the to-dos of your daily routine, take five minutes to connect with your breath, and notice what your body feels like. What your breath is doing. How your shoulders feel.
Create a Habit: Carve out five minutes every day to sit comfortably and notice your breath moving in and out. If five minutes seems like too much, start with one minute. The goal is to simply make a habit of choosing to practice. Figure out where, when, how, and why you will carve out those minutes—knowing your motivation will help encourage you to continue.
Add Mindful Breaks to Transition Moments: Even quicker than your daily morning meditation, identify opportunities throughout your day to pause and bring our attention to what is happening at the moment. We can take a mindful break anytime, anywhere—during our commute, at our desk at work after sending an email, or whenever there’s a transition moment.
By taking simple, mindful breaks, we can become more aware of our thoughts, emotions, and habits, which brings the clarity we need in order to choose how we spend our days.
Bring some calm into your workday with a mindful meditation exercise. In Bloom, we are helping leaders have a better understanding as to what their wellbeing looks like, holistically. We do this within a partnership with the Global Leadership Wellbeing Survey. This is the first step of our Leadership Wellbeing Coaching journey. Email us!