Mindfulness activities help us calm down and connect with our present surroundings. It’s an excellent way to ground ourselves and improve the quality of our daily life. It also helps us lead a stress-free life, with an improved focus on purposeful actions. These techniques help you cope well with work stress and alive fully.
Here is a helpful list of mindfulness activities that you can do daily. The daily hubbub of our stressful lives may make us blind to the beauty around us. These mindfulness activities will help you enjoy each moment. It gives a valuable perspective on life too, something you will understand well once you try one of these activities yourself.
30 Mindfulness Activities For a Happier You!
1.Journaling
Take a few minutes off your busy day to write down what you feel, want, and think. Write down your thoughts on how your life goes, or jot down the tasks you need to finish today. The swirling mess of ideas becomes a single string of thoughts, which is a very peaceful experience. After the day ends, write down every useful activity that you did and how you can make it better tomorrow.
This brings more clarity in everything you do, making you purposeful. It also helps you discover your true self, your strengths, and your weaknesses. That’s a valuable perspective to have in your life.
2. Walking on the Grass Barefoot
Next time you see the patch of gentle green grass in a garden, ditch your shoes and walk barefoot on it. Please focus on each green blade’s feel on your feet and the moisture it brings with it. It’s a pleasurable experience and fills you with a fleeting sense of peace and comfort.
Nature has wonderful ways to make us feel loved because it really is our home.
3. Painting
Paint to bring out all the sceneries inside your mind. But if that seems complicated, just buy your favorite shades of paints, and twirl the brush in to mix a few colors together. Then take a sheet, and paint. Focus on the way the brush moves on the paper and how the paint leaves behind swirls, curves, and straight lines.
It will calm you and ignite your creativity. Feel your mind get occupied with painting, and experience the peace once all our stressful thoughts quiet down. Painting is a wonderful way to connect to yourself and gives a peace of mind.
4. Make a Cup of Tea or Coffee Mindfully
Wake up early in the morning and make yourself some tea or coffee, but this time with a slight difference. Focus on the smell of the coffee powder. Watch the tea make swirls of colors in the water.
Drink your beverage slowly, savoring the taste and enjoying it. This way, we can be acutely aware of our surroundings and enjoy every morning better. Even small minutes spent well can change the mood of your day.
5. Take a Good Morning Shower
Taking a quick bath refreshes us instantly, and doing it mindfully will only increase this outcome. Paying attention to the feel of the sprinkles of water takes your mind away from burdening shower thoughts. Use nice scented bathing products; it will increase your good feels.
6. Yoga
Almost all yoga methods use mindfulness as a main aspect in their peaceful routines. A good yoga instructor can guide you through each exercise. But you can also watch Youtube videos by good yoga instructors to do a mind-full yoga session successfully. It is the best of all mindfulness activities.
7. Workout
Working out is a good way to ground yourself and shed all the nervous energy building up in you. Daily exercise can do wonders for your physical and mental health. From jumping jacks to weights training, try the exercises you like.
To draw even more benefits from your workout sessions, chose outdoor exercises instead of a gym. Run outside, feeling the gentle breeze hit you. Watch your surroundings and keenly observe things on a short brisk walk. This mindfulness activity is known to reduce stress.
8. Watching Sunrises and Sunsets
Mindfulness is all about getting a better perspective of your surroundings and creating peaceful moments. Watching sunrises and sunsets is a good way to do this. Wake up early to watch a sunrise and remember, mindfully.
Watch the sunrise in silence, and just sit there basking in the morning light. Sunsets bring a feeling of closure and peaceful nights. Remember to feel everything and be in the moment.
9. A Beach Trip Alone
Beaches are always magical, and you feel content and intrigue by watching the huge waves of water. Sit down on the sandy shore, and feel the warm sand under your feet. Make a sandcastle if you like, and sit peacefully with it.
Listen deeply to the sound of waves, and immerse yourself in the experience. Focus on all the things you can see, hear, feel and smell.
10. Swimming
Swimming is a good way to relax your entire body and be mindfully in peace. Watching the water and feeling the way it caresses your body will make you calm. If you can find a natural creek or lake to swim in, it’s a lot better. Swimming brings a lot of calm bliss to you.
If you don’t know swimming, stay in shallow waters, and watch small fish swim around you. Look up at the natural canopies that line along the water-body, and enjoy the place.
11. Mindful Cooking
Cooking is often considered a therapeutic activity by many. Following the recipe step by step and focusing on each move is important for a good result. Mindful cooking is about immersing yourself in the process and enjoying each moment through all five senses.
It leaves you with a sense of accomplishment. Practice mindfulness while you eat.
12. Learning a New Language
Learning a new language mindfully has a lot of benefits. It’s a way to know other cultures and also keeps your brain young. Time put into learning a new language will be spent in the creative generation of new thoughts. The constant racing of your mind ceases.
Mindfulness activities are all about focusing on the current moment and one task at hand. It requires you to be non-judgemental of your surroundings. Learning a new language is one way you can practice these virtues in your daily life and keep your brain healthy.
