Mindfulness is a wonderful tool. It can help you feel calmer, more focused, more relaxed, happier, and just all-around healthier. As it turns out, it can also make you more blissful!
If you’ve never engaged in mindfulness before, this exercise is a great way to ease into it and familiarize yourself with the practice.
- Find a comfortable spot to sit or lie down—but not too comfy! You don’t want to fall asleep in the middle of your practice.
- Settle in and close your eyes. Shut your mind down as you shut your eyes, and let go of any sense of rigid control over your thoughts.
- Allow your thoughts to come and go, your mind drifting from one to the next. Don’t stop and focus on any of them, but don’t avoid or ignore any of them either. As they pass, do your best to consider them without any value judgment (e.g., “I shouldn’t feel this way”or “Wow, what a terrible thought to have!”).
- Spend a few minutes simply allowing your thoughts to pass in and out of your mind. If you find your mind wandering off on a tangent, simply direct it gently back to its objective and nonjudgmental state.
- If it helps, you can focus on your breathing. Feel each breath as it enters your lungs, fills your chest, and slowly escapes through your nose. Don’t try to control it, just observe it and pay attention to how it feels to breathe.
- When you’re ready to end your practice, simply bring your awareness back to your surroundings and let go of any lingering thoughts. Allow your eyes to flutter open, and go on with your day as planned, but with one caveat—try to carry your relaxed and mindful state along with you. Congratulations, you practiced mindfulness! You’ll find that this practice is an excellent way to feel peaceful, relaxed, and even blissful. Do it regularly for best results.
Excerpted from 5-Minute Bliss by Courtney E. Ackerman. Copyright © 2019 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Used with permission of the publisher, Adams Media, a division of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.
Follow us here and subscribe here for all the latest news on how you can keep Thriving.
Stay up to date or catch-up on all our podcasts with Arianna Huffington here.