Can a 10 Minute Mindfulness Exercise Make a Difference?
As January takes hold and the dark nights and bad weather overwhelm us, it’s easy to end up feeling a bit low. It’s peak time for illness, divorce, and depression….sigh.
Which is why it could be an excellent time to try out a simple mindfulness exercise which could give you a huge mood boost!
I have written before about the many benefits of mindfulness (see Mindfulness and Stress). There is a growing body of bona fide research demonstrating how mindfulness can help with all sorts of stress and depression. In Your Happiness Audit there is a link to a book I highly recommend which will give you some of the sources of that research if you’d like to know more.
But reading about it is one thing, hearing it another, so I’m really pleased to share this BBC link with you for a ten minute mindfulness exercise that it very easy to do and may just become a good habit for 2012. It was part of a happiness challenge the BBC were promoting last year and it’s perfect to do in a spare ten minutes when sitting at your desk. I frequently recommend this to women when coaching and we do a modified version on my women’s courses. It’s not for everyone but if it works for you you’ve discovered a great resource for life!
Here is the link to BBC Happiness/Health/Mindfulness.
Why not try it for just one week and see how you get on? And please do share your experiences with us!
Photo Credit: Tosaporn Boonyarangkul
Women, Avoid Martyrdom This Christmas!
How are you? How are you feeling right now? No really, how ARE you? How you doing?
I imagine that quite a few of you are feeling a tad stressed and overwhelmed with all you have to do, both at work and at home. It’s the time of year when our work home balance can get quite out of kilter.
If that feels like you right now take a few minutes to consider this:
Christmas will happen whatever.
Christmas is not simply one day-it’s a season. If it doesn’t go right one day there’s another on the way.
Most things will still be there on December 28th.
Time is man made. There is no law that says everything must be completed on time (except tax-do your tax returns on time!)
Are you succumbing to the well known ‘I must be superwoman at work as well as making my own mince pies and knitting a witty cat blanket and still look gorgeous’ syndrome? It’s rife at this time of the year and very infectious. If you haven’t been inoculated you could be in danger.
If you’re getting caught up in the pressures that are heaped onto women’s heads at this time of year (by ourselves as well as others) take a moment to pause and reflect. Try giving yourself this mini cure.
The Cure for Martyrdom
What really matters to you and those you care about during this season? If you come up with the answer a beautiful magazine-photo-fit home and hand knitted mince pies then you’d better give that some priority.
But most of us won’t come up with that answer. Most of us will want a relaxing, argument-free time with people we care about, if we can manage it. If the cards don’t get posted on time, they’ll arrive late; the world won’t stop spinning on it’s axis.
Remember to take a break now and again. Recent research shows that people who practice mindfulness are particularly resistant to the blandishments of the ad industry, and frankly that’s what’s we’re talking about here. Being constantly bombarded with images of the perfect woman organising her perfect Christmas for her perfect family, while wafting clouds of Chanel and simpering Nigella like over the bread sauce are so not real! They are figmentsof the admen’s world.
Instead, let’s ‘channel’ Marje Simpson enjoy ourselves! Cheers, purple haired lady!
P.S. I think it might just be me with the cat blanket thing..substitute your own pointless activity.
Photo Credit: Steven J Sullivan
Do You Know Where Your Pause Button Is?
Are you getting caught up in the pre-festival frenzy? Did you start out very organised and resolved not to be caught out this year yet somehow find yourself speeding up as the days go on? Do you feel like you’re stuck on fast forward?
If the answer is yes, perhaps it’s time to press pause.
Stop
There was a fascinating item on BBC radio a while back about mindfulness. Apparently people who practice mindfulness are a much harder bunch for advertisers to sell to (they can be less stressed all round, see this post). Or rather they were able to resist more effectively the intense pressure of advertising than other groups. They didn’t need so many things to feel content. So here’s a very short mindfulness type exercise which won’t eat into your day but may reduce your stress levels and act like your own internal pause button during these busy weeks.
The Press Pause Exercise
Each hour has 60 minutes. Choose one of those sixty minutes and do the following:
Pause in whatever you are doing (in safety-obviously!). If possible lower or close your eyes. Become aware of just what your body is doing. Notice if your feet are on the ground, hooked round a chair, if you have crossed legs, etcetera? Now pay attention to your torso. How are you holding yourself, are you able to breathe as well as you can?
