Our days are filled with stimuli. Texts, notifications, errands, chores, and screens, screens, and even more screens. It can be overwhelming. Which makes it important to take some time to learn how to practice mindfulness. To get yourself centered and present.
What is Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of bringing your attention to the present moment. It is acknowledging your feelings and thoughts, your environment, and your bodily sensations. It is therapeutic in nature and in a world rampant with distractions it is becoming increasingly popular as a way of fending off those attention-grabbing sources.
Mindfulness Tip 1
Find a Method that Works for You
Meditation won’t look the same for everyone. Some people love taking a seat and practicing “classic” meditation—allowing thoughts to flow through your mind unhindered. Others prefer a place to redirect their thoughts other than their own breath. Still, others prefer to set aside time to relax and pray. No matter what it looks like for you, uninterrupted time with yourself is a must. Even if you can only carve out 5-10 minutes each day.
Our best advice? Get comfortable and don’t be afraid to try new things. Mindfulness meditation will only succeed if it works for you. These mindfulness products are fan favorites.
Have a (Meditative) Seat
Finding a comfortable position is vital for any meditation or mindfulness session which is why I am sitting on it for the entire video. Alexia’s ergonomic meditation cushion helps you find a comfortable, posture-friendly seating position as you practice mindfulness. Its structure gets your body in sukhasana pose or “easy seated pose” which helps ease hip tension from a day of sitting at a desk all day, and stress…from sitting at a desk all day.
Peaceful Sounds Quell Busy Minds
Age-old meditation techniques meet modern technology. The Mindfulness Tone System from Solu plays 3-minute sequences of peaceful sounds based on the Pythagorean tuning system which has historically been used to encourage relaxation and wellness. Your meditation session starts at the press of a button.
Take a Breath and Get Centered
A quick meditation session is always within reach thanks to Lovetuner, the mindfulness necklace. It helps slow your breathing and, on the exhale, plays a single note at 520 Hz, also known as the “love frequency” for its believed ability in helping calm our minds and bodies.
Easy-to-follow yoga
This Yoga by Numbers mat simplifies the art and mindfulness of yoga practice, making it easy to flow through different poses with ease. An array of online classes and a sister app make it easy to practice when and where you want.
A Spiky Approach to Muscle Recovery
You can’t get your mind right until your body is. While it may look intimidating, the spiked acupressure ball from Aku produces a warm, revitalizing effect that can stimulate circulation and help in muscle recovery so you’re not thinking of that neck pain as you’re trying to unwind.
Mindfulness Tip 2
Find Time to Create
We’re not far removed from everyday creation being an ordinary act of life—making clothes, baking bread, working with wood, crafting with paper. Today, it’s easy to see those once-everyday activities of creation as totally “extra.” They’re not. And creating with your hands is the ultimate mindfulness method for beginners. Carve out space for simple creation then allow your mind to roll with whatever you’re doing. Don’t think you’re the “creative type”? These mindfulness tools for creativity might help.
A time-tested way to soothe the soul
Knitting helps reduce stress and gives one’s mind time to process all that’s been thrown at it in the course of a day. This adjustable straight needle set, handcrafted from rosewood with pliable cords, takes the weight off the needles and puts most of it on your lap. That way, when you’re working on a large, flat project, you’ll be able to relax and enjoy the process. Less stress on your wrists, arms, and back means you can focus on your stitch pattern, the feel of the yarn, and the process of creating.
The Art of Mindfulness
You can unwind by winding up. The Quilling Card quilling kit is a traditional art form that teaches you to create intricate designs by rolling and shaping strips of paper. Its an artful approach to mindfulness that produces lovely cards for friends and family.
Stitch Together a Moment of Mindfulness
We end by continuing the craft-centered modes of mindfulness. Darn Good Yarn makes beautiful, handcrafted wooden yarn bowls that will be a favorite of knitting enthusiasts of any skill level. And not just because it takes away the possible stress of the ball of yarn falling and unraveling.
Mindfulness Tip 3
Practice Mindfulness for Anxiety Relief
Anxiety has a way of uprooting you from your every day and taking you into an impossible world of what-ifs. The two tips above are great ways to ground yourself during the day, but this tip goes a little deeper. Learning how to practice mindfulness for anxiety can be a game-changer.
