Does your mind sometimes swirl and stay so revved up you can't sleep? Do you want to be happier and sleep better? Try this seven minute mental break so you can slumber or just chill and find happiness.
Taking a mental break promotes physical and emotional well-being and ultimately leaves us happy.
Step back from autopilot and become in tune with yourself
Science says we can train ourselves to be happier and healthier.
Brain circuits engaged by mindfulness are associated with meta-awareness—our awareness of being aware. Have you ever been in the same room as a family member when they are talking to you and you hear them, but you aren't fully engaged with what they are saying (meta-aware) because you are thinking about something else? When you realize that you're not fully present but you need to be, you become meta-aware. To shift from doing, doing, doing, we've got to first slow down the brain gears and become meta-aware of our need to just be. Science says we can train ourselves to be happier and healthier. One way is to simply slow down. Just be.
Try this seven minute shift from doing to just being
Part One: Connect with Your Thoughts
In this first part of the practice you’re invited to take a few minutes to think about your feet without looking at them.
What thoughts come to mind when you think about your feet? Perhaps there are judgments about your feet. How much you like them? How much you dislike them?
Perhaps there are thoughts about how you’d like them to be different. Maybe thoughts come to mind about the places your feet have taken you. Perhaps thoughts about problems they may have caused you.
What thoughts come to mind for you?
There’s no need to control your thoughts in anyway. Just let the thinking unfold naturally. Taking your time. Taking a few minutes now simply to let thoughts arise.
Part Two: Shift into Being
And now, for the second part of this practice, the invitation is to gently bring your attention down the legs into the feet, sensing your feet directly without looking at them.
Allowing your awareness to sink into your feet and fill them from the inside to the outside, from the bones, right out to the surface of the skin, perhaps sensing the many small bones within the feet, maybe feeling the sensations of touch on the skin, the sensations in the soles of the feet, the sense of touch and pressure where the feet make contact with the floor. Perhaps exploring with your awareness the boundary between the feet on the floor.
And now, if you will, clenching your toes, drawing them in as close as you can, being aware of the sensations in the toes, the soles, and the body of each foot. Directly sensing the pressure in the toes, feeling the tightness in the muscles, the coming and going of sensations throughout the feet, ankles, and legs.
And now, just relaxing the toes, keeping the awareness in your feet and noticing any changes in the sensations in the feet and toes as they relax.
Before changing your position, taking a few moments to get a sense of the body as a whole.
Enjoy this deep sense of just being and quieting your mind.
“Be happy in the moment, that's enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.” - Mother Teresa
Have a wonderful day of just being.
Remember to do just one thing better today than you did yesterday.
You make a difference!
Pamela
Source: mindful.org