Mindfulness: How one practice changed my life in 10 minutes
Index:
1) Intro
2) Stress isn’t beneficial.
3) Most things don’t matter and the brain overthinks.
4) Breathing techniques.
5) Associative Habit for daily mindfulness.
6) Mindful eating
7) Action steps and learn more!
I decided that I wouldn’t be stressed anymore.
While my anxious brain’s literally the reason why I can come up with some of the content that I do, and why I’m able to understand people enough to make them join the Peaky Pines Community, my breaking point would lead me to understand that I didn’t need to be stressed.
I could think obsessively and in abstract ways in order to learn and to communicate, but I didn’t need to have an existential crisis whenever anything annoying, seemingly bad or uncertain happened.
Stress doesn’t benefit anybody.
Because you’re more likely to forget certain important factors in your decision-making process.
Think about these couple scenarios.
1) You’re walking somewhere at night and you realise it might not be safe around.
Some junkie walks in your direction and because you appear anxious, he ACTUALLY says something to you, which could result in who knows what.
Being calm or not being calm, could be the difference between life and death, for either one of you.
2) You’re going into an exam and you’re stressed.
You either have a brain freeze and don’t finish, or you finish thanks to stress, but it’s messy and you forgot to write down key information.
Being calm or not being calm, could be the difference between having a shit career for the next few years until you try to actually succeed at completing a degree, and getting a great mark that allows you to start the occupation that matters to you most now.
3) You’re having a slight disagreement with a friend, and you can’t contain your emotions and say something stupid.
You risk losing the friendship.
Being calm or not being calm here, was the difference between you having a stable friendship built on good communication, and you losing a friend completely.
For me, whenever I get stuck in my head, I get clumsier, make more spelling mistakes in my writing and find myself getting distracted.
I also say and do things that don’t reflect my values.
I can remember in school, swearing a bit TOO much or speaking about women in a way that I didn’t even feel.
Hindsight bias is also relevant here, where someone might say, “I was stressed and so I actually took action, and it went well”.
Well, there was an even greater chance that something would’ve gone wrong, and it’s only because it didn’t that you think that it never would’ve.
Most things don’t matter.
There’ll always be more perceived problems.
Our brain has no problem identifying them, which you also need to understand on your mindfulness journey.
Your brain will overthink how complicated a situation is, or overthink about how your words or actions will be perceived or how you’ll be judged or overthink about your dreams and how hard they’ll be to fulfil.
If a stressful thought arises, identify the type of thought by asking, for example, "ah, there's the 'I'm not good enough' story again".
This is from Russ Harris' book - "The Reality Slap".
Breathing techniques.
First is just letting your breath flow naturally, forcing nothing.
The other is hand on the belly, hand on the heart diaphragmatic breathing.
The other that I wanna look at is the Wim Hof Method.
Here’s a summary of it:
Even-breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth for about a minute, then another minute of breathing in a wave through the belly and then the chest and then out through the mouth and repeat.
Then hold in 15 seconds, then hold out 1 minute or as long as you can, then hold 15 seconds in and repeat the whole thing.
Use it when you’ve woken up or just before you eat.
Here’s a video on it though.
Associative Habit for daily mindfulness.
This is pretty much mine.
Associate finishing up a shower or brushing your teeth at nighttime, with coming into your room and closing the door.
Associate this with turning on a lamp, turning off your bedroom light, grabbing your phone and sitting down on a chair in a SPECIFIC spot in your room, facing a SPECIFIC direction. If you’ve got no desk chair, grab another one.
Play the next meditation walkthrough on the free app, “Medito”.
When it finishes playing, sit quietly without controlling your breath at all, meditating for as long as it feels comfortable.
Stand up and say this Reconditioning Sentence, “I’m so glad that I’m the kind of person who can exit their head and connect completely with themselves, and with the world. Unfortunately, many people seem to exist in a constant state of stress, and they never take the time to connect deeply with their own bodies, their own minds and the world outside. Good luck to them. Now, time for a good night’s sleep”.
Now, you should incorporate meditation, observation of the breath and mindfulness while outside, in your study or working breaks.
This way, you’re being productive, and then also making progress towards becoming a calm person in your breaks.
I call these “Value Activities”.
You can make a routine like this for the morning, and incorporating the Wim Hof Method, then setting an intention to be calm throughout the day. Use a Reconditioning Sentence like the one that I referred to before.
Another thing is mindful eating.
Don’t eat and watch things at the same time, as often as you can.
Savour every bite.
Move it around in your mouth.
In the big thing that I’ve got coming up, I’ll focus more on this specifically and how it relates to Intuitive Eating and Binge-eating.
That’s it!
These are your action steps!
1) Know that stress isn’t beneficial.
2) Know that most things don’t matter and brain overcomplicates.
3) Use the Medito free app at night or in the morning.
4) Fit the Wim Hof Method into your Associative Habit or somewhere else if you want to.
5) Set an intention to be calm at the beginning of the day and make an Associative Habit to meditate each day.
6) Start mindful eating.
…
7) Join the Peaky Pines Email Community!
By joining, you can talk to all of the hundred+ active Peaky People, who’re exclusive members of our Discord Community, about growing as individuals and forging an identity that you’re proud of.
There are hundreds more receiving the same content that you are.
Riley.
BONUS:
Here’s my process of finding a good YouTube title and thumbnail…
The main reason why I don’t get sad anymore
The main reason why I’m not sad anymore
How mindfulness changed me forever
How to be mindful in x minutes
Mindfulness changed my life in x minutes
Mindfulness: How one practice changed my life
Mindfulness: How one practice changed my life in x minutes
Why mindfulness is the best thing ever!
Intriguing, sort-of. With a good thumbnail, it could look entertaining.
To change your life, you must calm your mind…
Before and after. Implies action steps. Change your life power phrase.
Stress: the most useless thing the planet’s ever seen
Know what the video’s about. Most useless is kinda funny when coupled with a power thing “planet”. Status-significant. Not that intriguing, because you know that stress is crap.
Stress: why you scream and cry and pass out.
Stress: the world’s most malevolent KILLER
Gives the person an idea of what video’s about. Malevolent is a big word but makes sense when you say killer. KILLER is all caps and a bit of a power word. The world’s biggest is also status-significant and big. It’s intriguing.
Thumbnail: “Be (left of face) mindful (forehead) instead (right)” with eyebrow face closeup and hands cupped in prayer to face.
Or you deviously in a suit looking back rubbing your hands together with “Stress” as a tag on your forehead.