meditation Archives - Page 3 of 4

By Adam Smith

In today’s article, 10 Astonishing Benefits Of Practising Yoga. I will show you why yoga is beneficial for your mental wellbeing. The mindset of a yogi offers great mental strength I wanted to tap into. As well as physical benefits. The mental benefits for me are astonishingly effective. I hope today your inspired to give yoga a shot.

What I Thought Yoga Was

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Yoga? I always thought it was some hippy person or more of a female thing to do. I came to find out this was so far from the truth and a stereotype I wished I never had the pleasure of knowing.

Luckily for me during the early part of 2020 I was inspired to give Yoga a try. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, we have experienced I had to do all my learning from home and started trying different videos via YouTube.

My first few I did was OK. Some were really annoying and others kind of put me off coming back. I persisted and thankfully I came across a channel called Breathe and Flow. The rest is history.

How Has It Helped Me?

Breathe and Flow have become my mentors daily with their amazing videos. They combine building strength, flexibility and mediation into their routine. They also adhere to beginners who have never done it before like me and as you get better a more expert variety.

To be honest I was shocked at how difficult some of the moves are and made me realise how my body is not in the shape it needs to be. Overall for me, I feel stronger more flexible and after every session, I feel challenged and relaxed for the day.

When I don’t do it I feel less in control of my emotions or more sluggish, it’s that noticeable.

10 Astonishing Benefits Of Practising Yoga

1. Form Of Meditation

Yoga can offer mediation in a variety of different positions that stretch the muscles but also relaxes you at the same time. With a major focus on breath work throughout the whole practice, this can help you take control of your breath and focus on the presence of what’s happening. After working on my core for example in Yoga, towards the end focussing on stillness through breath-work can have major benefits for the mind.

2. Great For Body Strength

I never realised how strong you need to pull off some of the moves you have to do in Yoga. I have so much respect for what people can do with their body now. Especially after trying them myself with a lot of wobbling and failure at the first attempt. Now I can hold myself in positions for a crazy amount of time and do positions I never thought possible when I first did it. With core strength being a major contribution to health as we get older, I feel this has helped me progress to a strong core.

3. Great For Discipline

One thing you need and develop with Yoga is discipline over the mind with moves that have long held especially.

An example I had was with core hold with me pressing my forearm backwards to make it a more intense experience on my abdominals. I thought 2 minutes wasn’t long at all but then the shaking starts fast for my body and 2 minutes felt like a lifetime.

But with the calming voice of my mentor Flo I have increased my discipline to persevere through discomfort and my mind telling me to give up like an alarm bell ringing. This sets you up for the day as well and has made me more consciously disciplined throughout my day too.

4. Increases Flexibility

After my sports years early in life, many years have passed and as a consequence, my flexibility has declined. This was very much apparent when doing different positions in Yoga compared to my mentor who could put his body in all kinds of positions.

Reassuringly Flo states that you don’t have to be in the positions he is in to get the benefits of the move which helped me feel less bad for sure. Brilliantly but slowly my flexibility has improved but I’m still yet to have my feet fully down in the downward dog. (This will happen)

5. Protection From Growing Old

As said previously Yoga is a great way of combatting age and keeping the body active. This is something I’m very conscious of and would like full control of my body without aches and pains during my later years. There have been miraculous cases where people have been suffering from back pain and after doing Yoga, the pain goes away. The body is like anything, if it’s underused it will lose all of its benefits, so keeping the body active through yoga is a great way that anyone can do it.

6. Makes You Happier

For me, I have become a lot happier person because of Yoga. It offers me a challenge but also a great sense of accomplishment in the process that makes me happy. Just like any exercise, the endorphins that get released can boost your mood levels. So if you need more happiness, yoga can definitely add to it.

7. Helps With Focus

Very similar to discipline it has increased my focus as well. Especially as a lot of the moves require you to be fully engaged to pull off. With the increased focus this can be transferred throughout the rest of your day with my productivity and focus on a task being heightened because of it.

8. Improves Balance

Some of the moves require great balance. For instance, doing a side plank with the arm in the air then rising one knee to your chest can be a real challenge. There’s a lot of wobbling for me but now that has stopped mostly and my balance overall has improved

9.Clears Your Mind

If your feeling stressed or feeling anxious, Yoga can help you dispel this feeling into one of calmness. With the daily stresses of life, being in control of your mind is crucial for your mental health and a great way to take charge of that is through Yoga practice.

Every time I finish my session I feel balanced mentally with a feeling of calmness which is much needed. Since this has become a daily habit I have seen negative feelings diminish and I am more aware of them creeping up on me.

10. Helps You Stay Present

The past and the future can be ever-present in your mind but Yoga can help quieten those thoughts into what you are doing presently through breath-work. My focus on the breath throughout the practice helps me stay present. I continue the breathwork through the day because of it which helps me stay in control of my emotions, especially stressful moments. Much needed when looking after 2 years old.

Final Thoughts

If your an athlete doing Yoga should be a must and be put into your daily schedule as will benefit your progress. Every child should be doing this too as it aides them in everything they need to work on with their developing body’s, I know first hand how much my son has improved with yoga that helped him in Karate and football.

