More Mindfulness Exercises

In my previous post, How to be mindful, I described a mindful breathing exercise.  Now I want to share with you more mindfulness exercises.

1. Mindful Observation

Choose a natural object, plant, flower or cloud in the sky.  Simply focus solely on it for a minute or two.  Visually explore it and allow yourself to be consumed by its presence.

2. Mindful Listening

Listen to a piece of music you have never heard before.  You could re-turn your radio to a new station or download a new track to your ipod.  The idea is to listen, to become fully entwined within the composition without preconception or judgement of the genre, artist, lyrics or instrumentation.

3. Mindful Appreciation

The point of this exercise is to simply give thanks and appreciate the seemingly insignificant things in life; the things that support your existence but rarely get a second thought in our desire for bigger and better things.  All you have to do is notice 5 things in your daily life that go unappreciated.

Once you have your 5 things, then consider

  • the benefit they bring to your life and the lives of others
  • what life would be like without these things

With regular practice of mindfulness services, rather than being on autopilot, we keep our mind rooted in the present moment and deal with life’s challenges in a clear-minded & calm way.

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  • Good Posture Exercise

    Having spoken previously about why poor posture is bad for you, I wanted to move on to give you a simple exercise that helps promote good posture.  Brugger's exercise routine is devised to activate postural muscles weakened and simultaneously stretched by a prolonged sitting posture. Slumped Position slumped Check the tension in your upper back and shoulders in the slumped posture and then in the Brugger's position, to see if you notice any difference as the muscle tension is dramatically reduced. Brugger Exercise Posture bruggers Step By Step Guide

    1. Sit perched towards the edge of your seat; this will naturally place your lower back into a curve (lumbar lordosis) with your butt sticking out a little.  As you do this your breastbone (sternum) will naturally lift up.
    2. Separate your legs to 45 degrees each side with your feet turned out slightly and in line with your knees.
    3. Your shoulders are relaxed and down with your chin tucked in, making the back of your neck longer – imagine a piece of string is attached to the top of your head and someone is lifting you up.
    4. Fully straighten (extend) both elbows and arms.
    5. Make sure you keep your shoulders down and imagine your shoulder blades [scapula] are pushing down and together to form a V.
    6. Turn your thumbs out (externally rotate), palms up.
    7. Separate your fingers.
    8. You should now be in the position show above in the Brugger's exercise posture picture.
    9. Hold for 30 seconds.
    Ideally you should perform the Brugger's exercise once for every thirty minutes of sitting, so why not try this once a day. PS The Science This exercise was developed by a Swiss Neurologist called Alois Brugger MD,  the exercise is neither a traditional stretch or strengthening technique but works neurologically by being complementary to the way your body is wired to work. Our bodies are neurologically much stronger in all of our flexor muscles. This is displayed perfectly if we look at a person with a neurological disorder, e.g. cerebral palsy; their body naturally has increased tension (hypertension) in the flexor muscles, also known as the spastic posture. This demonstrates our natural prosperity to an Upper Cross Posture which often develops when we sit for prolonged periods of time in a slumped position. Muscles work in groups. When one group is working then the opposing group are unable to work (inhibited).  An easy example to visualise of this is when you place food in your mouth. To do this you flex your fingers, wrist muscles, bicep muscles and pecs., all flexors. However, to be able to do this you have to inhibit your finger extensors, wrist extensors, triceps, rhomboids etc. This is called reciprocal inhibition. If you were unable to do this you would be unable to feed yourself. The Brugger exercise works on the principal of reciprocal inhibition. When doing this exercise you are activating all your extensor muscles and therefore inhibiting all of your (usually hyper activated) flexor muscles.  

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  • How to be more mindful

    So if mindfulness is doesn't requires lots of effort, and its really beneficial, why aren't we all doing it? While exploring a new city is naturally interesting, we rarely have the same enthusiasm for brushing our teeth, loading the washing machine or my commute.  So if you are like me, these are just some of the activities that I do on a regular basis that I have labelled "boring" and I go into autopilot (mindlessness). So the simplest way to practice mindfulness is to bring awareness to the daily activities you consider "boring". Another great way time to practice mindfulness is while you wait.  We are all so short of time that waiting is a huge source of frustration, whether its waiting for a train to turn up, waiting in line or being stuck in traffic.  These are all ideal times to just be mindful.  You can do this by focusing on your breathing and left everything else just be.  Start by breathing in and out slowly - one cycle should last for approximately 6 seconds.  Breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.  Letting your breath flow effortlessly in and out of your body. Our brains respond to short burst of mindfulness, so its ok to keep it short, a few minutes per day.