How To Manage Stress Through Practicing Daily Mindfulness

Stress is something that affects us all at some point in our daily lives. Some days are more stressful than others, and some seem lighter overall. For the most part, we can navigate through stressful periods in a manageable way. However, too much stress can overtake our minds and health because it becomes more challenging to manage. Mindfulness is one way you can manage your stress, recognize the triggers, and work through that stress to remove it from your life and move on with your day. If you aren’t sure how mindfulness will reduce your stress or even help with it at all, here are a four daily techniques and practices that will help guide you into more of a present mindset.

[one] Breathing Techniques

This may sound like a simple basic concept, but taking time to breathe can reduce stress in your life. The trick to this is to learn breathing techniques that can help you reduce your heart rate and keep your body and emotions in check. Once you learn a few breathing techniques, you can apply them at the appropriate times, help refocus yourself, reduce the stress, and deal with any fallout from that stress effectively. Breathing techniques work in several ways. They help you stop and refocus. They also help you slow your breath and take calming breaths that help your heart rate lower to a reasonable level and ultimately help your blood pressure to lower. This helps you calm down and figure out what steps to take next.

[two] Observe The “Issue” Without Attachment

Mindfulness techniques like meditation and mind-mapping can help you focus on the issue at hand. What mindfulness does is help you use and find techniques that can take a jumble of thoughts and work them into one connected thought with a clear path to a goal that has a starting point and ending point. Mindfulness can help you find joy in the task at hand, even if it simply completes the task and moves to the next one. Through meditation, mind mapping, breathing, and gratitude, you can focus on the issue at hand. Often stress is caused by our immediate reaction to the stress or the thing causing the stress. We take in the immediate reaction and let it explode in our minds. This causes a massive amount of panic over something that likely doesn’t need that sort of reaction.

An example of this would be reacting to a new item on your to-do list that is unexpected. You may panic, wondering how you will complete the task with the other tasks you have. Instead, you can use mindfulness to refocus and realize that the task can be worked in with another task or handled quickly and moved to your completed list.

[three] Set Your Mindful Mindset

Find happiness every day. This may sound like a very rose-coloured-glass-happy-talk, but the truth is there is something to the process. Everyone has horrible days, but the problem is when you have several in a row, and you can’t find anything good about any of them. It sets you up for saying your life is horrible and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Instead, make it a point to find one bright point a day. Just one bright point could be anything from a good coffee cup to being thankful for your soft blankets to end the day. As I like to say, stop to smell the roses, breathe in the fresh air, and sip slowly.

By incorporating these tips at the start of your mindfulness journey, you can refocus your mindset and get it on track. Over time, you may need to revisit these tips to reset your mindset when you get off track. Just keep in mind, mindfulness is ever-growing and a journey instead of the last stop.

[four] Breath Walking

Breath walking may be new to you, but it can make you a happier person. The concept here is to walk in nature each day for a few minutes or more. Just get away from everything. Step out into nature with no electronics. Now, this doesn’t mean to go out with no way of contacting anyone in an emergency. It simply means to turn off music and phones and just walk. Concentrate on your breath as you move and walk, and work to calm it. Notice the sounds and nature around you, and let go of the stress of the day through your breathing. You will find yourself healthier and happier at the end of the walk, and as the walk’s progress, you may find yourself more adapted to handle your daily stress as well.

As you start putting these daily practices into your life, you will start seeing a change for the better and seeing yourself becoming happier.

Remember, start slow and let the process work. It’s all about letting the process develop in your life at your own pace.