exercise – Mindfulness to overcome stress and anxiety

If you are a fan of the great outdoors and enjoy simple runs then maybe this is for you. Did you know that you can actually do exercise activities while practicing mindfulness? Feel the fresh air as you appreciate the beauty of nature while being active. Start your health and fitness journey now.

Mindful Running

With mindfulness having a number of proven health benefits, we can continuously add it to our daily routine. We often associate mindfulness with a state of silence and awareness, but you can actually combine it with other healthy pursuits that is really helpful in elevating one’s sense of well-being.

Studies suggested that meditation can be done along with running or walking. It was able to reduce symptoms of depression in people who are suffering from it and increased their mental health. The outdoors and the natural sounds that it makes are great psychological factors that impacts a person’s performance in life or even at work. It has a way of encouraging people to reflect inwardly while running and focus on their body showing great results. Running also tones down possible distractions that is present during other mindfulness practices. Here some advice you can follow for better results of mindful running:

Release yourself from unwanted distractions and daily pressures that life brings while running.
Feel the flow in your body and listen to it: your breathing, your posture and your heightened senses.
Breathing mindfully is a great response to stress, try to focus more on the process of breathing. Breathe through the nose and exhale through the mouth.
Connect with the memories that are associated with your body. It may be a recent injury of experience related to running or other activities. Doing this will help you create a deeper connection with yourself.
Keep the internal conversations between you and your body and not with other people. Sometimes, it’s best that you talk with yourself and assess how is your current state or condition in the moment.
Don’t worry about the anchor points or timing devices – just listen to what your body wants and what it needs.

Mindful Exercise

Some people just love exercising so much. But what if you can do exercising while being in a state of mindfulness? It is the same as hitting two birds with one stone – your body and mind become healthy at the same time. The difference between mindful workout and a traditional mindfulness practice is instead of zoning out and feeding your mindful with unnecessary thoughts, you will draw your mind back to the physical activity that you are doing and focuses on connecting the two activities together. Mindful exercises or workouts involves paying much attention to the flow that happens in the body while being in a state of awareness through exercising. It is a good way to unify the mind, body and breathing practices.

Here are few helpful tips to help create a more grounded practice of mindful exercising:

1. Prepare your mind before your body

It is hard to do any activity if you already have a busy schedule. In order to practice mindful exercise better, you need to take a portion of your day just for mindfulness. It is important to bring your mind to a neutral state prior to the start of the exercise by doing a few minutes of mindful breathing as a way of clearing your mind and preparing it for the exercise.

2. Create a purpose every time you exercise

Having a purpose before doing any activity is a great motivator. Any person who wants to do something has a goal, and for mindful exercise you can set one purpose for doing so – to lose weight. Your goal will keep you in track and maintain the focus that you needed in order to attain it.

3. Take it slow

Do not exercise just because it is a “to-do” item on your list. Don’t make it as a chore and let it just be a part of your daily life. Give yourself a permission to take time and engage your full body. Be thankful and grateful about many things in your life and appreciate how exercising not only benefits your but most importantly, your mind.

During this quarantine, there are a lot of people who spent their time mostly at home. Many browse the internet and often found themselves watching YouTube videos especially those inspiring workout videos. They are really inspiring to watch but not everyone has the motivation to do the work. Mindfulness is a great alternative in losing weight, without having to exert much effort like in working out.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a way of being present and fully focused on whatever it is that is happening at the present moment. With mindfulness, you remove all the possible distractions around you and free yourself from it while focusing about your thoughts and feelings during meditation.

Some say that mindfulness is also a training. It is a way of training us to pay close attention to ourselves by not worrying about the challenging past, the unexpected present and the unknown future. These three things are the most common cause of stress for any individual who’s living their life.

Take note though, that mindfulness is not like Buddhism or any kind of religion. It does have a belief system and the science of mindfulness are mostly based on research. Meaning, many scientists were able to prove the benefits of mindfulness in many aspects of our lives.

Mindful Eating

There are many ways on how to practice mindfulness. You may not even realize it, but you may be doing it every day. The practice of mindfulness has a lot of different exercises. Some of which can actually help you with your weight loss. The most popular one is Mindful Eating.

The Digestive system is composed of complex processes that somehow send signals to the brain to register satiety. If a person eats too fast and overeats, these might send signals to the brain causing them to feel fullness. Being distracted while eating may also slow down the digestive process causing us to have indigestion and this might lead to us not getting enough nutrition from the food that we are eating.

Mindful Eating, also called as “intuitive eating” is when a person brings themselves on a state of awareness while eating. Mindful eating is a way of bringing your full attention on your food: how it smells, taste, the color, and even the sensations you felt while eating. It is a way of appreciating the process of eating and allowing it to enter your mind and body. Mindful Eating is not a weight-loss cure in itself, but it is a part of a bigger approach that can lead a person to eating healthy leading to their goal to lose weight.

Mindfulness and Eating

Mindfulness can actually work when you use it the right way. It may not work as much as other diet therapies, but it is one way of figuring out how to eat right. This does not only help your mind but also keeps your body fit and healthy.

1. Before eating anything: Pause and Think.

A big part of mindful eating is thinking about why you chose the food and why are you eating it. Before you start eating feel your body: Is your stomach growling? Are you attracted to your food? Can you feel your mouth salivating? Consider all of these factors before eating. Pausing prior to eating allows us to make eating more purposeful and allows us to focus more on what we are doing.

2. Take a Bite and Chew

Get a piece of that food and slowly put it on your tongue. Savor every sensation that you felt while the food was in your mouth: What does it taste? Are the flavors amazing? Does it change your mood? Did you feel the sensations flowing through your body as you chew?

Do not slurp or inhale your food in front of you. This does not only look good, but it can actually affect your digestion causing it to slow down. Also, you will miss out the different flavors and the texture of the food as you are too busy satisfying your hunger. Chewing properly is a part of mindful eating as it allows you to totally experience the process of eating itself. Make sure to completely chew your food before you swallow it.

3. Drink Water before Meals

Some researches advice people to drink water before having meals as this is also one way of preventing yourself from overeating. It is usually easy to do and eventually becomes a habit as time goes by. Also, drinking water prior to meals allows you to have some time to clear your thoughts and focus on the upcoming process of eating.

4. Choose Colorful and Flavorful Foods

The eyes not only guide us to see around us but also shows us to the wonders of life. Choosing a colorful and flavorful meal composed of unprocessed foods has a great importance in Mindful Eating. Naturally healthy and whole foods have unique flavors that you cannot get from eating processed foods.

5. Do not be distracted

If possible, close any gadgets that you have that might interfere with your meditation. You should only be able to focus on what you are eating. Also, by doing this, you will not be easily distracted, and your full attention will be on the process of eating only.

Research shows that the noise your food makes when you eat can actually influence how much food you consume. The sound can either make you eat a lot or less. People who often eat with their earphones on is prone to overeating.

6. Count to Twenty

Did you know that it takes about 20 minutes for the digestive system to actually send signals to your brain to tell it that you are full? In this small window of time, you might find yourself overeating. Consider taking a break in a buffet before getting another plate for your round two. The waiting period gives time for your body to process the food that you ate.

Everyone wants to lose weight, but we all know that it includes a lot of work before it can be achieved. Mindfulness is only one of the ways that you can use to lose weight. This should be combined with exercise can help attain your goal to be fit and fab this quarantine.

Mindful Running And Mindful Exercise: Your Fitness Journey