Now notice your breathing. How are you breathing? Just take notice, don’t change it (although almost inevitably just being aware will slow your breathing).
Notice how you actually feel. Don’t judge, just notice what your feelings are, become conscious of your emotions.
And finally, when convenient for you, breathe out one breath for a slightly longer time than normal. Just one.
Open your eyes.
Smile.
Press go.
Photo credit: M Kranz
Take Once a Day, Every day!
How often do you treat yourself? How often do you release that inner child and simply have fun and play? On holiday? When you have friends around?
Most of us probably don’t do it enough. Psychologist Dr Nick Bayliss says we ought to be doing it every day. Twenty minutes each day of ‘time out’ time can make you feel great!
20 Minutes of Fun
So, here’s your challenge for the rest of the week. Take 20 minutes and fill it with doing something you love. Be as spontaneous as possible. Maybe you’ll resurrect your old piano skills and tinkle up and down the ivories? Perhaps you’ll pick up your old sketch book? Make a cake? Or simply be and stare at the trees noticing the changes Nature is bringing?
Try it out and let me know how you get on! And do share your favourite 20 minutes of fun time! (if you can…) You could spend your twenty minutes day dreaming! Check out this post on Dream and be Happy!
Photo Credit: Melbia
Work Life Balance – Have you got it?
Over-Working
It seems we Britons continue to work the longest hours in Europe. More than 4 million employees in full time roles work more than 48 hours a week (that’s 700,000 more than did during the 1990s), and one in six regularly works more than 60 hours a week.
According to the TUC, the UK working week is now up to 43.5 hours – three hours longer than the European average. It also found 5.26 million Britons work an average of 7.2 hours of unpaid overtime a week. I’m worn out just writing that!
Technology which has made our lives so much easier on so many levels has also meant it’s much harder to escape from work. It’s always there: in our electronic notebook, our whizzy phone or lap top, staring balefully at us from our briefcase like a silent reproach. How long do you wait before succumbing to those emails? And how many times have you been caught up in the ‘I can send a work email later than you’ game?’ Be honest!
Stress at Work
You may absolutely thrive on stress at work; indeed maybe you can’t get motivated unless there’s an important deadline looming. This is fine if it works for you. For most of us, however, there comes a point when we need to take a break. (See ‘Do You Give Too Much‘) If you let the balance get out of kilter you’ll start to experience the classic symptoms of stress (see Top Five Symptoms of Stress). Play smart and try and stop it before it starts!
Work Life Balance Exercise
Try this for one week. Keep a time diary (otherwise known as a time and motion study on yourself!). As accurately as you can jot down everything you do every day over 7 days with a note of how much time you spend on it. Work could be broken down into tasks if you can manage that. Then you’ll probably have family or friends time, your hobbies, professional development (which includes things like reading a professional magazine). There will be things you do for others and things you do just for you. Just log it, don’t make a value judgement.
Once you have your week’s worth of data sit down in a comfortable chair and look through it. Honestly assess yourself; there is no right or wrong balance to achieve. You will know yourself if it’s getting out of kilter. At different stages of your life you’ll be applying your attention & time in different places. Listen to your intuition; if it feels right it probably is right. But if there is a nagging doubt, pay that doubt some attention and think about some alternative strategies. Get to the stress before it gets to you!
How do you know when your balance is tipping too far in one direction?
Picture Credit: Juanita De Paola
3 Life Coaching Lessons from Cats!
I have two cats; I am, in fact, a mad cat lady in training. That soubriquet was given to me in fun by Jim Connolly a few years ago when I first acquired my two rescue kittens.
I like the title (heaven knows, I’ve had much worse!) Cats have a lot to teach us; my cats may be a tad atypical as they were rescued at a very young age and were not brought up by a cat, but by me! But this is what I have learned from cats and these could be good lessons for you to follow this week end:
3 Life Coaching Lessons from Cats
- Eat and sleep when you need to, not when others think you should.
- If you need a hug ask for one (although not necessarily by rolling on the ground exposing your furry stomach. You know what I mean!). Let people give you a stroke now and again. And offer the odd snuggle back as you’ll find it results in more hugs!
- To your own self be true. If doing something doesn’t feel right to you, it’s probably not right for you. Trust your instincts and care more about what you think of yourself than what others think of you. Be an individual cool cat!
What life lessons has pet owning taught you? Please share!
Photo Credit: Pepiotana
