Being more mindful is about learning to become more aware of your thoughts, feelings, senses, and experiences, which over time will help you to become more content. So if you’re struggling to find any sense of who you are and what you feel, read on for our advice on how to be more mindful.

How to be More Mindful

Slow down

Whether it’s pausing to notice the weather, getting up a little earlier to take your time with your morning routine and really savour that first sip of coffee or tea, or slowing down to notice your breathing, hitting the slow-mo button on many of our daily processes can really help us to notice the beauty of each moment.
Have you ever noticed how wonderful rain sounds against the window when you’re cosy inside? No? Then take some time to slow down and notice the small things.

Learn breathwork

I know that you’re probably thinking that knowing how to breathe is a given, and of course, if it wasn’t you wouldn’t be here. However, the type of breathwork that’s great to learn is deep and slow.
By learning to control your breathing and to inhale deep and long breaths and then to release them for just as long, provides our body with the oxygen it’s starved of when we are stressed, anxious, busy, worried, or whatever other taxing emotions hit you and you start to take those panicky, short and shallow breaths.
When your body received the oxygen that it’s been looking for, it will naturally calm.
Add into this that by focusing on timing your breath, you are in a type of meditative state, which will help you to focus your brain away from any negative/overwhelming thoughts that have been keeping you hostage.

Get up earlier

It’s not always easy to have the luxury of time to slow down and notice the small things. If you’re able, setting your alarm an hour earlier can really allow you the time to slowly come around in a morning. To enter into your day in a more slow and calm way. A way where you have the time to enjoy your coffee, or the taste of breakfast. A quiet 10 minutes of reflection.
This can set the tone for your entire day, so is definitely worth trying!

Lower your amount of screen time

The instant gratification that we are all used to thanks to the increase in use of technology, means that we are so far separated from being patient, and taking time with things.
They are also extremely detrimental to our focus and our ability to hear our own body and mind. Cutting back the screen time means you’ll have more time to learn about yourself.
By gradually detoxing from those addictive, endless scrolling apps, you’ll have better focus to hear your own thoughts and feelings and consider what it is your body is telling you it needs or feels.
Scrolling is a form of numbing the brain. But it is vital that we don’t block out our feelings, thoughts, and emotions, even if they’re negative. The only way to become self-aware and more mindful, is to recognise and appreciate all of our thoughts and feelings.

I hope you’ve found these tips on how to be more mindful helpful. It can be a slow learning process but being more mindful in all aspects of life can really help you to enjoy your everyday moments, and to help you find contentment.

If you work at a desk all day, and it’s making you feel sluggish and not at your best, then you may end up feeling defeated and as though it’s out of your control. But is it? What things can we implement to help stay healthy when you have a desk job? Let’s find out.

Keep regularly moving and stretching at your desk

Just because you’re sat at a desk doesn’t mean you can’t move at all. Try keeping your arms and legs stretching and moving throughout your workday. Every little bit of movement you can manage helps to keep the blood pumping, and to keep you feeling better!

Opt for taking the stairs while you’re at work

If you need to move between floors at the office, or on the way there, make sure to opt for the stairs instead of taking less active options like the lift or escalator.

Stay active during any breaks

During any break time or lunch, make sure you go for a walk or wander around. Use your little pockets of time to get your body moving, and your heartrate up.

Meal plan a healthy meal and snacks

Don’t leave food choices and hunger pangs up to chance. This is where bad habits can come in. Make sure to prep your workday food before you leave in a morning so that you don’t end up reaching for those easier, junk food options because it’s handy.
Balanced food is going to keep you functioning and feeling your best for those long, office days.

Stay hydrated

If you’re running out of the door in a morning without a drink, chances are you’re going to spend a lot of your day dehydrated. This can hugely affect your health and how you feel and function. It’s really important to make sure that you take a large drink with you to the office, so you can keep sipping and hydrated through your workday. The last thing you need when you’re stuck at a desk all day is a mega dehydration headache to go with it.

Take small breaks

Make sure to take breaks from your desk just to get yourself moving a little. Even if it’s over to a colleague’s office, or just to the end of the hall and back, these small bursts of movement will definitely help over the course of a work week.

