Mindfulness & Motivation

In 2019 I published my book, Thrive, to help people on their journey to achieve a pain and stress free lifestyle. I wanted to be able to provide a tool to help people to implement small actionable steps that could empower them to reduce stress on the mind and body and help them to Thrive. As we start a New Year, I wanted to share some basic principles from the book with you to help you to kick start your personal health journey.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness can have significant health benefits, reducing stresses and helping you to focus and be present in the moment. Mindfulness practice can be undertaken as part of your daily routine and involves simply learning to appreciate how even the simplest of living beings are utterly complex and to take in the beauty of the world around you through the power of your senses. It’s about maintaining an awareness of your thoughts, feelings, sensations and surrounding environment and accepting yourself and your situation without judgement. It is about being present and living in the NOW, not yesterday or tomorrow. It helps you to engage with your purpose by enabling you to deal with the mental tensions that result from the stresses and strains of everyday life. Crucially, mindfulness gives you choice. Through managing your state of being, you can learn to change your mindset, to help you learn to let go of the past and future and focus on the now.

So, what daily activities could you undertake to practise mindfulness?

Mindful posture

• Notice your posture
• Bring your neck and head up in a relaxed way
• Relax your shoulders back
• Notice if your spine is straight

Mindful eating

• Relax
• Eat slowly
• Taste every mouthful
• Notice the texture, the smell, the taste
• Think about your body digesting the food, the nutrients released. Is the food healthy?

Mindful gratitude

• Create a list of 21 things you are grateful for
• Then focus on each one, see what you saw or feel what you felt. Get a deep sense of gratitude

Mindful exercise

• Take the core stability exercise such as glute bridge, or wall stretch and notice where there needs to be a tweak in posture, tension, breathing

Mindful relaxation

• Sitting or lying down
• Notice the muscles in your jaw relax
• Now notice the muscles in your neck and shoulders soften
• Now go through every muscle in the rest of your body, from head to toe, scanning and sending focus, followed by a deep relaxing breath to the muscles.

Motivation

Motivation is the spark that creates the driving force for change.You’re not going to train your brain or body without the motivation to do so. So how do we get motivation, where does it come from? Motivation comes from having a purpose, emotionally compelling reasons why we get up every day.

Having a strong sense of purpose or a reason to do something will motivate you much more to achieve your goals. Some people find they do more for others than they do for themselves. A serious health challenge, such as having a heart attack or getting an injury, can be a very powerful motivating force. However, none of us want to have to experience that in order to find the strength to make change.

So what motivates you? How much better would your life be if you could learn to master your stress? Developing an awareness of your WHY and what’s holding you back is the first step towards finding your motivation. Once you’ve done that, you need to start conditioning it with language. Repeating positive and empowering phrases can help tap into our brains neuroplasticity and literally rewire your brain for success. Limiting beliefs strongly affect your outcomes in life because they can drive what you do, or don’t do. If you believe that you can’t do something, or you can’t achieve something, you are much less likely to.

You can use language in a positive way to help you feel motivated, energetic and vibrant by creating mantras.
‘I am loved’
‘I am confident’,
‘I am healthy’.

You can say them out loud, or silently, as long as you still do it with energy and passion. Just saying the words on their own doesn’t work. It might feel strange doing this at first, however when you step out of your comfort zone and try something like this, you initiate changes in your physiology and brain which really starts to change how you feel and behave. It’s really important when you use your mantras to have an energy and feeling behind it. It doesn’t remove what causes the stress, but it changes your state. By replacing words such as ‘try’, ‘should’ or ‘need’ with powerful phrases that inspire, you can change your thoughts and actions, which will ultimately change your results. When creating your own mantra always make sure to use the present tense and be positive. Avoid using negative language such as “I don’t want” in a mantra. For example, if you say, “I don’t want to smoke” the subconscious part of the brain only hears ‘smoke’. Instead you could say, “I will only breathe clean air today!

So what are your ‘I am’ and ‘I will’ mantras going to be?

Once you’ve found your motivation and worked on your mantras, you need to work on making it happen and build momentum. So how can you build momentum? It takes perseverance – just long enough until you start seeing the change, then it becomes easier to sustain.

What’s the one thing you need to do to make a difference, to start a change? If you can take one thing you can do today, start doing it and keep at it, you’ll gather momentum. It’s not about changing your entire life in one go, it just takes a shift. Think about something you could change now and imagine what your life will be like a year from now if you keep doing it.

Choosing to spend time on yourself largely comes down to breaking habits. We all have habits, behaviours we repeat on a daily basis and as we know, there are good habits and bad habits. Sometimes, it’s not immediately obvious which is which.

When you’re working on creating new habits, there are always situations in life that can set you back. You can help yourself to stay on track by surrounding yourself with the resources you need, whether it’s your exercise programme, your nutritional programme, whether it’s reading or listening to something that inspires you. If you make an effort to keep these resources around you, you’ll notice how much easier it is.

Finding your purpose, your WHY, is the spark that will motivate you each and every day. Having a strong sense of purpose can help reduce the effects of physical, mental, emotional, environmental and chemical stress, which can affect your heart, blood pressure and memory. Neutralising the stresses that occur in your day-to-day environment can make a big difference to your quality of life. When you have a strong sense of purpose, you want to get out of bed every day and perform to the best of your ability. Whether that means excelling at work, beating your personal best in running, achieving a certain fitness goal, mastering a new skill or spending more quality time with your family. Whatever it is that drives you, you want to be able to do it to the best of your ability. Of course, you also want to enjoy it! Thriving is about living life to the full and having fun while you’re doing it.

Living a life of optimal health is a journey. Just keep trying to move forwards. Remember, it’s about working out what works best for you, how you can be the healthiest, happiest version of yourself.

I hope this gives you food for thought and if you want to learn more about my 5 to Thrive Health ® System, then my book is available to buy in clinic or by following the link below.