The Ultimate Guide to Mindfulness for Beginners
Mindfulness has become really popular over the last few years. Simply explained, it means paying attention, having an awareness of the present moment: your thoughts, feelings, everything around you. Connecting mind and body together, mindfulness can be a fantastic way to slow down a racing mind and focus on your current task. Practicing mindfulness regularly can ultimately lead you to total inner calm.
It can help us understand ourselves and our emotions better and stop us feeling out of sorts, and thus help us stay positive. It can be a great tool to use when experiencing changing environments. It’s a way to connect the body and mind, so we can rebalance our physical and emotional wellbeing. When going through periods of great change use meditation as a way of making sense of said change. By figuring out where we are and where we can expect to go, we can begin to gain clarity. We can resist less, open more, and navigate through the change and our future with more ease.
Rescue has teamed up with Yoga extraordinaire @adamhusler to get his take on mindfulness -
What is mindfulness?
In its simplest form, mindfulness it is to pay attention to something or to keep something in one's mind. It's a practice of seeing how close we can get to simply bearing witness to the present moment, where we make effort to observe passing thoughts feelings and sensation, without grabbing hold of them or judging them
What are the benefits of mindfulness?
Through an intentional mindful practice, in our daily lives, we become more able to pay attention to the present moment and aware of the true reality of what is happening around us. Through this we are hopefully able to interact with the world in a calmer, clear and more balanced way.
How do you get started and how can you become more mindful?
Simple meditations like the one I’ll describe later are a great starting point. Equally you could begin by heading to a yoga studio, downloading an app or even heading to a mediation centre.
What does a mindfulness practice look like?
At its core, you simply have to sit down, be quiet and pay attention to what arises without interfering.
How do you meditate when you’re a beginner and don’t know what you’re doing – do you have any tips or suggestions?
Don’t put excess pressure on yourself; you don’t need to meditate for 30 minutes, you don’t need an incense filled room, you don’t need utter silence. Most importantly, perhaps, let go of expectations. Your practice might not be easy, you might not feel differently afterwards and it might not be profound. A simple 5-10 minute seated daily seated practice, of simply sitting and observing your breath will certainly have an effect on your daily life after a month.
How can yoga help you become more mindful?
A meditation is a yoga practice, but if we are talking about a physical yoga asana class, then certainly it can help you be more mindful. When you practice yoga asana, we are endeavouring to bear witness to the feelings of the breath, body and mind in each pose without trying to achieve anything. You cannot win at yoga; it's very much a practice of self-inquiry, using your body ad a vehicle for that
What are some other mindfulness exercises that you can do?
Find a comfortable and quiet seat, where you can be alert and not a risk of falling asleep! Close your lips and begin to observe the sensation or air passing in and out over your nostrils along with the pauses between the inhale and exhale. When you notice your mind has wandered, say to yourself ’thinking, thinking’ and then come back to observing the beginning of the next inhale.