On the 12th day of Christmas my brain health tip for me is one B12 booster, iPhone 11 connection check, and 10 minutes of meditation
Day 10 of brain health tips to get you through the holidays is 10 minutes of meditation. That’s it!!! Did you know that, 10 minutes can take all that holiday stress and change it into holiday merriment.
I know, I know, I know, but what about holiday traffic, last minute gifts for parties, and regular responsibilities like work????? Stress is inevitable part of life, so the best thing we can learn to do is manage and recover. Though it may seem as magical as flying reindeers, just 10 minutes of meditation can make a huge difference to reset your body and reduce stress affects on your brain. 10 minutes to help your brain focus, consolidate memories, make the most of sleep, and increase cognitive flexibility and attention keeping ( just to name a few ).
Some ways you can take 10 minutes to get started meditating anywhere and anytime:
-> Breathe deeply. Focus all your attention on your breathing. To help keep your thought focused you can count the length of the breaths trying to increase or decrease strategically, or you can focus on the sound of the air as it flows through your body.
-> Scan your body. The goal using this technique is to focus attention to isolate your body into parts and become aware of how it feels. Whether you start at your toes or nose, try to take a second to tense up and then relax each muscle you focus on along the way.
-> Repeat a mantra. You can create your own mantra, whether it’s religious or secular we recommend the mantra reflect some positive aspect such as positive feelings, goals or aspirations, character growths.
->Walk and meditate. Combining a walk with meditation is an efficient and healthy way to relax. You can use this technique anywhere you’re walking. The goal is to focus your attention on the movement by breaking it down such as repeating action words in your mind “lift,” “move” and “place” as you take each stride.
-> Engage in prayer. Prayer is the best known and most widely practiced example of meditation. You can get ideas from a local spiritual leader, self help books, or others that you know who practice prayers.
-> Reflect. You can practice meditation by reading poems or sacred texts, or listening to music and taking a few moments to quietly reflect on their meaning. You may want to express your reflections in a journal, discuss them a friend, or say them aloud in a mirror.
-> Focus your love and gratitude. In this type of meditation, you focus your attention on bring up the feeling of love or thankfulness (which is rooted in joy) by focusing your thoughts on what invokes those feelings
-> Tell us below how you take your 10 minutes to reset your brain? Do you have a favorite meditation approach?