Mindfulness & Healthy Living
Hello! I'm FruityFlamingo and I'm from the Mindfulness Support team *waves*!
�@politeOcean �suggested that we team up and start a thread on mindfulness and healthy living... which I thought was a wonderful idea! We would like to discuss the relationship between healthy living and mindfulness and how they support each other.
**If you are thinking, "What is Mindfulness? I've never heard of it before!' , don't worry as I have a definition for you....
**"Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you're mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad. " -Psychology Today
**So basically, mindfulness can help you pay special attention to where you are in the present moment, and observe what is happening inside and outside you. There are lots of benefits to mindfulness that have been linked to healthy living!
ReachOut says that there is evidence that mindfulness supports and may:
- Help to relieve stress
- Help to improve sleep
- Help manage depression and/or anxiety
- Help you to be less angry or moody
- Improve memory
- Help you learn more easily
- Help you to solve problems more easily
- Make you happier
- Help you to be more emotionally stable
- Improve your breathing
- Reduce your heart rate
- Improve your circulation
- Improve your immunity, or
- Help you to cope with pain.
That's a lot of amazing healthy living benefits.
However, it's important to note that mindfulness isn't a quick fix or instant calm! Mindfulness is a practice that takes time and is a constant learning process. Sometimes being mindful may make you realize you are feeling angry, and that can be frustrating. But it means it is working, as you have observed the feeling, and now you have the choice to simply observe or react.
This post is just an introduction to mindfulness and healthy living... we would love to hear about your experiences or any questions you may have! Over the next few weeks we will be posting tips and experiences on how mindfulness and healthy living work together.
Stay tuned and we would love to hear your experiences! 
(Also tagging @Pat who may be interested in this project )
Thank you so much for posting this thread. I will admit, I never even heard of "mindfulness" let alone in conjunction with Healthy Living and how it all goes together. Not before coming to 7cups that is :)
I feel this can be a great start, or great introduction to how the two can go hand in hand with the what you do, how you eat and what you are feeling as well!
This would be a great challenge for those of you to take a look at, and see for youself! Let us know, and report back to us. I know I will be challenging myself as well to start being more aware of incorporating mindfulness :)
@fruityflamingo Thank you for posting this! It's super informative :)
@fruityflamingo
Hi there, I'm the Mindfulness Support Leader from the Teen Side, I was hoping that we could get in touch in some way? Possibly we could talk more on a google docs?
Hi @MidniteAngel Thank you for all you do to bring mindfulness to 7cups. I am a member of the Adult Mindfulness team and I am always happy to hear from people working here and especially in mindfulness. Just reply to this post and we can share stories or set up a new forum thread to talk back and forth.
Some things that might be useful to you are a list of youtube videos on mindfulness that add another dimension to mindfulness sessions with nature scenes and music. A few of them are listed here. http://www.7cups.com/forum/MindfulnessSupportCommunity_106/MindfulnessPractices_490/
All the best to you.
@fruityflamingo
Mindfulness for me today.............
Mindful Hand Awareness Exercise
Grasp your hands really tight and hold for a 5 to 10 seconds, then release and pay attention to how your hands feel. Keep your attention focused on the feeling for as long as you can.
I tried this today and it really helped me to be in the moment
@fruityflamingo
Among its theorized benefits are self-control, objectivity, affect tolerance, enhanced flexibility, equanimity, improved concentration and mental clarity, emotional intelligence and the ability to relate to others and one's self with kindness, acceptance and compassion.Mindfulness cultivates a stable healing presence that benefits patients and providers alike. Mindfulness meditation techniques are widely used to manage stress, and are especially effective at reducing the stresses of time pressure and excessive workload that make modern health care so difficult.