Hack your brain to practice mindfulness everyday

Mindfulness is about the here and now, being in the moment and not caught up in our thoughts. Regular mindfulness practice has been proven in countless studies to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, reduce unwanted feelings and even help with physical health, such as improved sleep, lower blood pressure and maintaining a healthy weight.

Mindfulness is one of the most powerful things which we can do to be able to improve our own mental health and wellbeing. So why don't more of us do it? The most common reasons I have found when speaking with busy mums is 1) Not having time 2) Not having the resources and 3) Lack of confidence. If you want to increase mindfulness in your daily life and some of these reasons have been holding you back, then keep reading.

I dont't have enough time

Whilst you can practice mindfulness in less than 5 minutes a day (check out our free tool ), this is a totally legitimate reason. You definitely, do not have enough hours in the day to do what is being asked of you. This is a certainty. However, what if I shared with you that nobody in the world does. Time is the true finite resource - we can't buy more of it, we can't make more of it. All we can do is make conscious choices about how and where we spend it. When we truly accept this, we are free. We are empowered to make some of those choices and be clear about what we are willing, and not willing, to do with our time. When looking at mindfulness practice and the benefits it brings, rather than thinking about 5 minutes, ask yourself how important it is to you relative to some other things in your day. If it is more important choose to do this instead. For neurodiverse brains it can sometimes be tricky to remember to do this or keep track of if we have done it and habits can be harder. Try buddying it to a certain activity e.g. before making a phone call take some breaths and do a quick body scan and attend to your needs. Or when making a cuppa and waiting for the kettle to boing (cos it takes sooooooooo long and why am I so bored), do this while you wait. Experiment and work out what works for your brain. I don't have the resources to do it The good news is that to practice mindfulness, all you need is you. Our free tool on Thursday shows you how you can include it in your daily routine and once you learn it in those situations, you can take it from there. The benefit of including it with things you already do, is that it helps to reduce feelings of time pressure and allows you to integrate the practice as something normal, not something extra or additional as part of your day. If this free tool doesn't work for you, there are also great 5 minute exercises you can find on music and video streaming platforms (such as Youtube, Spotify or Apple Music). Save them into a playlist so they are easily accessible and apps such as Calm and Headspace also have some free options too. Ideally have visual reminders around as often if it is in a separate app in a menu, it is easy to forget that it exists. Many of my clients love putting posters or post it notes on the back of the toilet door.

I feel like I am no good at it

In all honesty, if you are starting out, chances are you won't be. But all because you aren't good at it now, doesn't mean you can't be great some day. If you think about it, every skill in our lives, we have learned. Some skills have taken months or even years to become proficient. The learning process is really uncomfortable and as adults, if we don't have to learn something or if it doesn't give us an instant reward, we often choose not to learn. We avoid it as it is hard to feel like we are not good at things. I want to reassure that this is OK and it is about practice and improvement and getting better. Every time you give it a go, speak to yourself like you would your own kids. Notice what you did well, differences in how you feel, improvements from the day before, the length of time you did it. Focus on the positives and just keep going. In 6 months or a year, you will look back - enjoying a more calm and quiet mind, be doing it every day as part of your routine and quietly chuckle to yourself that you were ever worried in the first place.

In a nutshell mindfulness is a really powerful thing to bake into your daily routine. Choose to put your mental wellbeing first, start small (3 - 5 minutes a day), give it a go, embrace the uncomfortable as part of the learning process and just enjoy the benefits of a calmer and quieter mind.