Momentum Issue 51: Include a Mindfulness Practice in Your Morning Routine
Importance
Chronic stress plays a part in almost every chronic illness and lifestyle disease.
And despite chronic stress being so dangerous, it’s almost inevitable that we will all deal with it at some point, likely for years at a time. Our society rewards working so hard that we run ourselves into the ground. A lack of sleep is a badge of honor. Chronic stress in itself is almost a badge of honor because it means you’re working so hard that you have no time to rest.
But the problem with this is that chronic stress comes with a host of health problems, not to mention the toll it takes on your mental health. This is why it’s so important to have daily practices that can help us mitigate some of these consequences; while stress is almost inevitable in our society, we do have some control over it.
This week, see if you can include a short mindfulness practice in your morning routine.
Implementation
Figure out what you’re going to do
While we often think of meditation when thinking about mindfulness, it’s not the only way to be mindful.
Find a practice that works well for you, both in terms of gaining benefit as well as fitting into your schedule and lifestyle. You want it to be something short and easy enough that you can do it every day. Consistency is the most important thing.
Here are some ideas:
Drink coffee or tea mindfully and/or while listening to a coffee meditation
Go for a mindful walk - pay attention to the movement of your body
Do a yoga flow
Journal
Go outside and listen to the birds
Shower mindfully
Practice breathwork (see the Momentum guide to breathwork)
Meditation, either guided or unguided
Decide when you’re going to do it
Without implementation intention, following through becomes much more difficult. Most people like to include their mindfulness practice in the morning, as nothing will come up beforehand to draw you away from your practice. However, you can include your practice at any time. Just find a time that will work with your schedule.
Only commit to 5 minutes per day
Anything more is great, but 5 minutes will be much more sustainable - “It’s better to meditate for five minutes than aim for one hour, get discouraged, and then not meditate at all. Don’t feel bad for not being able to meditate for long. Instead, choose an amount of time you can commit to, and then do it daily. When you’re starting to build a meditation routine, it’s more important to do it every day than finishing long sits.” - Sílvia Bastos
Resources
Here are some free links to relevant articles if you’d like to dive deeper into this topic.
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