Mindful Habits

A couple of months ago, I was on the desperate search for a name for my blog. For hours, I went through the taxing process of considering just about every adjective on the planet to embody the content I would be creating.

Now, from the get-go, I knew I wanted to start a lifestyle blog in which I could write about my advice, experiences and thoughts on a broad range of topics. But what was I going to call it?!

After much consideration, I eventually settled for ‘Mindful Life’. The reason for this is because as I’m sure you’ve noticed in a lot of my posts thus far, I have given advice about essentially becoming more in tune with yourself. I also decided on this name as my Instagram account name is @mindful_lifex (go and follow me if you aren’t already!) so I felt that it linked the two quite nicely together.

However, up until now, I haven’t yet directly addressed the topic of ‘Mindfulness’. So today I thought I would write a post about healthy habits I have adopted to become a more mindful person. These are easy habits which I practise on a daily/weekly basis that you can too! 

First of all, what exactly does it mean to be ‘mindful’? 

To sum it up, mindfulness pretty much just means being aware of and controlling your experiences. You are in the moment acting, not reacting, to life. If you are mindful, you are the master of your emotions and are aware in each and every moment of the day. How often do you feel like you’re just floating by in life and aren’t really present in the moment? How many of your decisions are influenced solely by your emotions? Rather than letting days fly thoughtlessly away, if you are mindful, you take responsibility for every action: what you are thinking, saying and doing. Above all, mindfulness means that if your experience of life isn’t as you want, then you do something to change it. 

Over the years and even during these past few weeks, I have developed some healthy habits of mindfulness which help me not only to spend my time better but also to live in the present moment. When most people think of mindfulness, they automatically presume that you can only be mindful through practising meditation. It is just as possible though to live a mindful life through the practice of other habits which aren’t just meditation. The point of mindfulness is that it is a personal choice of how you want to experience life. There is no ‘one size fits all’ as everyone of course has their own ideas of how they want to channel their energy and live their lives. I hope however that my following ideas inspire you to implement some new habits into your life!

My top 5 healthy habits of Mindfulness: 

1.     Limiting phone usage 

Whose phone is their biggest enemy?

I know that mine certainly is. Without noticing it, numerous times throughout the day, I just mindlessly reach for my phone to scroll through social media posts, reply to a text or edit photos. Every day, my phone used to be the first and last thing I would look at when I woke up and before I went to sleep. Thoughtlessly reaching for my phone and subsequently spending hours on it affected not only my mental health (by spending hours on social media- check out my post on social media if you haven’t already!), but also my sleeping patterns and productivity.

Now, I’m someone who used to really struggle to fall asleep. However, this wasn’t always the case. As a child, I never struggled to fall asleep nor did I have issues staying asleep. My sleeping issues only began in the last year or so. I put it down to bad habits such as having a high caffeine intake, not getting enough exercise to tire me out during the day, or stress.

When I told people I was struggling to sleep and also stay asleep (as I would wake up numerous times in the night), I was told to have a more relaxing routine before I went to bed and stop using my phone at least an hour before I went to sleep. I knew about how the blue light emitted from your phone screen restrains the production of melatonin, the hormone that controls you sleep/wake cycle. But, did I care? Not really! Of course, being the teenager that I am, I chose to ignore this advice as I couldn’t see how my phone could possibly be affecting my sleep- right?!

Anyways, by the off-chance I had, one night my phone died before I went to bed, so I plugged it in to charge and picked up a book to read in the meantime. I became engrossed in this book and before I knew it, an hour had passed by. I was so exhausted and so went straight to bed. Lo and behold! I had the best night of sleep in forever. And, I didn’t wake up once. 

For the rest of this week, I did the same thing. Before I went to bed, I plugged in my phone to charge and then read my book until I felt tired. I also didn’t look at the time on my watch before I went to sleep because I’ve found that knowing the time when I go to sleep makes me subconsciously feel more tired the next day if it was late. 

Since I’ve started taking time to properly unwind before I go to bed, I sleep so much better and I also feel much more energised the next day. If I’ve had a particularly stressful day, I’ll also do some relaxing yoga to calm me down before reading. I literally haven’t slept this well since I was a kid and now that I’ve started implementing a mindful night-time routine into my life, I can see how much my phone used to affect me. On the rare days now when I go to sleep without reading and instead am on my phone, I can really feel the impact on my quality of sleep and also how rubbish I feel the next day.

During the day, I try to limit how much I go on my phone by keeping it at home if I don’t need it when I’m going out, or leaving it in my room if I need to get some work done. Having a phone can be really handy but it can sometimes really limit my productivity and it makes me feel so much better to do something other than just scrolling through social media posts!

2.     Keeping a Gratitude Journal

How often do you wish that you had more in your life? Do you feel like no matter what you do or have, it’s never enough?

Well, rest assured that you’re not the only one. Before I started practising gratitude, I always felt like there was something missing from my life and I would never appreciate what I already had. I would constantly be looking for the next thing I wanted to buy, place I wanted to visit, or thing I wanted to do.

