How To Nourish Yourself with Gratitude
While we're all familiar with the idea of nourishing our bodies with food, many of us aren't so familiar with how to nourish ourselves mentally and emotionally. And for our overall health, this is just as important.
Life can often be so busy that focusing on our mental and emotional health just feels like something we don't have time for–and another task to add to the never-ending to do list. However, even the smallest amount of self care can go a long way. Trust us: it will pay dividends for your general mood and wellbeing.
So what can you do to nourish your mind on a time budget? Our Mindfulness Expert Lou Murray has a few tips to help you unwind, relax and find your calm even if you only have a couple of minutes to do it. Read on to find out more.
Try Finding Mindful Moments
Are you feeling stressed, tired, or unmotivated? Then here's a quick mindfulness tip.
It’s a great practice if you feel like you just don’t have time for self care–its not another thing on your to-do list, just something that fits into your day! It’s all about bringing a little more mindfulness to everyday moments.
Here’s how it works: during your day, mentally “press pause” on small, micro-moments, and slooooow down to notice the beauty, wonder, and magic in the little things you notice at this slower pace. It’s all about finding a little magic in the everyday mundane. We’re always rushing through our hectic lives and can miss this stuff!
Try to develop an attitude of gratitude. Try to slow down a fraction, and mentally note down what you’re grateful for in that moment. Next time you eat a meal or snack, slow down and pay close attention to the texture, flavor, and experience of eating that food. How does it make you feel?The outdoors is also a great place to find magic moments. Appreciate the smell of freshly cut grass, the patter of rain on the sidewalk, chirping of birds, dappled sunlight falling through the leaves of trees... whatever makes you smile!
Magic moments are all around you if you can just slow down a little to pay attention to them. You’ll start to subconsciously train your brain to see more positivity in your everyday life. Give it a try today, and see how it makes you feel!
Have an Attitude of Gratitude
Gratitude is a fantastic little mindset makeover tool and something that you can practice throughout the day as you go, so it doesn’t add anything extra to your ever-mounting list of things to do each day.
Set a timer to go off daily on your phone and when it rings, slow down just a fraction — enough to briefly ‘press pause’ and just be in the moment of whatever you are experiencing. Mentally note down what you are grateful for in that moment. Say for example – the sound of your child’s laugh. Just be in that moment and mentally note down how grateful you are for that magical laugh. DONE! That’s it.
The more you do this the more you’ll find yourself thinking with gratitude throughout your day. You will shift your mindset into a positive ‘high vibe’ zone – and you will start to subconsciously train your brain to see more positivity all around you and in return this will attract more positivity into your life.
Sip a cup of calm
When you start feeling a little overwhelmed, this is a great ‘2-minute’ self-care tool that uses mindful meditation (which doesn’t need to take a long time!). 2 or 3 minutes can be enough to give you a little space to slow down, press pause, re-connect and re-energize for the rest of the day:
Make yourself a cup of your favorite warm drink and sit down. Notice three things in this moment – the color of the drink, the weight of the mug, the feeling of the chair. Then consciously breathe into your shoulders, try and relax them down away from your ears and enjoy your cuppa – savoring the flavor. Return gently to the senses whenever you notice the mind straying into thought or analysis. Simply be open to the sensations you’re experiencing.
We really hope that you find time in your week for a couple of minutes of nourishment for your body and mind. If you want to see more from our Mindfulness Expert Lou Murray head over to our Instagram to see more videos with tips, plus you can sign up to the Baby2Body app for free daily breathing exercises.