Lastly for anyone who wants to develop their strength, core, flexibility, balance, mental health and a form of mediation. Yoga can be anything you want to be and has been practised for many centuries within the Asian world where it was invented and the benefits are eminence. Whatever stereotype you have heard about Yoga is untrue and if you can find the right mentor you will come to know how could it is. I would highly recommend check out Breathe And Flow on YouTube or Instagram. Hopefully, they can offer you something of value with Yoga.

Have a great day.

Namaste

Why Cleaning Is Great For Our Mental well-being?

Positive Effects Of Cleanliness with a dust pan and brush

As small kids, we have all been there when a person of authority has asked us to tidy our bedroom. My mum loved telling me to do this. I did hate it when I had to do it or help tidy downstairs. Maybe it’s because we were forced to do it and didn’t know the positive effects of cleanliness on the mind.

As an adult, I now know that it doesn’t only make your home or office space look neat but it’s great for decluttering the mind. A clean home equals a focused mind we like to say. You know the feeling you get when you have tidied up the whole house? How well does it feel? That’s a cleansing of the mind. A declutter of a negative atmosphere into a positive one.

As a father now, I see my younger self in my son. Especially, when we ask him to tidy up. At 6 years old we are trying to instil this positive habit in him as this is a great tool for the mind. Especially when it comes to focusing and creative thinking.

So in today’s blog post as you saw from the title – we will discuss the positive effects of cleanliness on the mind and how it has helped me. Also why tidying up is great for the mindset and how you can apply it to.

The Positive Effects

Boost your energy

When you clean your home or workspace it really does give you a boost of energy. You feel like you have accomplished something. We all know the feeling when we have succeeded or won a race. You get the same feeling from cleaning and your energy will be at a higher level for the rest of the day.

Create a new direction

Before you tidy up anything. You always have in mind how you would like the room to look after it’s done. This is a great tool for helping you move forward in your life. It can also help plan a new direction you want in your life too. It’s as if it has accessed the visualisation part of your brain and unlocks new possibilities for your future.

It calms your mind and reduces stress and anxiety

An untidy home can boost stress and anxiety tenfold. That’s why it super important to have a clean home and workspace. Especially if you are under stress at work or feeling anxious about things in your life. Cleaning has been proved to releases these tensions and I have experienced this too. Whilst you’re cleaning with the music in the background you start to feel more relaxed in the process. I definitely find cleaning quite therapeutic.

Its a form of meditation

Meditation is a great way to calm the mind and it’s something I practice daily. When cleaning, I get the same calming feeling too. With stresses of my life slowly going away whilst cleaning the dishes. With the repetitive actions is similar to the repetitive breathing techniques which is easy for the brain to perform without thinking too much. With the music on in the background, it also helps put you into a calm happy state similar to if you were hearing the wind chimes. Overall cleaning can help you get into that Zen state and help you feel better about yourself.

It tells you a lot about how you are feeling

How tidy your home can look can tell you a lot about how you’re feeling. If the hoover hasn’t been out in a while or those dishes are endlessly piling up. Something is wrong in your life that needs to be addressed. It has been proven that the tidiness of your space has an effect on your self-worth. So by just getting started to clean your space. You can start to form new pathways ahead and build your self worth with an amazing tidy up which can create a fresh win. It can be a symbolic message of change and the formation of new thoughts. Straight after cleaning, get your journal out and start planning for your future and what you want to change.

It’s a mini-workout

I don’t know about you but every time I clean, the sweat starts rolling off my back. Some tasks can take 20 mins and deep clean could take over an hour. Your body is moving repetitively for a long period of time so those calories are definitely burning off. You could actually look at cleaning as part of your exercise routine for the day.

A healthier family

Regular cleaning is also crucial for keeping you and your family healthy. With mould, a build-up of dust, bacteria on a worktop surface if left unclean can cause health problems. That’s why it’s important to clean regularly to make sure your health is not put at risk. A top tip is cleaning up after you have used something. Try having a day out of your week that’s designed for just cleaning. Your health will thank you for it.

Less maintenance

With regular cleaning, a great benefit is less maintenance on your home. Especially if you want your deposit back if you’re a renter. Keeping up to date takes away the pain of doing everything all at once which for me is painful. So I would set a list of things that are terrible to clean after long term use. I would do this once a month so you can keep up to date with your cleaning and then you will have less time for you to worry about it.

Overall the positive effects of cleanliness on the mind clearly show cleaning is essential for your mental well-being and for your health. It can be a great way to unwind and after a busy day a chance to do something simple and easy to accomplish. By planning and scheduling times to clean, it can also really help because if you don’t it will hit you all at once. As this is a real pain for everyone. Apply these tips and you see the benefits. SO GET CLEANING!

FUTURE MINDSET

At Future Mindset, we are here to push the boundaries of our thoughts and actions. By chasing discomfort in our lives, it can lead us to unlock things inside us we never knew was there. Let’s change our mindset to change our future.

For all of our latest blog posts on developing your mindset, make sure you sign up to our weekly newsletter to stay informed. Thank you so much for your support and would love to discuss any comments on this post and if you have any suggestions on future posts I’m more than happy to research and deliver that for you.

Chase discomfort and have a great day wherever you are!