How to Make Mindfulness a Daily Habit
A regular mindfulness practice is the best gift you can give yourself (and your team!), with research showing that the practice supports optimal mental health, workplace performance, and overall well-being.
What Is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment with a curious, flexible attitude.
This is a simple idea, but it’s not always easy! Research from Harvard estimates that the mind wanders away from the present moment to spontaneous, self-generated thought approximately 50% of each waking day!
While mind wandering is a normal part of being human, constant mental gymnastics can prevent us from experiencing ease and well-being in daily life.
Regular mindfulness practice has been shown to support a reduction in mind wandering and increased ease and focus both at work and in life. For you, that might mean better focus on solving a difficult problem at work, freedom from constant worrying, or the ability to pay full attention to your colleagues and loved ones during conversation.
How To Make Mindfulness A Part Of Daily Life
Invest in your productivity and quality of life by following these tips for making mindfulness a regular part of your routine:
- Start Small: Practicing mindfulness regularly for short periods of time is more powerful than occasional long practices. Experiment with adding 1-5 minutes of daily mindfulness into your routine. Try our 1-Minute Work Break to get you started.
- Bundle Your Healthy Habits: Bundle your new mindfulness practice with an existing habit like drinking coffee, reading or sitting with your pet. From a neuroscience perspective, bundling a new habit with an existing habit makes it “stickier.”
- Share Your Practice: Tell your family, friends and colleagues about your interest in mindfulness and how your practice may benefit them. Sharing your practice will deepen your commitment to practice and inspire others to support you (and maybe even join you! We can’t force other people to be more mindful, but we can spark them to begin their own journey through our actions and transformation).
- Find A Workplace Buddy: Connect with a mindfulness accountability buddy in the workplace. You can check in daily or weekly to share insights from your practice.
- Practice In Community: Meditating in a group can be extremely powerful. To solidify and inspire your practice, start a weekly or monthly workplace meetup (virtual or in-person) where you come together to do a short guided meditation and discuss how your mindfulness practice is going. Better yet, hire an expert like Mastermind to deliver regular live sessions for you and your team!
How Can I Bring Mindfulness To My Workplace?
If you’re looking for more mindfulness tips and techniques for greater ease, focus and well-being, work with Mastermind to build your own mindful community in the workplace! Contact us to learn how to bring research-backed mental wellness to your team.