These simple strategies may help you relax in stressful times
Learning to be more mindful can help you fully enjoy all that life has to offer. By immersing yourself in each moment and practicing calming your mind, you may realign your energies and learn new and better ways of coping with the stresses of life. This can help you feel less overwhelmed.
Mindfulness may be defined as purposefully focusing your awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting (without judgment) your emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations.
Mindfulness practices may be particularly helpful right now to help people better cope with fear, worry, and uncertainty they may be feeling around the COVID-19 pandemic. Research shows that practicing mindfulness may alleviate symptoms of anxiety and can even guard the immune system from becoming compromised by stress.
There are many different ways to practice focused mindfulness through activities such as meditation and yoga. These types of exercises can take mindfulness to another level. However, simply intentionally focusing on everyday activities as you do them may also be beneficial.
May is both Mental Health Awareness Month and National Meditation Month. Why not use this time to start incorporating mindfulness into your daily routines? You can begin by intentionally paying attention to every aspect of your day, such as:
- Eating: Prepare the food yourself. Think about each ingredient, how it will taste, and how it will nourish you. Pay attention to the colors, smells, and textures. When you eat, do only that. Do not read. Do not watch television. Do not use a device. Consider each bite and relish the flavors. Put your fork down between bites and take a few moments to reflect on the bounty before you. Being more mindful when you eat should allow you to get much more enjoyment out of the experience.
- Walking: It might seem like a mindless activity, but it doesn’t have to be. In addition to appreciating your surroundings, pay close attention to your movement. Feel the flexing of muscles and stretching of tendons and ligaments. Focus on HOW you are walking. Are you limping? Favoring one side over the other? Make a firm, solid connection with the surface below you, which can help ground you both physically and spiritually.
- Listening: Abundant distractions in life cause many to lose focus. When that happens, it’s hard to be there in the moment for loved ones who need to talk. You may be missing out on great stories and creating new memories. Focus on what is being said without replying or interrupting. Pause before saying or doing anything.
Some events in our lives may cause us reject mindfulness. For instance, if you are feeling intense emotional or physical pain, the last thing you may be inclined to do is focus on what you are feeling in the moment. However, research shows that practicing mindfulness meditation can help people better regulate their emotions and better cope with both physical pain and with distress related to negative emotions. Keep in mind, these studies are based on specific mindfulness meditation practices applied in a clinical setting known as mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs).
Traumatic experiences may become the building blocks of a Heart-Wall — which we believe is a sort of force field of energy your body may build as a means of protecting yourself from negative energies. Our premise is that Heart-Walls are made up of multiple unresolved negative emotions from difficult and traumatic emotions, which we call Trapped Emotions.
If you find yourself struggling with negative feelings and you can’t pinpoint the source, it is important to identify and release any Trapped Emotions that may be underlying those feelings. The Emotion Code® and The Body Code™ are two tools that may help you find and remove Trapped Emotions or other imbalances. When you take steps to alleviate emotional baggage, you may find yourself better able to experience the moments of joy in your life.