In this busy time leading up to Christmas where we often juggle 100 balls in the air, it’s a good time to focus, breathe and add a little festive mindfulness to your life!  Mindfulness is proven to significantly improve our ability to concentrate and complete tasks better (and with a greater sense of achievement) so productivity and quality goes up, mistakes and sleepless nights go down. 

Basically mindfulness helps us to be more in the moment – whether that’s eating and savouring our food which can help with cravings for fatty or sugary foods that we often seek out more of if we feel low – being able to watch and enjoy our favourite TV programme without our monkey mind taking us off in a hundred different directions – concentrating fully on one task at a time and knowing we’ve done that task well enough, giving us a sense of personal achievement.

Clients frequently come to me saying “why can’t I be like I was before?” or “I can’t seem to concentrate like I could and hack the stress at work, what’s gone wrong?”  The honest but difficult answer to those questions is there’s a complex set of factors all feeding into the way you feel right now.  Sadly we can never go back to anything in the past (unless you know Dr Who personally of course!).  We are who we are right now in this moment.  What we can do is learn to accept this truth and take positive steps to live more fully in the here and now.  That’s what mindfulness is about – living here, right now, in this moment.  Not planning ahead in the future with anxiety, worrying if something will actually happen or looking back into our memory box with negative judgements wishing we were back in some past time. We often do many things on auto-pilot, mindfulness is the opposite of this.

Just try this 5 minute mindful task – make a drink.  When your mind wanders as you are making the drink, remember this is normal and gently return it to the task. You may be tempted to carry on working, clean the work surfaces or juggle doing something else like send a text, just notice these busy thoughts (don’t judge them, just notice they exist) and let them drift away, bring your mind back to the task of making the drink – filling the kettle, watching it boil, feeling the steam in the mug, waiting for the drink to cool down.  Then sit down and experience drinking it – be aware of the taste, sensation, how it feels in your mouth, going down your throat, be aware of when you are full and have had sufficient.  Just experience this moment, without judgement.  And if you’re out enjoying alcohol over the festive period, apply the same principle, savour each mouthful, experience the flavour ….. you will enjoy that drink far more, getting greater satisfaction from it (your body and wallet will thank you too the morning after!).