13. Trekking Through the Woods
Pack up a bag of trekking essentials, and go enjoy the peaceful woods with your friends in tow. The tall trees, wildlife, canopies, and the glistening stars at night are views that make you think and live fully.
Throughout the journey, focus on your present surroundings, looking at everything happening around you.
14. Mindfulness through Flowers
There’s beauty in appreciating the little things in life, and that’s what mindfulness is all about. Appreciating flowers entails nothing but looking at the colors closely and breathing in their beautiful scent. It’s one of the many easy mindfulness activities that can be used in teaching mindfulness to children.
15. Mindful Hugs
Share a warm embrace with your friend, family, or partner. It’s a moment of shared fondness.
16. Finger Painting
Paint with your fingers, and relish the feel of the paint. It’s a relaxing and fun activity. It’s a good mindfulness exercise for kids. Focus on the feeling of the paint and the patterns you create.
It is the right way of practicing mindfulness.
17. Gardening
Visit your garden every day and care for it. Or you can grow a plant in a small pot and look after it every day. Feel the leaves under your hands, give it water daily and pay close attention to everything you do and see. This is the most grounding activity of all mindfulness activities.
18. The Five Senses Activity
Sit comfortably, and for a minute, focus on doing this small activity that will immediately bring you back to the present. Focus on what you can sense with each of your five senses.
Observe every detail of the things around you, and name the five prominent physical sensations. It’s a calming exercise, which can help during anxiety attacks.
19. Exploring Unfamiliar Places
All mindfulness activities are about focusing on the present, which brings us a moment of peace in our daily struggles. Exploring new places brings in curiosity and makes you look around in awe. It can even just be exploring a new street or different routes.
20. Learning a New Instrument
A new creative experience will certainly help you focus and relish the moment. This can be achieved when learning a new musical instrument. Now is a good time to pick up your childhood dream of playing the guitar.
21. Mindful Music
When doing chores, you can listen to soft music. This helps in concentrating on the task at hand and prevents you from diving into a whirl of thoughts. Music can calm you down when feeling overwhelmed.
22. Take Digital Breaks
Our dependence on technology has only increased over the years, and it has led us to be glued to the screen. Taking a digital break is one of the best mindfulness activities. Set aside a time every day to be offline ultimately. Do some of these mindfulness activities in this free time.
23. Waking Up Early
Waking up early in the morning is a peaceful experience. Remind yourself of your ambitions and your daily tasks to do. Starting your day off peacefully and with purpose is one of the most effective mindfulness activities.
24. Look at the Mirror and Smile
Often times we spend our time frowning at the blemishes and pimples on our skin when we look at ourselves, which just pulls down our self-esteem. Show yourself some love and smile at yourself. This is a good way to begin your day mindfully. You are mindfully aware of yourself, and thereby increasing your self-esteem.
Focus on your breathing and smile widely. Incorporate mindfulness while smiling and calm yourself.
25. Eating Mindfully
Enjoying the food is what eating mindfully means. In our daily rush, eating just becomes another chore to complete. Eating should always be done mindfully, without any distractions, like watching the phone or TV.
Savor the flavors and pay attention to the feel of the food. Always speak a word of gratitude to the person who prepared the food for you.
26. Find Ways to Laugh out Loud
Everyday life may not give you ample opportunities to have a good laugh. So, you must make sure to have a light moment every day. Be it joking around with your friends or watching a comedy show, create ways to enjoy life, and laugh away your worries.
Mindfulness is about acknowledging the present and being deeply connected with it. Laughter is a good way to do precisely that. Look at all the happiness around you when you are hanging out with your friends. You live the moment fully by laughing and being happy yourself.
27. Aromatherapy and Sleep
Before sleeping, burn a scented candle. Make sure to dim the lights down and spend the moments before sleep in peace. Spend these moments without using your phone. Ideally, it would be best if you stopped your screen time an hour before you sleep.
Read a good book or practice some breathing exercises. These are ways you can mindfully close off your day and prepare for a good sleep.
28. Creating a Direct Connect with Nature
Staying in harmony with nature is peaceful. Including elements of nature in your surroundings is a good way to do this. Hang pots filled with greens. Buy a small cactus or an aloe pot to sit on your table as a constant companion.
29. Gratitude List
Create a list of things you are grateful for. This exercise helps to remember the things that matter to you the most, making it an excellent daily routine. This gives you a new purpose and a feeling of affection and warmth.
30. The Body Scan Technique
Often we don’t realize how tense our body is. Unconsciously, you might be gritting your teeth or sitting stiffly. When you realize that, you immediately relax. This is an activity that helps you relax your body.
Pay attention to each body part, and feel the tension. You may find your leg to be in an uncomfortable position or your neck strained. Carefully reposition yourself, take in a few deep breaths and relax while letting the breath out.
Implementing mindfulness activities in your daily life will make you appreciate life better.
Name – Suvangi Chanda
Qualification – MBBS Student
Instagram handle – https://instagram.com/_suvangi._?igshid=NTdlMDg3MTY=
