8 Ways to Be More Mindful According to a Therapist
Dr. Deborah Brown is a psychotherapist and behavioral health entrepreneur. She developed Brownstone Mental Health Services and can be heard on the My Session with Dr. Deborah Brown podcast.
Mindfulness, everyone is talking about it, so what is it, and how do you achieve it? The best way to explain mindfulness is by using the example of a tropical vacation. There’s a reason we go on vacations. We hustle and bustle all year, save our money, and then go on vacation to find some peace. When we finally get away, we enter a phase of consciousness that is very different from the day-to-day grind. We are less worried about the house, the bills, and the job. These are out of reach and disconnected from us for a blissful few days.
Think about being on the beach on a beautiful island, smelling the surf, feeling the sun, tasting the tropical drink, and viewing the sea and sky. That is the moment where we relax, feel peaceful, and for a moment decide we never want to go home. Part of that is the environment, but another part is the way we feel because we have become mindful.
That is the ultimate present-moment awareness. Mindfulness is a gift we should give ourselves every day, not just one week a year. It is a lot easier on the beach than when we are drowning in laundry at home. That can be a hard concept to embrace, but a glorious one if you really think about it. Imagine that present-moment vacation feeling, and know that you can have a bit of it every day. Here are some tips to help get us a little bit closer to being there.
1. Mindful meditation
The first one on this list is also the hardest for most of us. Meditation is a higher level of mindfulness and can be challenging. In meditation, we train our awareness and attention to achieve mental clarity. Meditation is a connection of the mind and body that takes many years to master. It is a wonderful way to be mindful, but often people get disappointed when they try it and don’t immediately achieve the results they were hoping for. There are many different meditation videos you can try, and starting on a smaller scale is a great way to begin. The point of meditation is to fail, but not to stop trying to reach a clearer mind. Attempting and failing to clear your mind and stop invasive thoughts can show that you need to work more on improving mindfulness.
2. Yoga
This is another technique that not everyone can fully do, but trying can be wonderful. Not everyone has access or the physical ability to do advanced yoga, and some people get very intimidated by it. There is much within the teachings of yoga to be explored and attempted, and choosing what parts work for you is key. The goal is not to perfectly execute complicated poses, but rather to stimulate growth within yourself. A yoga class I participated in years ago taught me many skills that I can still adapt now, in just a small movement, a stretch, or a breath. Yoga’s development of the mind-body connection makes us feel stronger. More and more, we see yoga used by people to heal the trauma they hold in their bodies, helping them calm their nervous system, reduce anxiety, and improve mood.
3. Using your five senses
Our five senses are the way we perceive our world. We gather information and data this way, and what we do with that information creates our mental state. It’s easy to think about our five senses on that tropical vacation because most of what’s around us is pleasant. Day to day, that’s not always the case, so it can be more about noticing what’s around you. Are you examining your environment? Are you noticing what you hear? When you get in the car in the morning, are you looking up at the sky? For a mindfulness practice, you can do a quick senses review almost anytime, note something you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste. This connects you to your environment and gets you present.
4. Breath control
Breathing exercises have people talking these days, and that’s because they work! People tend to brush them off because they don’t see the value of paying attention to something they can do automatically and without thinking. Controlling and paying attention to our breathing is one of the key elements to calming the nervous system. What happens when you’re scared or stressed? We get out of breath, or we can hyperventilate. Control your breathing, and you begin to self-regulate. One simple exercise for breath work is the 7-7-7 technique. This can be done anywhere, breathe in for 7 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, and then breathe out for 7 seconds. This can be adapted to whatever number works best for you, but try it and see what happens. You might be surprised.
5. Body scans
Body scans are great, and there are many different ways to perform them. A body scan is where you start at your head or your toes and mentally or physically scan each part of your body, moving from one part to the next slowly. Some start at their feet, tensing and releasing all the way up the body until they reach the top of their head. For others, it’s moving through each part of the body with directed awareness and attention. Some take 20 minutes, while others use it as a quick check-in to monitor stress in the body. Body scans are especially helpful if you hold physical tension in any particular area of your body due to stress.
6. Talking through thoughts
One of my favorite and most effective skills to mitigate anxious thoughts and promote mindfulness is talking through thoughts. Think of this as yourself divided in half, struggling for an answer, and debating with yourself to determine what you really believe. We often struggle with decisions or beliefs, and this divided self can cause us stress and pain. We often need to have a debate and entertain all of the beliefs we have about a subject. Sometimes that debate must happen with just you, which means talking it through, so talk it through out loud! Taking a walk and having a conversation with yourself about what decision you are making can be a wonderful way to clear your mind and identify your actual beliefs. Ask yourself the hard questions like, “Why are you afraid of that?” and “What are you avoiding here?”. Get present and vocal with your actual thoughts and feelings, and you will notice the inner noise gets quieter.
7. Grounding
Grounding can be something that’s hard to understand, so I like to use the analogy of a tree. An old oak tree is very grounded, with roots deep in the ground, planting it firmly where it stands. The tree is sturdy but can still move parts of itself. We sometimes need to feel sturdy, to feel like we’re on solid ground. Take off your shoes and stand outside in the grass, and picture yourself as a tree. Hold yourself upright, with the sensation of your feet being very deep and heavy on the ground, and think of your feet as rooted. Put your arms out, and picture the strong, outwardly reaching, large branches, and how from the branches the smaller twigs and leaves sprout. Stand and picture yourself as that tree, grounded and strong, moving ever so slightly with the breeze. This exercise can help you connect to your body and quiet your stressed mind for a moment. If we can do that for a moment, we might eventually be able to do it more often.
8. AM/PM reset moments
This is my favorite one to implement, as we can see an immediate positive change. Taking a moment in the morning and at night before bed to reset from the day and our persistent negative thoughts can be powerful. It can be a check-in with yourself before you get out of bed in the morning to remind yourself that you are okay, that you have the choice to make the most of the day, even if it is imperfect. We may acknowledge that everything isn’t ideal or exactly as we wish, but we can still appreciate that the sun is shining or that the cat is happy we are awake. That AM reset can power us up the right way and make a difference in our mindful perspective. A PM reset can do the same, perhaps by considering two things we were grateful for that day or by thinking of a favorite place where we can go and be happy in our mind before we go to sleep. Fantasy and escape can be helpful to put yourself in a peaceful frame of mind after a hard day. Mindfulness can truly begin with your AM check-in and be reset again in the PM.
Think about which of these tools you can use to start building present-moment awareness. Increasing mindfulness can change the way you feel about your life and even how you view yourself. To hear more about this topic, listen to my podcast episode on mindfulness.
Read more from Deborah Brown
Deborah Brown, Psychotherapist and Behavioral Health Entrepreneur
Dr. Deborah Brown is a psychotherapist and behavioral health entrepreneur. She is a thought leader in the field of mental health, working to fight mental health stigma and increase public awareness about mental health-related issues. Dr. Brown developed Brownstone Mental Health Services, a large group practice that is revolutionizing the way that mental health therapy is provided. She can be heard on the My Session with Dr. Deborah Brown podcast.
