Mindfulness is a HUGE trend right now, but is it worth the time in your day to do mindful practices?
Mindfulness has become such a prominent idea in today’s generation, and I can’t even lie; I love it. I love that my peers and I are looking at the importance of mental health and looking within. It’s so liberating to see that people are not letting themselves be shackled down and stuck until they are at a point of no return. Rock bottom isn’t as common anymore. Why? There are tons and tons of accessible mindfulness techniques and mental health practices that help discover new ways to combat everyday struggles.
As a twenty-year-old student, it’s super easy to get in your head. I’m currently taking eight classes, helping with three extracurricular clubs, running my own blog, and somehow finding time to work out, journal, and read. It’s shocking, I know. It’s a complete mystery how any student is able to stay sane throughout their semester when the work never seems to end and the free time never seems to begin.
My Experiment ~ Method:
Coming into the new year and the new semester, I knew that I’d have to take some extreme measures to keep myself not only sane but accountable, healthy, and happy. I devised a plan, an experiment of sorts, testing out different mental health and mindfulness practices to see which works best for me, a twenty-year-old female psychology and human behaviour student. I have heard that it takes twenty-one days to create a habit, so on the first of January, I made a list of all the practices I wanted to try and decided to give myself twenty-one days to see if they impacted my mental well-being.
Journaling
I started with journaling. I had heard so many amazing things about the benefits of journaling and why I should be implementing it into my daily routine. So what did I do? I picked up my cutest notebook and a pen, and tried to journal. The easiest part about this mindfulness technique is the introspective reflection . Nobody can know what you’re thinking except for you. It’s like a mini brain dump of all of the things you’re thinking, feeling, and needing to get off your chest. I feel relief as I rant about that one person in my day who put me in a weird headspace or how I need extra time in my day but have trouble never finding it. I talk about how much I think about my cat and how little I want to think about a certain class. It’s so easy to find the words to say and speak my mind to myself, especially when I have bad days.
Daily Movement
Along with journaling, I started daily workouts and movement. I’m not a particularly active person, especially when I have a lot on my plate, which is pretty much all semester. I’m the same as many as the next; the gym makes me feel intimidated, and it’s tough to figure out what to do, how to do certain exercises, and in what order. My solution? Bring a friend! You’d be surprised how easy the gym can be when you bring a friend with you. Suddenly, the mistake you made on that one weight machine is hilarious and no harm is done. You’ve also got a built-in spotter for when those weights get a little too heavy. I’ve spread out my days so that my busiest days are spent doing home workouts and fifteen-minute yoga Youtube videos, and my lighter days are spent doing at least forty-five minutes in the gym, either cardio or the weight machines!
Meditating
At first glance, meditating seemed like the mindful practice that I would struggle with most. Maybe it was the abstractness of meditating, but sitting still for at least five minutes without thinking about all of my pending assignments and lectures just seemed like an impossibly daunting task. I started with five-minute meditation videos on Youtube at the end of my day. From there, I moved on to ten minutes, and halfway through the second week of January, I managed to move it up to fifteen minutes.
My Experiment ~ Results
So, is it worth spending this time doing these mindful practices? I have to say that journaling genuinely changed my life. It’s a mindful practice that I don’t think I could do without. I love having a place where I’m free of judgment and able to completely brain-dump onto a page. It’s so refreshing to speak my mind and write what I’m thinking when I’m thinking it. Do I need to rant? Journal it. Am I excited about something? Journal it. It’s such a fun task that could be done for just five minutes in your day, but once you start, it’s so hard to stop!
The workouts have also had a positive impact on my well-being. Moving my body makes me feel good, something that seemed like a chore before. It’s so interesting that I managed to go this long without daily movement, even if it was as simple as walking in the fresh air. I mean, I get my fair share of walking across campus every day and usually always hit 10,000 steps, but the daily workouts put me in a completely different headspace. The gym became a place for me to take a mind break from all my thoughts about academic work and to focus solely on moving my body and feeling good in my own skin. This is another mindful practice that I’ll definitely continue to implement.
Finally, meditation. I understand how it’s proven to be a positive practice, so don’t let my review take away from that. It could be due to my previous reservations about meditation, but sitting still without the anxieties of academics creeping into my mind was incredibly difficult. There were no distractions, nothing except thinking introspectively and focusing on breathing. It was way harder than I thought it would be. Maybe that’s why the habit of taking yourself out of the headspace of daily life should be implemented. I struggled so hard with it and found that alternative mindfulness methods were more effective for me.
All of these techniques are AMAZING ways to practice mindfulness, and this experiment has taught me so much about myself and my daily habits. I’m excited to implement more mindful practices throughout my day!