Mindfulness – Just 10 Minute for a Stress free day at Work

• Weight gain or overindulging in comfort foods

• Feeling tired all day even after full night sleep

• Difficulty in sleeping at night

• Headaches and Migraine

• Muscular tension, neck or back pain

• Upset stomach, indigestion or constipation.

• Chest pains, fast heartbeat

• Appetite loss

• Forgetfulness

• Frequent cold and cough

• Difficulty in concentration or focus

• Feeling irritated and losing temper

• Insecurity, restlessness, and anxiety

• Constant fear of something unknown

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Does any of above be one or more are your health conditions? If yes then you may be suffering from either high or a low-grade stress.

Workplaces are getting very different these days. The constant pressure of delivering and staying up against the competition taking a heavy toll on our health and performance. We are barraged with 100’s of email and a simple email can upset the day or even week?  

We live in a VUCA world where both business and personal world are getting more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. External forces play a far larger role in life.

Our minds are constantly occupied with thoughts and mostly negative that make us forget observing our true self completely. We operate mostly from our brain and rest of body somehow becomes non-existent. Only when we have pain in some part of the body we realize its existence.

But how do you think leaders in large organizations like Google, SAP, Amazon, Walmart, US Combat forces, Marines, NYPD, and even many of the international politicians in UK member parliament, US senators are able to perform, innovate and thrive under these stressful environments?

 

You would be surprised to know how with few simple things, all these organizations and leaders are staying healthy and sharp against ad internal external forces. Based on data available and our experience thousands of leaders in most successful organizations are doing something very different for becoming healthier, focused and effective leaders.

Let us open the secret – and the key trick lies in the correct form of Mindfulness and Emotional intelligence.

If you are one who is going through stress and non-focus in your life try these easy mindfulness workouts and you will feel more controlled in your day to day work and personal life.

“Success may not bring health and pleasure … but mindfulness can bring joy in life” – Manish Behl

So, the big question everyone asks me that what is mindfulness? And how can we start doing this?

In my recent talk with RJ Archana of Radio City 91.1 on “Kasa Kai Mumbai”, she asked that is there any typical ritual to do Mindfulness?

“Mindfulness is being aware of present moment with openness and acceptance without carrying any judgment or prior opinion” – Manish Behl

It’s a way of taking control of your life, rather than being at the mercy of emotions and external factors or crazy thoughts. 

Keeping in view of typical Indian work culture, I have suggested a 10-minute self-awareness mindfulness exercise which can be very effective in given short time.

Self-Observing

17^th Century’s famous French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist René Descartes, had written “je pense donc je suis” or in Latin “Cogito ergo sum” meaning “I am able to think, therefore I exist” or, “I think therefore I am”

But here he is talking about the human potential of being able to think.

And today this overthinking has become our greatest problem. We are unable to channelize our thoughts in a positive way which leads to thinking overdrive.

Reason being most of our time we are tuned to outside world and we draw our identity from outside world. External factors make you happy or sad, loving or angry or make you experience all kinds of funny emotions.

In this process, we somehow forget to observe our inner self.

The simple and powerful exercise illustrated below would help you to notice and realize apparently simple features of your own self in a more insightful manner.

Self-witness is the skill of personal awareness that allows many thoughts and struggles we experience regularly to be acknowledged and to pass through. It’s like throwing a stone in water which disturbs the calmness of water surface for a moment and gradually lakes come back to calm and tranquillity.

In Neuroscience terms, the brain starts to build new neural pathways and create healthier and less autopilot response.

This practice allows you to build a skill to observe yourself constantly and helps you to regain your composure more easily during events that may challenge you from outside.

Try and take 10 minutes out of your busy schedule and follow these few simple steps

1. Find a quieter place

2. Take time and make any changes to your settings to help bring you into the state of relaxation.

3. Put your phone to silence or anything that could disturb you for next 5 minutes.

4. Take a chair or sofa and try to sit with your back erect.

5. Make yourself comfortable in whatever position you are sitting.

6. Lower your gaze and relax your shoulders 

Close your eyes and mindfully move your awareness from your external environment to fully focus our breath and feel yourself breathing. Feel the flow of breath in your nostrils and then in your chest. Keep feeling the incoming and outgoing breath. Now mindfully move your awareness to your physical sensations.

Feel the environment within your inner self without making any effort to label or change anything. It is important that you observe yourself as it is and accept whatever is your current emotional state.

Do not try to force change. Compassion is very important key to mindfulness, so compassionately observe your thoughts with the intention to empathetically observe from afar and allow these observations to simply pass through.

The trick is to take a seat of an observer and witness your bodily sensation corresponding to your on-going emotional state. For this moment try not to create any expectations, and simply be a spectator without forming any judgment. And if you feel that you are building any judgment or expectations than treat this as a distraction to your practice.

The full practice has four parts.

1. Observe your breath

2. Observe your body & sensations

3. Observe you thought

4. Observe your emotions

For more detail on the practice please email to [email protected] Also I will touch upon few more short workplace mindfulness practices in my next article soon.

Try this practice for 15days and see what it changes in you. As the level of awareness and attention increases the stress decreases. You may find more energy to meet personal and professional demands.

Self-observation and the accepting the present state is extremely powerful practice.  If you acknowledge and try to see how you are feeling at this moment than you can recognize the undercurrent of emotions which force your body to fight the superfluous situation through stress, unhappiness, anxiety, anger, revenge, and depression. The absence of self-observation is the main reason for work or relationship related stress in our life.

 “The quality of our actions, whether they are positive or negative, depends on our motivation. Therefore, we must transform our minds. The real miracle is not to fly or walk on fire. The real miracle is to walk on the Earth, and you can perform that miracle all the time. Just bring your mind home to your body, become alive, and perform the miracle of walking on Earth”  – Saints of Present-day Dalai Lama & Thich Nhat Hanh

Beyondmind facilitates employees and organizations in cultivating healthy workplace attitude and building positive organizational culture through Mindfulness, Emotional, and Social Intelligence.

Manish Behl is the founder of “BeyondMind” and Mindfulness India Summit. As an ICF Coach, he creates Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence based solutions for individuals and organizations on leadership, performance, resilience, and well-being. With over 25 years of leadership experience in the corporate world, he works on empowerment of professionals, individuals, and corporates through groundbreaking practices of Emotional intelligence, Neuroscience, and Mindfulness. An author who has extensively studied and developed transformational life practices which are life-changing and allows one to see their inner self, invoke positive thinking, augment neurological & transcendent energies and ability to connect with hyper-intelligence.

Beyond Mind is where he and his team expedite the birth of new mindsets and engaging behaviors at all levels of the organization. His purpose is to empower people to expand social-emotional competencies leading to better relationships thus ensuring successful performance and joyful life.

Contact Beyond Mind to learn more about how to use Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence to become Successful 

Contact: email: [email protected] or visit www.beyondmind.in