Wake up earlier to prioritise a workout

If you’re really concerned about your activity levels, you could try and set your alarm an hour earlier so that you can fit in a workout before you leave for work. This can make a big difference to how your body feels, how you feel mentally and can also set you up for a much better day overall.

It can feel really tricky if you’re glued to a desk for most of your day, so it is just about lots of small ways to help yourself over the course of the day.
Try out some of our tips and let us know if any helped you to feel healthier.

If you’ve had one of those days where everything goes wrong, or everything feels difficult, you may feel completely drained and devoid of energy. Maybe a little pick me up would help? Here are some ideas for how to feel better on a bad day.

Accept that bad days are okay

One of the biggest tips for feeling brighter, quicker, is to actually just accept that you’re feeling crappy. I know it sounds counterproductive to sit with those feelings, but often what we do by trying to force ourselves to get over it, is to glaze over the challenging day we’ve had, and the emotions attached to it. This means we don’t deal with it, and it ends up lasting far longer in our mental space than it would if we just acknowledged how we were feeling. Acknowledging how we are feeling and why we may be feeling that way, and then accepting that it’s okay to have negative feelings will help you to process it and move through it more quickly than trying to cover it over with false positivity.

Make a ‘happy’ playlist

If you’ve got songs in mind that make you want to get up and dance like crazy the second you hear them, or songs that make you laugh out loud, then you need to pop them into a special playlist that you save for days like this.
Music has so much power for all emotions. Utilise the ones that make you feel good at times when you feel anything but.

Write a gratitude list

On bad days you don’t need any help focusing on what feels wrong or went wrong, so it’s vital that you also remind yourself of what went right.
A gratitude or ‘Today I achieved…’ list is a fantastic way to turn around the negative feelings towards the day and focus on what went right instead.
If you’re struggling with thinking of anything, start small. It can seem silly, like ‘I managed to get out of bed today’, because on days where you are really struggling those achievements are not small and deserve to be acknowledged.

Journal

You may have noticed that we are big fans of journaling, and for good reason. If you have a lot of powerful thoughts and emotions blocking your brain and smothering your mental capacity, then you need to find a way to release them. Journaling is one of the best ways to do that.
There’s no pressure to magically feel better, it’s more about taking any thoughts and putting them on paper. You’ll most likely find that seemingly irrelevant thoughts take over at first, but if you write them down then you’ll eventually get to the thoughts that are weighing you down.
Once it’s out on paper it can feel like you’ve removed a literal weight. It may not feel like knowing how to journal comes naturally at first, but stick with it. Try not to worry about what to write, just focus on writing everything you think. Everything.

Try and use these tips when you’re having a really bad day, and hopefully you can move through it and feel better more quickly than you might have before. And remember that a bad day does not mean you have a bad life.

Sometimes we can hold on to events in the past so tightly that it affects our everyday life in the present. It can become a huge burden that creates more negativity in our current life. So, it’s incredibly important then that we learn how to let go of the past when it’s smothering us.

We need to learn to use our past as a tool to help change how we act or what we accept in our future life instead of something that we allow to consume us.

Read on for help on how to let go of the past.

Get professional help if you need it

There is no shame whatsoever in getting professional help for your mental health. Whether it seems a small issue or a huge trauma, there is absolutely no reason to avoid getting professional help, therapy, or medication when you are struggling. This will always be my number one suggestion.

Don’t block out your feelings

I know that in the moment, blocking out and hiding away those traumatic events can be the only way to cope, but actually it can be detrimental to you in the long run.
When we avoid feeling and processing our feelings and emotions, we end up absorbing them deep within, and this can affect us for decades.
Instead of blocking it, try to feel the emotions while using great techniques like breathwork, meditation, EFT tapping or journaling. These are ways to deal with the overwhelm that can sometimes create panic around tough emotions.
When you’ve felt the emotions, your mind is then able to process them and move through them. It’s not always about the past going away or being okay, it’s about accepting that it happened and it’s okay to feel that way, but that you’re done with it.