When completing a task—washing dishes, folding laundry, driving to work—that allows your mind to swim through those troubling scenarios, try to take notice. Step back. And instead of thinking about your anxiety or how to stop it, practice being mindful of what you’re doing. The feel of the warm dishwasher and the rag as you wash the dishes. The crisp colors around you as you drive and the feel of the wheel in your hands. The soft fabrics and colors of the clothing you and your family wears.
The simplicity of stepping into your current moment and focusing on just what you’re doing has great power. No one can do it perfectly, and intrusive thoughts almost always pop in. But when that happens, redirecting yourself to what you’re doing at that moment can make all the difference in relieving stress and anxiety.
For some, keeping a journal or planner aimed at mindfulness helps, too. A notebook to jot down those spur-of-the-moment “shoulds” that pop up throughout the day can help put to-dos to rest until you can actually do them. And planning your months, weeks, and days with an eye for the most important things you want to accomplish can also give you a remarkable sense of peace.
Personalize Your Plan
It’s time to channel that revitalized energy. And the Best Self Co. Self Journal is a great place to start. This goal-setting planner helps break down objectives into smaller, doable steps and provides guides to track progress and reflect on what you’ve learned.
Pass an act of kindness
Focus on spreading encouragement to others and you’ll reap the benefits in your own mental health. The Acts of Good Journal is made to be passed along to twelve different people, motivating and inspiring each one to pass an “act of good” along to the next person. The last recipient returns the journal to its original owner, who can then read all the entries about the way those acts of good impacted the days and lives of the recipients and givers along the way.
What’s your happiness plan?
The Happiness Planner is a beautiful weekly planner that focuses on identifying your strengths, writing out the things most important to you, and setting goals for your week or to help you stay focused on the things that matter most. Reflection pages encourage mindfulness and the simple beauty of the planner itself inspires the calm, collected approach you need to make space for the stuff of life that matters the most.
Mindfulness Tip 4
Make Space for Mindfulness
Swapping joy-sucking clutter out for what you find useful and beautiful goes a long way toward promoting a life of mindfulness. Systematically go through the items you own and see each day. Consider donating or selling the items you don’t use, don’t enjoy, or ones that don’t work for you at this point in your life. Then, once you’ve simplified the visual clutter, you might want to invest in a few mindfulness products that make it easy to slow down and relish the simple things.
A Pinch of Therapeutic Putty
Let’s start with a hands-on approach to mindfulness. Pinch Me Therapy Dough brings all the fun of the putties you remember from when you were a kid with a much more pleasant smell. The pliable, tactile dough will trigger several senses to help you re-center and be more mindful.
Draw out the stress
Similar to the grown-up version of an Etch-a-Sketch, the Buddha Board allows you to paint fleeting designs on a whim with just a brush dipped in water. The board’s minimal, sleek style will be at home in a wide variety of spaces.
A Blanket That’s More Like a Hug
Laying underneath a weighted blanket feels like a comforting hug. These blankets have long been used to help ease anxiety and stress, and Baloo Living’s weighted blanket takes it a step further with an eco-friendly version that comes in sizes for you and a partner. You’ll want to curl up, but you will definitely not want to get up.
Find Your Zen Piece by Piece
Continue relaxing with another age-old form of entertainment—the jigsaw puzzle. Zen Art & Design creates heirloom-quality puzzles that are well-crafted and durable while featuring lovely imagery. Non-traditionally shaped pieces like fish and boats make the construction all the more fun.
Let there be stress-releasing light
Pink Himalayan salt lamps are thought to neutralize free radicals, infuse the air with a negative-ion-packed vapor, boost the immune system, and soothe the physical environment you inhabit. And the ZenCube Smart Himalayan Salt Lamp packs all the benefits of traditional salt lamps with modern, customizable perks–without causing condensation that breaks down the salt.
Even on the busiest day, a few minutes of mindful practice can go a long way for your mental and physical well-being. Any of these products can go a long way in helping you learn how to practice mindfulness.
[…] Now that you’ve mastered how to practice self care, learn how to be more mindful. […]