10 Simple Mindfulness Exercises You Can Easily Incorporate Into Everyday Life

Mindfulness is a simple, yet powerful practice that can help you lead a happier, more meaningful life. It’s not about achieving some sort of “enlightenment” or anything like that- it’s about simply living in the moment and enjoying your life as it unfolds. Mindfulness exercises can be done anywhere at any time- even if you don’t have time for formal meditation sessions!

KEY POINTS

• Just as with other new things you start in your life, mindfulness takes practice.
• If you want to experience acceptance and awareness of your thoughts, you need to cultivate them with repeated practice.
• Here are 10 simple mindfulness exercises you easily incorporate into your everyday life.

Mindfulness Practice

Just as with other new things you start in your life, mindfulness takes practice.  If you want to experience acceptance and awareness of your thoughts, you need to cultivate them with repeated practice. 

If you are running a marathon, you don’t start by running the entire 26.2 miles without starting slowly building stamina, the frame of mind, etc.  No matter what you start, you’ll almost never begin with the highest levels of endurance.

Mindfulness is no different. We need to cultivate mindfulness style=”font-weight: 400;”> in order to integrate it into our lives fully and use it properly. Practicing mindfulness is like strengthening a muscle; the more you exercise, the stronger it becomes. We’re building the muscle of our minds.

If you want to use mindfulness properly, start by using it every single day.  To do this, you need to pay attention to what is happening in the moment, but not so much that you end up altering your everyday life. Mindfulness exercises can be a very approachable way to do just that and strengthen that muscle.

Here are 10 simple mindfulness exercises you easily incorporate into your everyday life. 

5 Mindful Breaths

This is a simple meditation you can do to ground yourself. It takes about a minute to do. As the name implies, it’s merely taking five mindful breaths, focusing intently on each one. Thích Nhất Hạnh, Zen Master, poet, and peace activist, revered around the world for his pioneering teachings on mindfulness, often called  “The Father of Mindfulness,” has a straightforward and extremely effective one that I use.

• Take slow, deep breaths while thinking the following:
  • Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. 
  • Breathing out, I know I am breathing out. 
  • Breathing in, I notice my in-breath has become deeper. 
  • Breathing out, I notice that my out-breath has become slower…. 
  • Breathing in, I calm myself. 
  • Breathing out, I feel at ease. 
  • Breathing in, I smile. 
  • Breathing out, I release. 
  • Breathing in, I dwell in the present moment. 
  • Breathing out, I feel it is a wonderful moment.

Body Scan

The body scan is a targeted meditation technique. It helps us pay attention to our physical experience – what we’re experiencing in our bodies when we pause and pay attention. The primary goal is to learn how to notice a  variety of physical sensations in the body. 

• Start by getting into a  comfortable position. Often people will lie down for this. It’s essential to be conscious to “fall awake” rather than fall asleep if you do lie down.
• Use your breath to begin to clear your mind and focus your attention. 
• Breathe in and focus on a body part where you want to begin, usually the top of the head or bottom of the feet. 
• Notice any sensation you’re feeling at that spot. It may be heaviness or lightness,  warmth or coolness, movement or stillness, dryness or moistness, as some examples. 
• Don’t put any judgment on what you’re noticing. It’s not good or bad; it just is. Be open, curious, and just simply notice the sensation. 
• Release your focus of attention. 
• Slowly move your attention up or down to the next body part. 
• If you find that your attention is slipping to other things, don’t sweat. Just breathe and bring the focus back to your body. By bringing your attention back, over and over, you’re actually building neural pathways in your brain, essentially rewiring your brain.
• When you’ve finished exploring each of your body sensations, turn your attention to a scan of your whole body, breathing freely. 
• Slowly open your eyes and return mindfully into the moment.

Focused Attention Exercise

When you meditate, you choose an object where you focus all of your attention.  If you decide to focus on the breathe, for example, when your mind wanders off, you can return your attention to whatever it is you have chosen.

Mindfulness meditation involves directing your mind to whatever begins to predominate it. You do this by centering on how the event is experienced in your body. Is there a part of your body that is aching? Is there an emotional experience bubbling up that is affecting your body? By that, I mean something like a lump in your throat that you feel with some sadness.

Whatever it is that’s bothering you, practicing mindfulness can help you in experiencing the present moment with acceptance.

Open Awareness Exercise

All of the things we encounter in our environment every day – the sights, the sounds, the smells, the people, the news, the social posts, the videos – all of these are pushing our buttons. These are the buttons that activate feelings that, subtly and often imperceptibly, trigger thoughts that then trigger reactions. These are the reactions that we may find controlling our behavior, often in ways that are unfortunate. 