Let go of needing an apology

If you went through hurt or trauma at the hands of someone else, it can be really hard to let go of that. Often it can leave you holding on for an apology. The problem with this is that you won’t always get one.
Should this mean that you should suffer forever because of them? Absolutely not! You need to work on letting go of the need for an apology in order to get closure. Not for them, but for you.

Forgive yourself

Another reason we struggle to let go of the past, is guilt. Did you do something hurtful, careless or silly? Let me let you in on a little secret… WE ALL DO.
Being human means accepting all the parts of being a human. One of which is making mistakes. Failing. Messing up. Hurting people.
Is it nice at the time? No… Should you suffer forever because of some bad choices? You absolutely should not.
Bad decisions do not mean you’re a bad person. If you’ve moved forward and you’ve learned from past mistakes, then you don’t deserve to beat yourself up forever.
Forgive yourself. Accept that your mistakes are what makes you who you are now. You wouldn’t have learned the lessons and grown into who you are if you hadn’t first made those mistakes.

Acceptance

Finally, this is the big one.
To move through life without constantly holding onto hurt, grudges and mistakes, you MUST learn to accept that these things will happen. You’ll hurt people and they will hurt you. You’ll mess up. Others will too. You will feel silly. So will every other human being.
You must accept that life is just as much about the negative or the embarrassing or the failures and mistakes as it is about the positive happy times.
You cannot grow, you cannot progress, and you will never learn how to cope if you don’t start to accept the full range of human behaviour and emotion.

Accept it. Feel it. Let it go.

One of the most underutilised ways of improving both our physical and mental health, is connecting with nature, and spending time outdoors. We are taught that when the weather drops chilly or rainy, we should be inside, but this practise closes us off from the most natural of health and mood boosters, the natural world. Read ahead to find out ways to connect with nature to improve mindset.

Get outside, whatever the weather

The first and most obvious way to connect with nature, is, of course to go outside! But what about when it’s cold and rainy? Then go outside then too! There is no bad weather, just inappropriate clothing. So, suit up, layer up, add your walking boots and waterproofs and get on the move.
You will be absorbing Vitamin D whether it’s sunny or not, and during those winter months your body will struggle with the lack of it. Making sure to still get out regardless of the weather will ensure you’re still getting that Vitamin D hit, which in turn helps you to feel better physically and mentally.

Go barefoot

Going barefoot, or ‘grounding’ as it is often referred to, is a great way to feel better and more connected to both the Earth and yourself.
It may seem a little ‘out there’ that physically connecting yourself to the Earth can help you to feel restored and more grounded, but if we look at this from a very basic perspective, we are all natural beings, and we all feed from the Earth itself. It would then of course make sense that physically connecting with it somehow would make us feel better.
On a little more of a scientific level, when we connect with the Earth directly, we have access to a huge amount of free electrons, which help to neutralise free radicals (the things that make us feel crappy!).

Create your own nature space

Don’t have access to a regular, natural space? No garden? Then why not try and bring nature to you, by getting some house plants, opening doors and windows and letting some air into your home?
House plants are just as beneficial to our health as outdoor plants. They can help to cleanse the air in our homes and give us an oxygen boost too. Both of which improve indoor air quality, which can only help us to feel better in every sense.

Merge your interests and nature

When you’re at home what do you do for fun? Most activities that we consider indoor activities, could quite easily be adapted to being outdoor ones with a little planning.
For example, it’s so easy to throw a sketch book, pencils and paint pallet into a bag and take them out into a natural space with you.
It’s also absolutely glorious to take a book out with you, and delve into it whilst resting against a tree, amongst the peaceful sounds of a natural space.
Whatever interests you have, try taking them outside, and get the health benefits of nature and the outdoors while still enjoying your regular hobbies!

Slow down

By learning to slow down and pay attention to the sights, sounds, and smells of nature, we teach ourselves to slow down in other ways too. By becoming more mindful in nature, we can help keep our minds calm and focused on the present moment and the sounds in the natural space we are in, and less focused on worries elsewhere.

So, there are a few ways you can work on your connection to nature in order to help improve your mood and mindset. Nature really can heal.