Mindfulness is all about letting go of your fears and worries about the past and the future and living in the present. It’s a state of mind that can help you to achieve a happier life and better overall mental wellbeing.
However, it’s also something a lot of people struggling with. Living in the present is easier said than done, and some people struggle to achieve this state of mind. To help you with your mindfulness practice, we’ve put together this list of 4 tools that can help you to be more mindful. Let’s get started!
1. A brain-sensing headband
Mindfulness can often be attained through focused meditation. One of the biggest things people struggle with when it comes to meditation is actually knowing whether or not you’re doing it right. It’s difficult to exercise enough self-awareness of your own thoughts and emotions to know whether or not you really are relaxed and ‘present’.
Fortunately, this futuristic tool can help point you in the right direction. These new ‘brain-sensing headband’ gadgets can pretty much read your mind (as weird as that sounds) to detect whether or not you’re properly meditating. They read electrical signals to detect brain activity and make noises to let you know whether or not you’re thoughts are calm or turbulent.
This can help you to recognize when you’re accidentally having turbulent thoughts so that you can consciously direct them elsewhere to be more mindful.
2. A white noise machine
Another problem that stops many people from being mindful is noise. In busy cities, it can sometimes be difficult to find a quiet spot free from distractions to meditate in peace. If you can’t find somewhere quiet enough, a white noise machine could help.
These machines generate friction noises like the kind of noise you get from an AC machine or a fan. Your brain naturally tunes out these noises so you can meditate more peacefully, while they cover up more distracting, jarring noises.
3. Oil diffusers
Scents have a powerful influence on our thoughts and feelings. Studies have shown that our sense of smell is strongly linked to emotion and memory. Oil diffuses and aromatherapy provides pleasant scents that can induce a more relaxed state of mind that can help with mindfulness.
4. Guided journals
Experts believe that journaling is an important mindfulness technique. It encourages you to be more analytical and rational, which occupies the left side of your brain and helps the right, creative side to relax and function better. This can help to promote good mental wellbeing and creativity.
Guided journals are even better than regular journals as they help to direct your thoughts so that you can focus on answering questions, rather than thinking of something to write from scratch.