This vicious cycle – all the things in our environment subconsciously triggering feelings, which subconsciously trigger thought, beginning reactions that govern our behavior – will continue to keep happening unless you start to pay attention to what’s going on. That awareness allows us to gain understanding, which can allow us to break that cycle. To not let our thoughts, feelings, ultimately your environment to dictate and control how you react. 

Through our compassionate attention, this uncomfortableness we feel can be softened over time. We might use mindfulness practices alongside whatever other therapies we require to help nurture, heal, and support both body and mind.

Just Like Me Meditation

This is a meditation where we acknowledge the similarities between ourselves and others. We all too often focus on our differences. Realizing that even someone who may seem very different, is in a fundamental way, just like we can become the basis of true connection, compassion, and empathy.

This can include people we don’t know very well, people with whom we’re in conflict, or even people that we see as an antagonist. It’s possible to develop a sense of compassion and understanding by coming to feel our shared experience as human beings. By opening up to compassion, we can overcome the sense of difference and mistrust.

In this practice, we simply bring someone to mind and focus on ways that we’re alike. “Just like me, this person has at some point in their life has been sad, disappointed, angry, hurt, or confused”.

Loving-Kindness Exercise

Also known as Metta meditation, Loving-kindness meditation is a powerful practice that helps us to cultivate greater feelings of compassion, kindness, care, and acceptance. The practice begins by inviting us to cultivate a sense of love and care for ourselves before inviting us to extend the same well wishes out to others. It is a heart-opening practice that strengthens our connection to all living beings.

Mindful Eating

Notice the sensations of all of your senses. If you’re eating, notice the texture of the food, the smell of the food, that taste of the food. Chew slowly, counting to 20 as you do. You might think that you’ve noticed this before. When you stop and become mindful, taking all other thoughts out of your mind for the moment, you’ll experience eating in a whole different way.

Mindful Walking

If you go for a walk, for instance, take notice of the birds. What are the colors of the birds? Are the birds chirping? What is the sound it is making? Is there a babbling brook or a lawn being watered? Notice your walk itself. Listen to your footsteps. Notice your breathing. Feel how your foot connects with the earth. Which part touches first? Which is last? What happens in between? Don’t pay attention to the traffic noise, the kids screaming and yelling at a park, etc. Notice every single thing about the moment. Take mental notes, and you will see things differently the next time you go for a walk.

Guided Meditation

You could also go to meditation classes or listen to a guided meditation and participate in formal meditation.  Formal meditation within

this type of setting allows you to stop everything in your world and concentrate on the present moment.  You don’t have to go to a class, you can do this anywhere.

 Self-reflection and daily contemplation

Any time we do any sort of self-reflection or contemplation, that can be a meditation. Journaling about our day, our goals, what we’re grateful for; focusing on how we’re feeling in the moment; reflecting on what’s bothering us, what’s causing stress; thinking about how we process our feelings; all of these acts of self-reflection and contemplation can be part of our mindfulness practice.

Another way you can practice mindfulness is by attending a retreat. A retreat allows you to experience nothing except cultivating mindfulness. There are retreats over a period of time that allows you to formally practice by manifesting things such as sitting meditation, walking meditation, etc.

This type of practicing mindfulness is usually conducted in silence. There is very limited interpersonal interaction. There are even some facilities that offer virtual retreats for those that are unable to attend in person.

At a meditation retreat, everything you do during the day such as showering, eating, doing chores are all done in silence so that you can practice Mindfulness. You’re learning to be fully present in moments, hence the silence.  

Attending a retreat allows you to become aware of many insights and how your life can truly become transformed.

Take the time to learn how to quiet your mind and rid yourself of all the stories in your head. Quit comparing yourself to others, quit daydreaming about the future, and live in the present.

Key Takeaway

With the help of a few simple, easy-to-implement mindfulness exercises you can start living in the present moment and be more aware of your thoughts and feelings. When we live mindfully, our brains are better able to regulate emotions and control impulses which may lead us to make healthier life choices such as eating right or exercising regularly. Try these and see how you can get started on incorporating these mindfulness practices into your daily routine!

“Good questions outrank easy answers.” – Paul A. Samuelson (American economist)

• Which mindfulness exercise could you try out tomorrow?
• What hesitations do you have about giving mindfulness a try? Dive into that more.

Want more? Get the free guide “Quiet Confidence: A Men’s Guide to Living a Free, Authentic, Joyful, Centered, & Purposeful Life“

This workbook will introduce mindfulness as a foundation for living a more deliberate, authentic, purposeful life of peace, freedom, health, and fulfillment.