Self-Care Quest Day 12: Mindful Actions

The practice of mindfulness is becoming widely appreciated as an effective way of treating anxiety. Today's little action of self-care is about brining mindfulness to your daily tasks and actions.

You can practice mindfulness when folding laundry, or washing the dishes, by breathing gently and giving your full attention to the task. You can practice mindfulness when reading by giving your full attention word-by-word to an inspiring book or article and be fully and completely present with it. You can be mindfully present with your children by stopping everything else and listening to them with full awareness, forget emails at story time, forget tomorrow when they’re trying to tell you about today. Just explore being right here, right now.

Mindful Walking

You can practice mindfulness while walking by paying full attention to your feet connecting with the earth, watching yourself move across the ground step by step as you rest your gaze on the path a few feet ahead. Country walks are ideal, but walks to and from school, the supermarket or your office are also an opportunity to let your body and mind relax and simply be aware of where you are and what you’re doing.

By noticing step, by step, every stage of what you're doing and breaking tasks down into tiny steps, you can stop stress and mental overload and keep sight of yourself no matter how busy you are.

Further explorations in mindfulness you might find helpful:

How to Calm Your Mind by Entering the Moment

How to Use Mindfulness to Calm Anxiety

Mindfulness is explored in greater depth as part of our Anxiety Rescue Kit.