5 Tips for Practicing Everyday Mindfulness

When you get up in the morning, what’s the first thing you do? Is it — grab your phone and look at your notifications?

How about your lunch break — do you savor each meal, or spend the time catching up on emails?

Perhaps you find yourself running on autopilot most of the time.

It can be hard to focus your attention in a world that expects you to constantly multitask. But by living more mindfully we can live more intentionally. And bringing mindfulness to each day doesn’t mean adding an additional task to get to. Practicing everyday mindfulness is just about noticing our thoughts, feelings, and experiences as they happen — throughout our day!

Here are 5 simple ways to practice everyday mindfulness:

1) Wake Up Mindfully

As you transition from sleep, reconnect with your body and the breath. Notice how it feels to move from sleep to wakefulness.

You can take a few deep breaths and notice where you feel it the most. Do you feel the sensation more in your nostrils? Or do you feel your belly rise and fall?

Taking a few breaths as you begin to wake up will help ground you in the present moment, instead of jumping headfirst into all the things on your to-do list. And if you do find yourself immediately thinking about the day ahead, just notice those thoughts without judgment. And simply refocus your attention on how the body feels as you breathe, stretch, and move your way onto your feet.

2) Mindfully Transition

We move through many transitions in our daily lives. Getting out of bed, getting up to get water, driving home from work. These are all transitions from one task to the next that we often do without even noticing what we’re doing.

Next time you move from one task to the next, focus on what you’re getting up to do and bring intention and awareness to the transition into the new activity.

3) Mindful Eating

Eating is something often done while engaging in another activity. It can be tempting to catch up on emails during lunch or turn on the TV.