In this episode of mindful minutes we jump right in with a mindful presence exercise. Get present and refresh your state of mind in less than 10 minutes with this practice. Manage anger, stress, frustration, lack of motivation, and direct your energy to reaching your full potential!
Mindful Minutes – How to Use Singing Bowls For A Mindfulness Practice
In today’s mindful minutes, we talk about singing bowls. Sounds are extremely therapeutic and can be used for anything from mindfulness to cancer treatments!
treatments! Learn more about sound at https://Easternvibration.com
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Mindful Minutes – Breathing with Intention
In this episode of mindful minutes we do a mindful breathing exercise from the Transformational Mindfulness book. We learn the proper way to breathe and the benefits of healthy breathing habits. Get the book at our store here: https://jah.life
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Finding The Time For Wellness At Work
Often times we are busy. Too busy to relax it seems.
But that’s not true. That’s a narrative we give ourselves. There’s always time to take care of ourselves. Sometimes it may not seem like it, but there is. Especially on a busy work day – that’s when we may need a moment of mindfulness the most. And it doesn’t take much! Read on to learn one of our mindfulness exercises for workplace wellness.
If you have ever had brain fog, decision fatigue (when someone asks you any question, and it feels frustrating), or felt short tempered after a long day, then you can understand how constant stress and stimulation affect us. We are not designed to grind for 8+ hours, jumping from one task, appointment, or event to another. We are meant to have cycles and periods of slowing down, to prepare the mind and body for action again when required.
Our health and particularly our stress levels play a huge role in performance and productivity. We function at our best when we are able to pause and reset throughout the day. For most people, productivity falls after about 2 hours of working. After that it is best to take a break. Practicing mindfulness helps us to increase our emotional intelligence (eq) recognize our current state of being so we can adjust accordingly. Wellness at work is extremely important and it begins with managing our stress and emotions. There are many factors to employee health, but for us it starts with the mind body connection.
When you start to notice those symptoms of stress and fatigue, it’s time to check in with yourself.
A Quick Check-In
Here is a short version of a mindfulness exercise from our employee wellness programs. This can be done in as little as 2 minutes. And helps you to recognize where you are at and if you want to shift your mindset at all.
- Sit comfortably with a straight back and shoulders relaxed.
- Close your eyes.
- Think of 1 word that describes how you feel right now, in the moment.
- Take 3 deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.
- Continue breathing through the nose if possible.
- Observe the breath; notice the expansion/contraction of the lungs and belly with each inhale/exhale.
- Set an intention – Gratitude and presence, or anything you want to make a part of your subconscious action.
- Bring the attention back to the rhythm of the breath.
- Think of 1 word that describes how you feel right now, in the moment.
- Blink the eyes open (Optionally: Cup the hands over the eyes before opening).
We Are Here For You
JAH Advisory offers workplace wellness programs with self-mastery in mind. Starting with mindfulness and emotional intelligence, we teach how each individual can reach their highest potential. With these practices we can be more accountable, more focused, and more fulfilled! Health is wealth, and it shows! Companies can save millions by investing in employee wellness. Learn more about the benefits and schedule a call here:
Mental Health Awareness and Screening for Depression
I’m writing this post because in the last week we had depression screening day and mental health awareness day. October is mental health awareness month. However, throughout the year it feels like every day is some kind of focused awareness event, and quite honestly, I can’t keep up. Perhaps it’s just that technology is making all these events easier to document and track or maybe its my involvement in the community expanding my awareness. But the fact remains, it can feel overwhelming sometimes – jumping from one topic to the next – leaving me to wonder if it’s really effective or if we are just constantly going from one to the next, too busy keeping up to absorb the meaning of the day. These days can be good for awareness, but not so much for individuals.
Often times we see the quote “Mental health is health”, which is true, but also health is health. Everything is connected. We need to break out of the silo mentality when it comes to mind body health. Gut health is mental health. Physical health is mental health. Eat healthy or go for a run and you will be in a better state of mind than otherwise. It takes balance to be healthy. We can’t to go to the gym, have a terrible diet, and then expect optimal performance – mental or physical.
Ups and downs are a natural part of life and they serve a purpose. No emotion is inherently good or bad.
Mental resilience, or a strong mind is important to have. For me it is a choice to identify with a disease vs. having a strong mind. Do I get depressed? Sure, I’m more susceptible than most people. Life is not perfect, but that’s a part of it. Sometimes I think it is all pointless. Things don’t always go according to plan. We experience pain. Relationships drift apart. We feel lost. Possessions are temporary. People die. People should be screened if they experience any of this and don’t feel a little depressed. I’m going to do you a favor and say you don’t need to go anywhere. Take a pause and check in with yourself. This is the best screening possible. You know if you feel happy or not – if you feel fulfilled or not, if you feel sad, or stressed, or overwhelmed. And if you’re not sure, then that means it’s time to take a pause and check in. Ultimately it’s up to us to be accountable for our health.
