7 Simple Tricks to Raise Your Mindfulness

Let me tell you right away: there is no easy way to come to full awareness. It is a long journey full of overcoming difficulties. But if you find that you don't like living on autopilot and half asleep, you can change that by raising your level of awareness. You have already answered the question "Why?", I will answer the question "How?" short, without water and spirituality.

1. Square

I suggest starting with this exercise. Do it now. It will help you understand where you are at the moment in the context of your whole life.

Draw a square and divide it into 100 pieces. Color in the top squares for the number of years lived. Fill in the squares from 70 to 100 below. In Russia, these years are called the age of survival, I propose to consider them a time of reflection and contemplation.

Here is my square.

What remains unpainted is your life ahead, the remaining active years. How does it feel? What thoughts did you inspire? What feelings did you evoke? The questions are not rhetorical. Answer yourself to them, ideally write down the answers.

2. Alarm clock

Set your alarm clock to ring every hour. When the alarm sounds, go to the window. Look up, to the sky, down, to the ground, to the right, to the left, at the cars, at the people. Who are they, what do they look like? Look at your hands, look at yourself. What are you wearing?

Close your eyes, listen. Our brain filters many sounds. Hear them: the noise of the hood, voices outside the window, snoring behind the wall, your breathing. Focus on each one individually, now hear them all together.

3. Dear Diary

Keep a diary. Describe the events of the day and the feelings and emotions that have arisen. Do not criticize what is written, do not evaluate, do not choose words - let it be written as it is written. Be honest, no one will read this.

To make it easier to get started, answer the following questions every day:

What good happened today?
How did I feel about it?
Why am I doing well today?
Who do I want to thank?
The main conclusion of the day.

Complete the list.

4. Breathing practices

In any unclear situation, observe the breath. What does it mean to observe? Pay attention and look here with your inner eye:

What is the temperature of the inhaled and exhaled air?
Do I breathe with my chest or belly? And if you try the other way around?
Does breathing have a sound?
What are the sensations in the nostrils when inhaling and exhaling?
How long is an inhalation-exhalation?

Concentrating on your breathing is not easy. To master the skill, you can use a smartphone application and breathe with it for at least five minutes a day.

Apps work on roughly the same principle. A pleasant sound is given - you need to take a breath. Another pleasant sound is given - you need to exhale. Sounds follow each other, you breathe.

I use Saagara's Health Through Breath app. Here you can adjust the duration of the practice, the level of difficulty, the length of inhalation-exhalation, you can adjust breathing with delays.

Application not found

5. Braking

Slow down purposefully. Speak more slowly, walk, turn your head. Move more smoothly. Take your time with answers, reactions. At least sometimes slow down to a full stop to see what is around, who is around, how around.

6. Ambidexter

Develop both arms. If you are right-handed, do everything with the left and vice versa. If you can't do everything right away, at least just eat, holding a spoon in an unusual hand. You will realize that the last time you were so focused on eating food was when you were two years old and learned to eat with a spoon. You can brush your teeth, cut bread, open the door with a key, for the brave - paint your lips.

7. Taking care of yourself

Finally, the most difficult of the techniques: take care of yourself. Realize that physical and emotional resources are finite and often irreplaceable. Stress, fatigue, illness, nervous exhaustion and bad habits reduce the level of awareness. A healthy, sleepy person who is in no hurry lives more consciously. He is more often in a state of "here and now", so he is happier.