Many of us suffer from stress, especially in these times of great uncertainty.
For this reason, we share with you these mindfulness exercises that are simple enough for anyone to perform in their own home or workplace and are, at the same time, an extraordinarily powerful method to improve our ability to relax, concentrate, and improve our productivity.
Exercise 1: One minute of mindfulness
This is an easy exercise you can do at any time of the day. The goal is to focus all attention on your breathing for one minute. Keep your eyes open, breathe with your belly instead of your chest and try to breathe through your nose and make it out of your mouth. Focus on the sound and rhythm of your breathing. Prepare for your mind to wander (because it will) as you’ll have to work hard to return attention to the target each time this happens. You can perform this exercise as many times as you want as it helps you restore the mind, get clarity and peace. This exercise is the fundamental basis of a correct mindfulness meditation technique.
Exercise 2: Conscious observation
Choose an object. Any everyday object: a cup of coffee, a pen… Now let it completely absorb all your attention. Just watch him. Being aware of what you’re watching gives you a feeling of being awake. Notice how the mind frees itself from thoughts and focuses on the present moment. It’s a subtle but powerful thing. You can also practice conscious observation with your ears instead of your eyes. Sometimes listening is much more powerful than watching.
Exercise 3: Counts up to 10
This exercise is just a simple variation of Exercise 1. In this case, instead of focusing on breathing, close your eyes and focus all your attention on slowly counting up to 10, focusing on slowly breathing in and out while doing so. If at some point you lose your concentration, you must start with the number 1.
Exercise 4: Check in on your breathing
This exercise involves focusing your attention on breathing each time a specific environmental signal occurs. For example, every time the phone rings. Just pick a signal outside of you. Anything is valid. Every time you look in the mirror, every time your hands touch each time you hear the horn of a car, the whistle of a bird… This technique works because when the action of focusing on your breathing is performed, your mind travels to the present moment and becomes aware of it.
Exercise 5: Listening to music
Listening to music has many benefits, so many, that music is being used therapeutically. This is because listening to music produces a great amount of awareness. You can listen to soothing music and feel tis soothing effects while exercising mindfulness, really focusing on the sound and vibration of each note.
Exercise 6: Cleaning the house
The term “house cleaning” has a literal meaning as well as a figurative one; here, we refer to getting rid of emotional burdens. Leave things behind that are no longer useful. Both getting rid of unneeded material objects as well as emotional objects can major be stress relievers. Disorder is a very important stressor to consider. Cleaning the house (recognizing it as a conscious attention exercise) can bring lasting benefits. You have to see it as a positive event, as an exercise in stress relief and self-understanding, rather than just as a task. Focus on what you do and how you’re doing it.
Exercise 7: Watch your thoughts
It’s hard to get any stressed, busy person who leads a fast pace of life to abandon it to focus on a stream of thought within their own mind. The idea of sitting still for a few minutes even produces some people more stress.
If you’re one of those people, instead of working against the voice of your head, you can sit down and “observe” your thoughts instead of getting involved in them. This way you won’t be able to eliminate them like in the rest of the exercises but it’s a good technique to decrease their intensity.
These awareness exercises are designed to develop your ability to stay in the present moment and are a good way to improve your ability to concentrate. Practicing these exercises will also make it easier to meditate.
It is important to realize that there is a difference between attention and concentration. Concentration helps you focus your attention on one thing or the other and thus helps you take control of what’s going on in your mind. But mindfulness is a step beyond concentration. Mindfulness is a state of consciousness. It’s “presence” of the mind.