So what do we do? First off, lets not get ourselves more down about feeling down. It is common for us to intensify undesirable emotions because we are so focused on them. We get so focused on our depression or anger that it makes us more depressed or angry! Ups and downs are a natural part of life and they serve a purpose. No emotion is inherently good or bad. Once we accept, that, we can use our emotions to our advantage. For example, feel down/depressed allows for greater introspection – to look within and re-evaluate our needs/actions.
- Take inventory
- Take note of one word describing how you feel right now.
- (Optional) Do a stress inventory. Stress is the top contributing factor for most chronic disease, immunity, mental health imbalances, and overall well-being. Sometimes we don’t recognize how much stress we are experiencing. This can help to put what we are experiencing in life into perspective.
- Practice mindfulness! Gratitude and positivity are two easy exercises. Remember that the mind is a muscle. The more we practice positive thinking, the easier it becomes. When we practice mindfulness it also increases our emotional intelligence and stress management skills.
- Note down 3 things you are grateful for.
- Practice re-framing negative thoughts into positive ones. Gratitude and humor are 2 easy ways to do this.
- Exercise – This is talked about all the time so I won’t go into too much detail here. Something as little as going for a walk can make a huge difference in how you feel. Do what feels good – yoga, calisthenics, cardio, weights – it all helps to get more blood flowing which means more oxygen and nutrients for the brain and body.
- Eat Healthy – Diet is huge but not for the reasons you might think. Yes, you want healthy toxin-free building blocks to support a healthy brain and body. But more importantly the gut produces most of our “happy molecules”, the hormones and neurotransmitters that help us to regulate our emotions and feel good. The gut really is the 2nd brain (or the 1st brain according to some people!)
- Find your passion – If you feel like you are not reaching your full potential or unfulfilled in any capacity, on a day to day basis then it means you are not putting energy towards things that make you happy. Find a hobby, join a club, build relationships – do what you need to do to feel fulfilled.
Men’s Health Month
June is officially Men’s Health Month. This often means health screenings and education about men’s health related issues. For us this means looking deeper into men’s mental health. Men have different needs than women, including emotional. Here are a couple statistics from the Men’s Health Month website:
- Currently, men are dying an average of 5 years younger than women and lead 9 out of 10 of the top causes of death.
- Men are at greater risk for death in every age group.
- Men have a higher suicide death rate than women.
- Men account for 92% of fatal workplace injuries.
- Men do not see physicians for physical exams nearly as often as women and men are more likely to be uninsured.
Having the right tools available to manage stress makes a big difference. Also knowing that using these tools does not make anyone less of a man. Men can meditate, pray, do yoga, tai qi, or anything else that helps to slow down and tune into the mind-body connection. Another big difference in the overall state of mental health for men is a sense of community. That is a tool that many men barely scratch the surface of when it comes to mental health. Men also often feel the need to be “strong” or to uphold a certain image. We need to allow space for men to feel comfortable with being open and vulnerable – to simply discuss deeper things.
National Men’s Health Week (NMHW), will be June 11th – June 17th. Take this time to support yourself or be a support for men in your life. Remember to take time for self care, to check in with how you are feeling, and to allow yourself to be open with others.
[Video] Morning Yoga | Neck Warm Up Exercises
[Video] Transform Negative Thoughts with Compassion – Be Accountable!
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What’s the ROI on Mindfulness?
Mindfulness – What’s it worth? With busy schedules, taking time out of our day to practice mindfulness may seem counterproductive. The key is that practicing mindfulness improves everything we do. Mindfulness helps us to be at peace. Among many benefits, it helps us focus, increases productivity, reduces stress, improves the immune system, and reduces risk (physical and emotional) by virtue of being more aware.
Until recent years the benefits of mindfulness were not well tracked. As stress and distractions become more prominent in an overstimulated world, we are realizing that there is a real dollar impact of mindfulness (or lack thereof). We are now starting to see how mindfulness is connected to everything we do. The simple explanation is that by letting go of stress, we can process more of our experiences through the rational thinking part of our brain and less through the instinctive/reactive regions. We literally become more mindful and experience more moments of our life.
90-95% of participants in our mindfulness sessions reported a reduction in stress and an improvement in mood.
Insurance companies are realizing the importance of mindfulness. Aetna discovered that they earn $3000 more per employee (by gaining about an hour in productivity each week) and reduced expenses by $2000 per employee (yearly). SAP, a German technology has started rolling out mindfulness programs for its employees and noticed an ROI of 200% per employee.
The numbers are there for those who need to see them. My own work at JAH Advisory has found even more enlightening results. While practicing mindfulness with children and adults, we have made some interesting observations. Everyone (about 95% of participants in mindful sessions) reports reduced stress and an improvement in mood. Students are more engaged throughout the day. Relationships improve – between peers, teachers/students, and leaders/team members, and families. I can’t list all the amazing changes that a mindfulness practice can bring about.
That’s the truly amazing thing. I already knew it, but seeing it in practices shows that the real value of mindfulness is priceless. You can’t measure the final impact on another person’s life and the positive impact they may have on others and so on. It is priceless. We can transform lives and create ripples by simply being aware. So remember to stay present.