About 4 years ago, I started to keep a gratitude journal. A gratitude journal is essentially a notebook in which you write down 3 things you are grateful for every day. They don’t necessarily have to be huge extravagant things, it can simply be having: a roof over your head, an education or a loving support network. I do it at the end of every day on an app called Happyfeed (you can also add in photos if you want!).  

The power of gratitude is something beyond human comprehension. It isn’t to be underestimated. Gratitude is a powerful process for shifting your energy and bringing more of what you want into your life. By being grateful for what you already have, you will attract more good things into your life. Essentially, until you stop taking things for granted, you won’t be able to create more abundance in your life.

Since writing in my gratitude journal, I’ve noticed 2 key changes in my life:

1.     I now recognise the abundance in my life and don’t take anything for granted

2.     I attract more of what I want into my life

Keeping a gratitude journal is something that makes me feel really good and it hardly takes 5 minutes out of my day. But the feel-good factor is amazing. It makes me recognise and value the smaller things in life that I wouldn’t think twice about unless I sat down at the end of the day and thought of good things that had happened to me. The stranger who smiled at me in the street? The sun shining all day which made me feel good? Having a comfy bed to sleep in? They’re all little things in my day that I could take for granted but keeping a gratitude journal makes me recognise them and realise how much I have to be thankful for!

Gratitude isn’t just for thanksgiving, it’s for every day.

3.     Exercise 

Part of being mindful means spending your time doing things that make you feel good. For me, doing exercise is a way to release endorphins that make me feel good mentally and of course physically.

At least once a week, I try to get some form of exercise- whether that’s going for a run, practising yoga or doing a HIIT. Depending on my mood, I’ll usually opt for yoga if I want something relaxing or if I feel really stressed and in need of more, I’ll do something of higher intensity. Having a routine and a regular form of exercise every week helps me schedule it into my life and ensures that I stick with it. When I’m back home, I go to the Parkrun- a 5km run every Saturday morning at 9am as I love the community feel and it makes me feel great knowing that I’ve started my weekend off in the right way.  

Everyone’s got their own preference of exercise, so you just have to find what works for you. I’m also very mindful that even if my schedule is really busy, I should still find time to exercise as I know how good it makes me feel. And remember- yoga still counts as exercise! 

4.     Mantras Every Morning

Mantras have always been a part of my life, but they have tended to phase in and out. Recently, I started practising them again as it was one of my New Year’s Resolutions. Every morning, as soon as I wake up I say my list of mantras which include:

I am enough 

I believe that good things are coming to me today 

I feel happy and secure

Even though it can feel superficial to say these mantras, after a while, they start to infiltrate into your subconsciousness and I find myself saying them to myself during the day. They make me feel positive about myself and my life, and start my day off in the right way. 

Mantras are personal to everyone so if you want to practise mantras, I’d urge you to include phrases that apply specifically to you. For example, if your appearance is something you feel unhappy about, then say phrases such as “My body is a gift and I love it”. If your self-worth or confidence is something that you struggle with, then say phrases such as “I am worth more than anything on this earth” or “I’m worthy of the most pure kind of love”.

I love practising my daily affirmations and again, they barely take 2 minutes to say every morning! If you want to find out more about mantras, then check out my post: A Culture Of Comparison.

5.     Weekly Journal

I’m proud to say that I have kept a journal since I was 7 years old and have pretty much written consistently every week for 11 years! Having a journal is brilliant not only to document my experiences but also to declutter my mind when I’m feeling stressed or need to get something out onto paper. 

I really appreciate how much writing helps to get my thoughts straight and forget about my worries. If I’ve got an issue or worry, I’ll just write it down in my journal and then put it away so I can move on from the problem. 

I also love looking back on my old diary entries from when I was younger to remind myself of all of the amazing experiences I’ve had, people I’ve met and also it’s so interesting to see how I’ve developed as a person.

People are usually really surprised to hear how long I’ve kept a diary for because it’s the sort of thing that people will start for a month or so and then give up, claiming that it’s “too much effort!”. I can understand that, but it’s actually much easier once you get into the habit. For example, I’ve now got a routine where every Sunday evening at the end of the week, I put aside some time (usually 30 minutes) to write in my diary. Now that I’ve done this for so many years, it feels like second nature and I can’t imagine not writing in my diary as I’m so used to it now!

I would really urge you to start writing a diary if you don’t already have one because it’s my number 1 outlet and storage of my life experiences, which I’m sure will be interesting to look back on in years to come!

So, that’s my top 5 healthy habits of mindfulness that I love to practise. 

What habits of mindfulness do you practise? Of course, I have plenty of others but this blog post is already far too long, so I’ll save the rest for another day!

I hope you have a lovely, mindful weekend relaxing and unwinding. And remember, practising mindfulness is as easy as taking 5 minutes out of your day to write in a gratitude journal, practise mantras or doing some exercise.

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