Three Mindfulness Activities For Stress Relief

Hey everyone, how are you all going about with the lock down time? Yes, it’s pretty tough and none of us were prepared in any manner for this. But, like it is said uncertainty is the other name for life. So, well while we are juggling different responsibilities, have uncertainty looming over our heads, living in constant concern for our loved ones not physically near us, constantly fighting with the mental chatter and the fact that we are all being caged I put together some mindfulness activities that are helping me in these quarantined times. Hoping you find some solace too in them.

You may be aware of these but positive reminders have never done any harm 🙂

Mindfulness is that state of being present in the moment of now, the state of flow and fully engaged with whatever we’re doing free from distraction or judgment. Many a times it becomes difficult to sit closed eyes, stop the internal noise and try to focus on gathering our thoughts. At such times, these activities help us stop the train of thoughts and live in the moment thereby. 

1. Rainbow Meditation

This is a perfect relaxation technique that you can do anywhere and at any time where you need a small window for your “Me time”. In between your calls or immediately after doing any household chore sit down for some time and give yourself the pleasure of some mental rest. All you have to do is be relaxed and keep away your phones. Starting with a deep breath and letting go, let your mind visualize colors. Mentally picture a rainbow and then focus on every single color individually. With every color, envision different items representing that color. For. Ex, when you are thinking of red, imagine a red apple or a red rose. Similarly with green, picture a tree or the traffic signal light. If you don’t want to think of items, you can just imagine blocks or blobs of that particular color.

Starting with red and ending with violet spend a good two minutes for each color. By the end of 15 minutes, you are definite to feel less anxious than how you started out with.

Let each color leave a positive feeling in your body. Red can invigorate you with energy, Orange will bring in joy, Yellow stimulates your intellect, Green heals you mentally and physically, Blue will clear off the unnecessary thoughts garbage, Indigo soothes you and gets along calmness and Violet boosts your self-esteem. 

Practice this technique whenever you feel like and you will begin to see the benefits almost immediately.

I prepared a script for myself, you can follow it here.

2. Om Chanting in the Background

It doesn’t really matter whether you are religious or not. In fact your religion or beliefs have got nothing to do with this. Om is the sound of the universe. If you are a regular Yoga practitioner chances are that you already must be reciting it at the end of your session. However, whenever you are stressed out or feeling low and worried about some aspect of your life, simply find a quiet corner, plug in your ear phones and let the continuous Om chant play in the background. You can simply choose to listen to it or chant along, whatever is convenient. I use this audio as background but you can look up any of them on any platforms you prefer and go ahead with whichever helps you relax. The utterance of Om, is similar to the sound of a gong that gradually tapers to a point and merges in silence. 

You are sure to feel invigorated with a new energy doing this for 10 minutes even. Either chanting or thinking about Om is anecdotally reported to cause a quiet mental state. 

All the built up stress that you feel as aches in your back, neck or shoulder etc. let them loose and slowly feel the tensions leaving your body relaxing you. 

3. Breath Board

Breathing is the first thing we do as soon as we are born and the last thing before we die. 

Various troubles due to job, relationships, health, financial conditions can over time turn into a constant anxious state of mind. At such times our fight or flight response system comes into play and we should train the flight system to dominate and take over.

All you have to do is create your own little, cute breath boards and run your fingers along the lines as you follow what it denotes. 

Doing this continuously for a while shifts your focus from the mundane and works to calms your tension. Without your realization you would have figured that a lot of the irrelevant thoughts were stopped and you went into a meditative state. 

I’m sailing through these rough days with the help of these techniques and would love to know what are you doing to manage your emotional well-being. 

Take care. Stay safe 🙂