Anchor your mind & body
A website full of Mindfulness-based information & resources for kids, teens, and adults.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness: Life Skill/Meditation
Mindfulness: Life Skill/Meditation
Mindfulness: Life Skill/Meditation
- Mindfulness, as a life skill, is the act of being fully present, aware of our internal and external experience, without judgement-the need to fix/change it- and with a general feeling of acceptance.
- Mindfulness as a meditation allows us to observe the nature of our mind and/or train our mind to sustain attention, relax our body, manage our emotional state, respond rather than react, cheer us on, entertain a new perspective, or to even send compassion to ourselves and others.
Mindful - Movement
Mindfulness: Life Skill/Meditation
Mindfulness: Life Skill/Meditation
- Mindful Movement, such as Yoga, allows us to focus both our mind and body on balance, strength, and flexibility. As we practice, we remain aware of our full present moment experience, including our: body position, connection to the earth's surface, breath, and our physical sensation when in flow and in stillness.
- Athletes learn mindful movement when training for their sport and many discover the benefits of carrying it into their daily lives.
- Moving mindfully throughout our daily activities, with more presence and awareness, may lead to greater accomplishments, satisfaction and fulfillment overall.
Mindfulness & mental fitness
What is Mental Fitness?
Mental Fitness is the ability to be flexible in our thinking, balanced in our emotions, responsive, attentive, organized, goal oriented, resilient, decisive and persistent. Through learning, practice, and by cultivating mindfulness (as well as other executive function skills) we become more mentally fit... just as through strength training, flexibility, and endurance exercise (and other body conditioning practices) we become more physically fit. Both physical and mental fitness can be quite frustrating and challenging to achieve without education, training, and support. If we want to feel connected, focused, confident and be ready to take on the challenges we face each day, then it's time to include mental fitness training in our daily routine!
Mindfulness Supports Physical Health
Mindfulness, and other contemplative/integrative practices such as Yoga, help to shape both our mind and our body. Mindfulness helps to: reduce cortisol production (a stress hormone); lower blood pressure and heart rate; strengthen our immune system; lessen fatigue; slow the aging process, and improve our ability to manage/tolerate chronic pain.
Mindfulness Supports Mental Health
An overwhelming schedule, perfectionism, expectations, competition, social media, distracting/negative thoughts, and a lack of connection with others (and with ourselves) can create chronic stress and anxiety. Mindfulness helps us to combat this stress, anchor ourselves in the present moment, manage our thoughts, balance our emotions, and develop more self-compassion (as well as compassion for others). A great deal of scientific research explains how practicing mindfulness changes our brain and provides long term benefits.
Mindfulness is a fundamental component of mental training...
How do we practice Mindfulness?
We would all prefer our mind be one of our best assets, rather than our biggest obstacle.
With mindfulness we become more aware of our mind's activity: the types of thoughts we have, which ones are recurring, how we speak to ourselves, what thoughts are useful and what ones are harmful, and ultimately we learn how to choose the thoughts to accept and, attend to, and which thoughts we can allow to pass. Mindfulness puts us in the driver's seat!
Mindfulness can be used as a strategy to improve meta-awareness (awareness of our thoughts, rather than mind wandering and daydreaming). Although daydreaming can promote creativity, it can also be extremely distracting . If you don't realize your mind is off task, it's difficult to get back on track.
The S.T.O.P. practice is a helpful exercise to develop meta-awareness:
S - Stop what you're doing (work, homework, chores, etc.)
T - Take a deep breath
O - Observe what you are doing, thinking, and feeling in that moment
P - Proceed with choice (return to task or stay lost in thought)
* You can set a timer every 15 minutes (time may vary depending on how quickly you become distracted) to "check-in" with your mind and to return to task. With practice, you may be able to lengthen the time and you will find it easier to "catch" your mind wandering off.
One common way to practice mindfulness is by finding a focus (anchor) for our attention (on purpose), rather than being hijacked by our thoughts. However, another way to practice mindfulness is to have open awareness of our thoughts and to simply observe the thoughts as they come and go.
*Mindfulness training for kids and tweens is quite different than that for adults. Kids classes incorporate various activities, exercises, books, and games. Adult classes often include formal meditation, moving meditation (walking, yoga), and everyday mindfulness.
There are many other aspects of mindfulness to discover; please explore this website for more themes, ideas, tips, and resources.
Learn More
Mindfulness Practice "'Nuts & Bolts'
- Anchor Breaths – Consciously feel the rhythm of our breath, to help anchor us in the present moment. Ride the waves in and out. Other Anchors may be: body sensations, sounds, sights, scents, tastes, movements, work, conversations, etc.
- The Body – Increased sensory awareness of our physical body to help cultivate a mind-body connection and to live in the present moment, rather than on autopilot. Noticing and listening to our body signals/messages to help manage stress, anxiety, and pain. Yoga (sometimes referred to as moving meditation), helps us to connect our body and mind.
- Awareness of Thoughts- Witnessing thoughts as they come and go, without getting pulled in and building stories around them; the ability to choose whether to engage in thoughts or to return to focusing on the present activity; also realizing we can have purposeful thoughts that are uplifting and supportive.
- Awareness of Emotions -Acknowledging and accepting the range of emotions we all experience; knowing they are fluid and will pass, and learning to manage our response to emotions. Less impulsiveness and reactivity; More patience, observation, and responding.
- Kindness - Accepting ourselves and others; compassion, appreciation, and forgiveness.