Living mindfully: how to stay present and aware throughout your day
Mindfulness is more than just meditating for fifteen minutes in the morning
Now, I don’t claim to be a mindful exemplar. As my friends and family would attest, I can be scatty, forgetful, disorganised and impatient. But I’m working on myself, and that’s what matters. I’m certainly far more mindful than I was two years ago. I strive hard for the model I’m about to lay out, and one day, after enough practice, I hope my days will organically unfold along these lines without too much effort or thought. The following is a guide to a mindful day. Mindfulness is not something which you just slot into your day; it’s a way of living. This is not intended to be prescriptive, but more a springboard for you to develop your own routine.
Wake up — after eight hours’ sleep
I’m certainly not going to prescribe or even suggest a specific time, because different people wake up at different times, and that’s okay. The most important thing is the amount of shut-eye you are getting and the regularity of your sleep cycle. Eight hours is the optimum. You should go to bed and wake up at the same time, give or take fifteen minutes. This could be 10–6, 11–7 or 12–8, for example. Eventually, your body will tune in to this pattern and you might not even need an alarm after a while. Imagine! This will help you get into a repetitive, healthy cycle of waking, preparing for the day, expending energy in the day, resting in the evening and recuperating through sleep at night.
Breathe and stay off the phone
As soon as you recognise you are awake, what do you do? Well, harnessing that superhuman willpower within, you resist the urge to slide back under the covers, check your messages or wake your brain up with your social media. Instead, you prop up my pillows and sit up straight. You light a candle instead of assaulting your retinas with artificial light. Then, you practise this mindful breathing exercise:
- Start by taking some fast, hard breaths, for about thirty seconds, as if you are hyperventilating. This will raise your heart rate slightly and get the blood flowing, leaving you feeling noticeably more awake.
- Then, close your eyes and take some deep belly breaths, really feeling into the sensation of the air passing through your nostrils, through your airways and into your lungs. Notice the steady, regular rise and fall of your chest and stomach as you breathe in and out.
- Finally, breathe in through your nose for a count of around 2, then exhale more slowly through your mouth for a count of about 5, and repeat for a few breaths. Focus on relaxing your muscles and really letting go of any tension in your body on the long out-breath.
This exercise leaves you feeling alert, but also relaxed. You can take this sense of balanced awareness with you throughout your day. At any point in the day if you feel flustered or overwhelmed, you can pause for a moment, close your eyes and focus on your breath to ground yourself in the present moment.
Get moving
Being mindful is about being in touch with your body as well as your mind, and we should remember how interconnected the two are. When we wake up, our muscles are stiff and tight due to inactivity. If we go straight to the desk or the sofa after getting up, it will take much longer for our muscles to loosen, and the stiffness in the neck and shoulders in particular will persist, potentially making us irritable or uncomfortable.
The mindful choice would be to start your day with some movement, to ease your brain and body into the day. So you begin with some gentle stretches where it’s needed, perhaps in the neck — but nothing too extreme first thing in the morning. You might follow this with a session of yoga.
After breathing and moving, maybe you’ll make a cup of tea or coffee and check your phone: an intentional choice, not because you got distracted when you meant to do something different. Everything you do throughout the day is the result of a deliberate, conscious choice; you’re not on autopilot.
Expending energy
Sleeping is a period of recuperation and replenishment. At the beginning of the day, we have oodles of energy — mental and physical — waiting to be released. The bulk of your day should therefore be spent doing some form of work: ideally something meaningful and fulfilling. For example, this might be studying, going to the actual workplace or writing.
You work with your phone by your side only if you have to, and go for periods without listening to music. Music may help with focus, but it can also become distracting noise, snatching away some of your attention — even if you’re not fully aware of it.
Taking breaks
A mindful person takes regular breaks throughout the day to work the body, reflect and take stock. Breaks take chunks out of your work time, but they pay off because they make you more focused and productive when you return, and reduce the likelihood of distraction. A break also provides a perfect opportunity for a mindful moment.
You might:
- Meditate (perhaps the best way to spend a break — aim to meditate daily)
- Go for a walk without any stimulation like your phone or music.
- Do a household chore such as the laundry or the dishes with slow, mindful awareness, not rushing or seeing it as an annoyance. Focus on the sensations and experience of the activity itself, rather than letting your mind fill with worries and thoughts.
- Check in with your body — have a light stretch, roll the neck and shoulders, noticing any aches, pains or tension.
- Do a workout
- Go out for a coffee or a walk with a friend — but make sure you plan for this and can actually afford to take the time out of your day; this will ensure you are totally present and being a good listener, because your mind won’t drift into thinking about other things, like work.
Rest and self-care
A mindful person has a clear boundary between work and relaxation. You stop ‘expending’ at a certain time, and move into the ‘resting’ segment of your day. Mindfulness is largely is about focusing on one thing at a time. Modern life — and the pervasiveness of personal technology — has resulted in people being caught in a constant state of multi-tasking. Our attention is always divided and fragmented. We think this makes us more productive because it feels like we are winning in this imaginary battle with time. But actually, it destroys our focus. Mindfulness is the practise of gathering all our attention and focus and directing it at one thing. When we meditate or do yoga, that’s often the breath or the body. On a day-to-day basis, we can apply that to almost any activity we are doing.
In the evening, your attention should be on you, not on your work or responsibilities. So you make a conscious choice to turn inwards. You might engage in a bit of self-reflection; the evening is the perfect time to do some journalling.
You ask yourself: what do I need right now? What is something that would make me happy and is also good for my mind and body? That’s what self-care is all about. Occasionally, that might be a couple of glasses of wine and a long bubble bath. Other times, it might be some time curled up on the sofa with a good book. Or you might spend a slow, mindful hour cooking with a podcast on in the background. Make a list of all the things you could do and pick one.
And then you go to bed — replenish, expend, rest, repeat.
