Mindfulness week 3: Movement, breathing and problem solving

During week 3 we thought about everyday things that we do on automatic pilot, such as movement, walking and breathing!

We discussed how much exercise we do. Some of the women did no exercise but others did quite a bit.  Exercise increases our endorphins and makes us feel great.  See my blog on exercise.

We started the class with some simple arm lifts and bends, becoming very aware of how our body felt.  How often do you stretch or even just touch your toes?  If you want some simple stretching – visit the many yoga videos from Adriene on YouTube – here is a 20 minute stretch.

We walk around every day but when do you think about what you are doing and how it feels? We walked slowly around the room, in both directions, and became very aware of how we walked and how it felt. For our homework we were encouraged to go for a mindfulness walk – a slow walk with the purpose of being in the moment.

We also discussed how we feel when we wake up in the morning. I think it is a really good plan to lay in bed for a few minutes and relax. Do some deep breathing and gentle stretches. And enjoy the waking-up moment. If we wake up worrying about things, we need to figure out how we can solve the problem(s) so our mind is clear.  We will have a better sleep if we are not worrying.

We talked about what we do when we have a problem. If I have a problem, I do not try and solve it straight away – I push it to the back of my mind and normally the answer will come in time. Usually this happens when I am not thinking about the problem. I will wake up one morning and the problem will be solved or the solution comes to me when I am running.   If we spend too much time trying to solve a problem right away, this can lead us to a negative place where we start to worry, get stressed and it can affect our sleep. We do not need to solve problems immediately. We can step back and let it happen in its own time.

We finished with a short meditation focusing on our breathing.

We usually breathe on auto pilot but it is lovely to think about our breathing and how it is making us feel. Many of us pull our stomachs in when we breath in and push our stomachs out when we breathe out but try it the other way around. When we breathe in we should be filling our body, expanding it with the air we are taking in.  Breathe into your diaphragm, and inhale in through your nose and out through your mouth.  You should take longer to exhale than inhale.  Here is a guide on breathing.

We were encouraged to try the three minute breathing space meditation.  There are many examples on line -here is a 3 minute breathing exercise – The Breathing Space by Jon Kabat-Zinn.  The stages of a breathing meditation are:

1) Awareness – bring yourself into the present moment by deliberately adopting an upright posture. If you can, close your eyes. Then ask – ‘What is my experience right now, in thoughts, in feelings and in bodily sensations?’. Acknowledge and register this experience, even if it isn’t one that you want.

2) Gathering – Redirect your attention to your breathing, to each in and out breath as they come. Your breath can work as an anchor to bring you into the present and help you become more aware.

3) Expanding – Expand your awareness so you get a sense of your body as a whole and stay like this as best you can for a minute or so”

Read More:  Global women – do you stretch?