Dear Friends,

The post below was inspired by the article: 5 Ways to Build Mindfulness Into Your Everyday Life by Debbi DelRe, MSN, APRN, PMHNP-BC, CPT, Pn-1.

Mindfulness is a way of relaxing your mind and body. It involves breathing exercises, and this will usually reduce stress.

What you should notice during mindfulness:
•The feel­ing of your lungs inhal­ing   exhal­ing
•the sound of a click­ing key­board
•The tex­ture of the soft car­pet on your feet — 

you prob­a­bly expe­ri­ence sen­sa­tions like these every day.  
But pay­ing atten­tion to these details can actu­al­ly ben­e­fit your men­tal health.  

Here are 5 ways to incor­po­rate mind­ful­ness into your dai­ly routine.

 
1. Notice your breathing.
Be aware of breathing in and out of body

Mind­ful deep breathing is pay­ing atten­tion to the sen­sa­tion of the breath com­ing in and out of the body, notic­ing the breath, how and where you feel it in the body with­out try­ing to change it.

HOW TO prac­tice mind­ful deep breathing:  
Close your eyes, and place one hand on your stom­ach and the oth­er on your chest.  
Breathe through the nose, by exhaling through the nose slowly
Slow­ly take a deep breath in through your nose — and hold it for a few seconds, and repeat the cycle
Slow­ly exhale the breath through your mouth and repeat the cycle.

2. Prac­tice mind­ful eating.
Mul­ti­ple times a day, you feed your body with nutri­tious food and drink. But when is the last time you real­ly paid atten­tion to:
1 the tastes,  texture of food, and sensual awareness and tex­tures,  

2 sen­sa­tions dur­ing mealtime?  
Mind­ful eat­ing is an approach to food that focus­es on your sen­su­al aware­ness of the food you eat and your expe­ri­ence of the food.  

Incor­po­rat­ing mind­ful eat­ing prac­tices has been shown to have ben­e­fits for indi­vid­u­als including:
1 A renewed sense of hunger and fullness.

2 Weight loss man­age­ment and maintenance.
When you decide it’s time to eat:
Pay atten­tion to every aspect of your food, includ­ing its taste, tex­ture, smell, and appearance.  

3. Try mind­ful med­i­ta­tion.
Med­i­ta­tion has long been a way to qui­et the mind and reduce stress. By adding a mind­ful twist, you can ben­e­fit even more from this practice.  

Mind­ful med­i­ta­tion has two parts:

 1) Atten­tion
It begins by focus­ing on what’s hap­pen­ing in the moment, includ­ing your breath, thoughts, and phys­i­cal sen­sa­tions.

2) Accep­tance.
accept­ these thoughts and feel­ings with­out judg­ment. Instead, you note their exis­tence and then let them float away.  

4. Pay atten­tion to the world around you.

As you go about your day, there’s a flur­ry of activ­i­ty going on around you. From the sound of cars dri­ving by to the smell of fresh spring air, these sen­sa­tions are worth tak­ing the time to notice.  

You can prac­tice mind­ful­ness at any moment of the day by paus­ing to pay atten­tion to the world you live in. Note these sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and touch­es with­out judg­ment.
Mind­ful­ness is not a one-time prac­tice. Rather, it’s a way of liv­ing you can build into near­ly every aspect of your life.

From your morn­ing rou­tine to your meals to every moment in between, you can be mind­ful of what’s going on around you and how it’s impact­ing you.  
Many peo­ple who prac­tice mind­ful­ness report an increased abil­i­ty to relax, a greater enthu­si­asm for life and improved self-esteem.

Darrell’s thoughts

When I take a shower, I hear 2 sounds:

1 is when water hits my body  
2  is when I hear the water going down the drain in the shower.

What has been  your experience with mindfulness?
Please comment.

© 2025, Dr. Darrell Pone. All rights reserved.