3 Easy Ways to Add Mindfulness to Your Day

Written by Megan Yoder, Resilience Team, Reno County Learning Site Director and mindfulness enthusiast.

This is a special post in honor of Mental Health Awareness month. As educators, we know it can be difficult to find time to take care of your own mental health. We hope these 3 tips will encourage you to take 5 minutes out of your day and focus on you!

Inhale, deep. Exhale, slow. Inhale courage, exhale fear.

Opportunities to practice mindfulness surround us throughout  every waking hour yet, we struggle to find the time to take the small moment that we deserve. Mindfulness is nothing more than bringing 100% of our awareness to the present moment. It’s simple and easy. As a mindfulness coach, I have found that people don’t attempt mindfulness practices because they believe it to be a bigger event than what it is. They are looking for the perfect conditions. Folks often believe that to be successful, their practice has to be silent, in a candlelit room next to a bubbling brook, with soft music playing in the distance...maybe a soft breeze blowing in through the open window, gently blowing a flowy curtain around…  Were you able to picture or feel the scene that I just described? Congratulations, you did a mindfulness practice! 

I’d love to take this opportunity to share some of my favorite mindfulness practices with you that might be a little different. One of them will even be weird but hang with me! 

Mindfulness practice 1: Joyful Things for 30 Days. 

This is one of my absolute favorite practices. Get yourself a fun notebook… friend, I give you permission to go to Target! Now, that you have a notebook that brings you joy,  number it, 1-30. I typically start day 1 on the 1st of every month but you can do whatever you want. This is YOUR practice! Everyday take a moment to reflect on your day, find one thing that brought you joy and write it down. It could be a hug, a cup of coffee, or laughter. Whatever it is, write it down. It does not have to be a full sentence, keep it simple. Do this again, the next day.  After you write your joyful thing, go back and read everything that you have written on the prior days.  By the time that you get to day 30 you will have read this list over and over and over. You quickly become more aware of how much joy you do have in your life. This has also helped me keep important memories that easily could have been forgotten. Example: do you remember that we started off 2022 with snow? I do because I wrote about playing in the snow with my daughter and husband. I can still remember that day and it was over 1 year ago. With one notebook you can have YEARS of joy and memories that you can cherish forever. 

Mindfulness practice 2: Mantras

I have no science to back this up but I strongly believe that the kindest words that we hear in a day should come from ourselves. Unless we believe the words that we say, it won’t matter what kind of praise or flattering words that we receive from others. We will only view their words as mistruths. No matter what you are struggling with, anxiety, self doubt, self conscience, etc. a mantra can help you overcome those negative self talking points. 

Let’s break this down. A mantra is nothing but a list of affirmations that speak to your heart. I wrote a mantra for myself over 10 years ago and it has changed my life. It helped me find a positive outlook when all I could see were dark clouds. I’d love to share my mantra with you and I invite you to practice it. Sit up nice and tall with your feet grounded to the floor. Place both hands on your chest and press in. Feel that beautiful heart beating, recognize your sense of purpose. Take a deep breath, inhale and exhale slowly. 

State these words out loud, pausing after each one:

I am me. 

I am imperfect. 

My imperfections make me perfect.

I am worthy of great things. 

I smile at a challenge. 

I strive to grow so I can live my best life. 

I am kind. 

I am smart. 

I am loved. 

I am great and I will be great. 

Watch me. 

Close your eyes and inhale deep and exhale slowly. How do you feel? What did you experience? Everytime I introduce this in a workshop or a conference, there is always at least one person who has a silent tear falling down their cheek. It feels sooo good to speak kind words to ourselves and we should do it every day. If this practice spoke to you, please take my mantra and modify it to fit your needs. You are also welcome to use mine. At first, do this multiple times a day and as you start to feel the neurological shift in your brain, you can start to do it less and less per day. Keep this practice up and you will see your life change before your eyes. 

Mindfulness practice 3: Brain Game

Alright, here is the weird one I mentioned earlier. Are you ready? Your tongue has memory and can predict things. WHAT?! I know, hang with me. Wherever you are right now, I want you to find a random object that has some texture, … look at it, notice it, study it…Here we go…. What would it be like if you licked it??? Could you feel it?! Now find something else and imagine licking it. 

Have you ever just had a bad brain day? Like basic human function just wasn’t possible… words were hard, can’t find your phone even though it’s in your hand… This is a fun, silly way to get your brain to reset to its factory settings. I also love to use this practice after a child has been escalated and is starting to come back into a regulated state. I can remember sitting in the hall with a student who had just had a rather large explosion and he was starting to talk more. I looked up and saw art projects that had cotton balls on them so I stared at them in curiosity. The student turned to me and said, “what are you looking at?”  I asked him, “what do you think it would feel like, if we licked those cotton balls right now?” Instant laughter and “gross!” “ewww, that would feel so awful”. His brain literally FELT what that would be like and it got him completely back to a regulated space. 

We did it, friends! You have done 3 very simple and effective ways to practice mindfulness that can be used every single day in your life and inside of your classroom. I hope that this time together has brought you joy. 

I wish you happiness. I wish you peace. I wish you love. I wish you joy.