This is an exercise to defuse and process your emotions. Sit comfortably, close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths. Visualise the last time you experienced a lot of self-criticism. Bring your focus to your abdominal region. Can you feel the emotion brought about by that thought when you criticise yourself? What is that…
You can read this story, which acts as a metaphor to help you overcome your mind’s resistance and reflect that the more you hold on to the past, your emotions, and your thoughts, the more you will suffer, and this may manifest as insomnia—poor sleep. Write down ONE issue or concern that occupies your mind…
In this exercise, you will learn to breathe lovingly and compassionately. Self-compassion is about mindfulness, common humanity and kindness. Your breath is a tool that you can use to keep practising acceptance and compassion. Lie down in a chosen place. This exercise can be done closer to bedtime or even just before sleep. Lie down…
This is an exercise of body scan, acceptance, and allowing your body to be the way it is. You can do this in the evening, but not just before you go to bed. This mindfulness exercise will help you train your mind to love and accept your body. Sit back comfortably in your chair…
This is a mindful stretching exercise that you can do at any time. However, please refrain from doing this very close to a meal. First, bend down to as much as you can. Don’t force yourself to do more than you can. Make your upper body utterly limp with your arms hanging down like a…
Now, having done a formal mindfulness exercise focused on compassion towards yourself, the next mindfulness exercise you can do is an informal one. This is incorporated during an activity that you do every day. This can be brushing your teeth, driving your car or eating lunch. Start your lunch as an informal mindful exercise. You…
We have seen how we can start the day with the intention of the day’s mindfulness practice. In this exercise, we will look at formal training that you can do to bring in non-judgemental compassion towards yourself. To explain compassion, the empathy you feel for a being. For example., if the postman is thirsty, you…
We start with a mindfulness practice during the daytime. You may wonder how doing mindfulness exercises during the daytime affects your sleep. A good night’s sleep is a culmination of experiences during the daytime. You are more relaxed at night when you have a peaceful day with fewer negative thoughts and worries. Hence, we train…
People have many sleep-related myths. This itself leads to many anxieties about sleep. Some myths include that having a perfect night’s sleep is about uninterrupted 8 to 9 hours of sleepin bed. This is, however, not true. Waking up in between several times is a usual occurrence. Not only this, we move regularly in cycles…
