Do not knock this Practice until you have tried it. Mindfulness is the practice of being consciously aware. In other words, it is the practice of keeping yourself in the present moment. The thing about mindfulness you can practice it anywhere at any time. Mindfulness does not interrupt everyday life. It actually enhances everyday life. Most people overthink about either the past or future. This causes life to pass them by.

Mindfulness helps slow down life and enjoy every step. Also, being in the present moment has shown a lot of benefits toward people health. Mindfulness helps to keep you living in the present moment and stop Overthinking and living in the past. 

The best way to practice mindfulness is by using your five senses. The five sense includes sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste. Remember mindfulness can be used at any time of your life. If you ever feel like you are overthinking or living in the past, try to get your five senses going. 

Sight:

To incorporate mindfulness with sight is by playing a game that clearly involves your eyes. Yes, it is that simple. The techniques are while walking, riding or anything look for the alphabet in order or backward. In other words, start with “A” and look for one thing in your surrounding that starts with an “A”. Then go to “B” and so on. 

It sounds silly, but once you play you will forget what you were overthinking about. The result is that you will be living in the moment looking for each letter and playing a fun game. This will boost your mood and awareness which is a great thing. Another thing I like to do that engages my sight is by reading everything I see. If there is a poster or sign up by where I am walking or riding, I will read it. The sight sense is a good way to see and embrace your surroundings. I mainly use this technique in the car. The car is when I find myself the most overthinking.  

Smell:

The smell sense is probably my least favorite one, but you might enjoy it. The smell sense is pretty simple. Whenever you feel like you are overthinking or living in the past, smell your surroundings. It will regulate you and bring you back to the present, especially outside.  

Touch:

Touching is used to bring your awareness back to the present moment. It is probably one of the most effective wayst to bring you back into the present. Most people capitalize on this sense by using stress balls and fidget spinner. I have used touch many times when I felt a panic attack coming. If I did not have a stress ball, I would grab a hold of something and squeeze it. This would relax me and bring me back to the present moment. I generally use a pillow. If you rather have a stress ball check out this one. But touch is a good sense to use when you are seriously stressed or overwhelmed. 

The Dacawin Humorous can be used to squeeze and relieve your stress. This stress ball also use a funny face to hopefully put a smile on your face during tough times.

The Baoding Balls are used in Chinese practices and helped to relieve stress peacefully while rolling them in your hands.

Taste:

Taste is a mindfulness practice that is mostly used to help with weight loss. Most of the time we are eating unconsciously. We continuously pack our mouths while chewing and swallowing without noticing. We are on autopilot the whole time. The technique with mindfulness tasting aka mindfulness eating is by experiencing everything while eating. So, this means when you take a bite savor it. For example, if you take a bite out of a banana, first you will focus your mind on the feel of the food and texture. Is this banana crunchy, dry, soft, or hard? You will also completely chew the banana and swallow the banana in order to eat another bite of it. This helps to watch what you eat and help you slow down to enjoy your food. 

Hearing (My Favorite):

This technique is by far my favorite one. Whenever I feel like I am overthinking and living in the past I immediately go to this technique. It allows me to be nosy and engaged with my surroundings. I incorporate this technique immediately by deep breathing a couple of times and start listening to things in my surrounding.

It is crazy how your mind can focus on listening and how it really brings you into the moment. Listening to my surrounding refreshes me. It also helps me to spot little noise that I would have missed if I was continuing overthinking and stressing.

Try it right now. Stop! Breathe in and out three times and start listening. It is by far the best technique to get you out your head because you can’t think and listen at the same time. One of these things would have to go away and it is in your power. 

Next time you feel like you are anxious or overthinking try to see 5 things, hear 4 things, touch 3 things, smell 2 things, and taste 1 thing.

I know it will work!

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