My Mindfulness Activities
Each Mindfulness Activity is meant to work with your Learn & Earn skills.
Come back daily to practice–and grow your brain!
Mindfulness is a calm, peaceful, compassionate way of being that enables us to experience more joy in life. Mindfulness is developed through some simple, specific thoughts and actions that, when repeatedly practiced, become part of our brain “wiring.” As we do them, we become mindful.
NOTE: It’s important to start slowly with breathing exercises. Start with a few breaths, and do them a couple times a day at first, and then do longer sessions when your body, and brain, become more skilled.
Mindfulness comes from the word to be “mindful” or to pay attention. It is the skill of training your brain to focus and pay attention—in a calm, compassionate, and curious way—to what is happening at the present moment, instead of being distracted by other thoughts, things, or worries. Mindfulness brain-training helps you become more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions—and the effect they have on others—so you can react wisely in difficult situations. You train your brain to be mindful by daily doing a few simple, easy exercises to improve mental focus. Even children can do them!
- If your mind wanders from what you’re focusing on—as minds do—gently bring your attention back to your focus. In fact, repeatedly bringing your attention back to your focus grows new brain cells, which strengthens and makes your brain even more powerful.
- Many of these are breathing exercises. If you feel dizzy, just pause and breathe normally, until you don’t feel dizzy. Then restart again, if that feels right for you! It’s common to feel a bit dizzy at first – usually because you’re not used to getting so much oxygen. As you practice, you will likely find yourself being able to do them for longer – and you should feel more relaxed and calm. Actually, you grow neural pathways – literally growing your brain!
And as you work on mindful breathing, always be aware of how it makes you feel afterwards and during. If the rhythm is too fast, or too slow, you may prefer to either repeat your focus words with each breath in and out, as you breathe mindfully, but at your own pace/rhythm. As long as you focus on your breath, and repeat your focus words in your mind, you can still feel the benefits that mindfulness practice brings to your overall health. - There is no limit to how often you should do breath awareness or mindfulness! Practice in short sessions as often as you need, or like! In fact, the more you practice, the stronger your brain becomes. We recommend that you practice at least twice daily for the most impactful benefits.
- While mindfulness skills are developed through repeated daily exercises, mindfulness practice can also be done any time you need to bring focus and calm into your daily life. When you focus on your breath or what you’re doing, it not only helps in the present situation, but also in your overall health and well-being.
When connected with everyday tasks and routine body functions, mindfulness may help decrease stress and improve your mood by strengthening your focus on the present, allowing you to feel less scattered or stuck in the past or future.
•Improves impulse control and ability to stay on task
•Reduces stress response and feelings of anxiety
•Improves ability to regulate emotions
•Increases sense of emotional well-being
•Increases density in the good judgment part of the brain
•Lowers blood pressure
We recommend that you do the “breath awareness” exercise each night and morning for a few minutes, repeating the focusing phrase. Then, add a new exercise each week.
When you repeatedly bring your attention back to your focus, it signals to the brain that you want to increase your ability to pay attention. So it grows more dendrites and receptors (like branches and leaves) on those neuron “trees,” making your brain more powerful. Deep breathing helps, for as you take slow deep breaths through your nose, it triggers special cells to release nitric oxide, which relaxes vessels to carry more blood to the brain. Plus, when you take a deep breath and hold it for a moment, your full lungs put pressure on your vagus nerve, which runs from your brain down your spine,
triggering a release of serotonin, a calming neuro-chemical.
Mindfulness 1:
Breath Awareness
Mindfulness 2:
Appreciate Gifts of Sight & Voice
Mindfulness 3:
Appreciate Gifts of Choice & Voice
Mindfulness 4:
Appreciate the Gift of Your Amazing Body
Mindfulness 5:
Think Compassion Not Criticism
Mindfulness 6:
Connect with Your “Inner Quiet Voice”
Mindfulness 7:
Be Mindful of Interactions with Others
Mindfulness 8:
Mindfully Perform Tasks
Mindfulness 9:
Mindfully Delight Your Five Senses
Mindfulness 10:
Loving-Kindness Meditation
4-7-8 Breathing
This breathing pattern aims to reduce anxiety or help people get to sleep, as it calms the nervous system. This technique was originally developed by Dr. Andrew Weil.
IMPORTANT: Do not do more than four breaths at one time for the first month of practice. Later, if you wish, you can extend it to eight breaths. If you feel a little lightheaded when you first breathe this way, do not be concerned; it will pass.
You can speed the exercise up but try to keep to the ratio of 4:7:8 for three breaths to gain maximum benefits. With practice you can slow it all down and get used to inhaling and exhaling more and more deeply.
Box Breathing
4-4-4
The benefits of this exercise is it neither excessively relaxes you, nor excites you. Because the inbreath and outbreath are equal, the technique balances your nervous system – brilliant if you’re out and about and want to just settle and focus your body and mind.
Box breathing is taught to the Navy Seals to help them deal with the extremely stressful situations they find themselves in.
It’s a great strategy for you to manage your daily stress, and it’s easy to do in your daily life in front of others with little notice.
Set Your Own Pace
For some, mindful breathing needs to be done at your own pace. Start by counting your breath, and then keep that rhythm. Once you find your count-rhythm, practice daily.
Once you have it well rehearsed, you can add in your focus words.