MINDFULNESS MEDITATION

Mind blown! 

What if we told you there is a way to help you unwind and de-stress at the end of a busy and intense day using minimal effort! Whether it be, you looked after your children, worked from home or went into the office and now your brain is so frazzled and buzzing that you don’t know what to do, we may have an answer! 

When we were going through our twenties and early thirties if anyone mentioned the words Mindfulness or Meditation we would generally shrug it off with an “Ugh that hippy voodoo rubbish, not for me” and continue on with bumbling along through life being stressed out, disorganised, scattered, exhausted and sleep deprived. 

Well… believe it or not, whilst we embarked on our quests to heal our bodies from the inside out from years of abuse from our university, clubbing/partying days, endless take-aways and birthing seven children between us, we discovered meditation and mindfulness and how we could use this to switch off for the day and chill. It came at the right time in our lives otherwise we might have crashed and burned!

What is this sorcery I hear you ask! 

Now before you run for the hills, see if this is something that could really help you become a more relaxed and calmer person in certain situations and to be able to switch off from the chaos of your daily life. 

What is mindfulness & Meditation? 

Mindfulness is a style of meditation. This meditation will help to ground you and help you focus on being present in the moment.  By being focused on what you are feeling, thinking and sensing you can start to relax using some mind and body techniques. 

These techniques can be guided breathing to help you relax and unwind and let your mind calm and wind down. Whilst the meditation sounds or music playing your mind will start to generate images that will stimulate the sensory perception. 

How can Mindfulness & meditation help me?

• Can help to reduce deep thinking, overthinking and obsessive thoughts (i.e OCD)
• Can help reduce anxiety and low mood, negative thoughts
• Can help with emotional regulation
• Helps to refocus your mind and suppress distractions
• Improve your sleep
• Help your body calm down after a chaotic day
• Can calm the mind, help it to unwind and offload the “to do list” rattling around in your head!

Here’s an example, 

You have had a nightmare of a day. You feel frazzled and there are thousands of thoughts running through your head about what you need to get done by Friday. You start to feel frantic and almost sick about the many things you want to achieve.

So, let’s give this a try; you are lying on your bed, no-one around you, kids in bed, hubby gone to the pub, pre covid times of course!

• You have lit some candles and put on some meditation style music on low or are listening to some meditation sounds.
• Close your eyes and start to take some slow long deep breaths in for 5, out for 5, and keep repeating this until you start to feel relaxed and your breathing becomes regular. 
• As you do this you will notice you start to relax and your body sinks into the bed. 
• From the top of your head, consciously try to relax every muscle in your face. Often at this point you instantly feel that your Jaw is often tense without knowing it, so once you are aware of this you can let go of the tension and feel your jaw relax.
• Relax the tension in your neck. Get comfy on a pillow and sink into it.
• Now move to your arms, lay them by your side and again, consciously relax them and your shoulders and keep the controlled breathing going. It is amazing that when we start to do this we feel ourselves stop tensing and actually relax. 
• Now focus on your knees, then your legs, and finally your toes. Let it all flop and breathe the tension away. 
• Don’t worry if you don’t feel that relaxed first attempt, go back to your head and start again. 
• This may take 5-10 minutes to become fully relaxed and there is no time limit so take as long as you need to get rid of the tension and feel like you are floating as light as a feather. 
• As you become this relaxed feather light person your mind will start to evoke sensory perception and images will pop into your mind. 
• If you are listening to a mediation track that is a flowing river, rain beating down, a waterfall or the sea waves crashing, the images you may see are often related to what you are hearing; does this make sense? It's quite magical if you are now feeling fully relaxed in this space. 
• Now it is not uncommon to be so relaxed that you fall asleep. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Meditation is often done at bedtime for many so they can drift off in a state of relaxation being able to switch your busy mind off. 
• For some, the music stops and you open your eyes and feel so relaxed that you can go about the rest of your day with ease. 

Now, what’s not to love about this? Who would not want to experience the feeling of total relaxation?

Give it a try, you’ve got nothing to lose but we promise you, this can get quite addictive and you will be implementing this into your everyday routine!

Who knew that Voodoo, hippy magic would be so good for us!!