What a Daily Dose of Mindful Moments Can Do for You

Braking for mindful moments throughout the day is a way to take mindfulness from an inner practice to an active practice by taking intentional action. The daily challenges of life are endless and stopping to take a mindful moment is a way to meet the shifting challenges a given day brings. A mindful moment practice is pausing regularly throughout the day to take mindful action, either for your own well-being or for that of others.

Without deliberate stress-buffering practices needed in the moment stress strikes, stress can easily accumulate and make your day go dismal in no time. A daily stream of mindful moments can keep you from stressing out and slipping into autopilot. Your mindful moments can be stress-relieving, tension-releasing, relaxing, calming, energizing, self-soothing, or mood- lifting as the moment commands.

Pausing for brief mindful breaks interspersed throughout your day can be a way to cultivate mindfulness as well as reduce stress and negativity, sustain a positive outlook, and nurture self- compassion. Your mindful moments can also foster kind, generous, and thoughtful actions when targeted for the benefit of others. An ideal use of mindful moments is to incorporate them into a routine part of your day, such as the beginning or end of the day, before or after meals, or transitioning from your work life to your home life.

Research shows very brief mindful moment practices can be restorative in many ways, including reducing your stress level, boosting your mood, keeping you more alert and focused, and improving your performance. For example, in Stress Free for Good: 10 Scientifically Proven Life Skills for Health and Happiness, the authors write it takes only 3 to 4 deep breaths, about 10 seconds, to shut down the stress response. And just 2 minutes of exercise that raises your heart rate can change your mood. According to Dr. John Ratey, Harvard medical school professor and author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, anything from jumping jacks to a quick sprint works like an antidepressant to release a surge of dopamine and serotonin.

Mindful Moment Bookmarks

I have compiled the many mindful moment practices offered throughout my book into categories and created 7 “bookmarks” for ready access. You can use them as actual bookmarks to place in whatever current book or magazine you may be reading as a reminder to break for mindful moments. Or you might want to carry them in your purse or post them in a visible place like your refrigerator or bathroom or dresser mirror.

Mindful moments can be taken to reduce stress and negativity, calm down and relax, elicit a positive feeling and boost mood, feel and express gratitude, and be kind to yourself and others. Each of the 7 bookmarks has either 10 or 12 mindful moments for a total of 76 practices in the following categories:

Click on each bookmark to view in larger print

Instant Stress Busters

These are 10 Instant Stress Busters with the science for why they work. The stress response unfolds quickly so you need to be an ‘early responder’ to temper your initial response before it takes on a life of its own. When stress is more intense you can combine 2 or more of these mindful moment strategies.

Self-Compassion Practices

Having compassion for yourself is as important as having compassion for others. You need to give yourself the same love and care you would give a loved one. When you need some self-compassion, try these self-soothing mindful moments.

Practices to Preserve Positivity

When you can stay in a positive state of mind research shows it enhances your capacity for kindness, gratitude, forgiveness, and compassion, for yourself and for others. When you need to boost your spirits try my mindful moment practices and see which ones resonate with you.

Practices to Relax

As the saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” At the earliest signs of fatigue or stress, you need to pause and use a mindful moment practice to relieve stress, release body tension, and calm the body if you don’t want to be wiped out by the end of the day.

Gratitude Practices

Expressing gratitude is one of the most powerful habits you can develop and there’s much research to support its benefits for enhancing mood and well-being. Begin your own gratitude practice by taking mindful moments to count your blessings, express gratitude to others, and do daily gratitude rituals.

Practices to Counteract Negativity

A cascade of little annoyances can easily gather momentum and your day goes dismal. You need strategies to bounce back quickly. These mindful moment practices can keep you from sinking into negativity.

Kindness Practices

Research shows kindness increases your happiness, works as well as pain-killing drugs, and can even be an antidote to depression. Start practicing kindness daily with my mindful moments for doing acts of kindness, following a kindness theme-for-a-day, or establishing a morning or evening ritual.

Each of the bookmarks of mindful moments has practices that include the following different ways to integrate mindful moments into your daily life.

Four Ways to Get Your Daily Dose of Mindful Moments

There are at least four ways to start adding mindful moments to your day.

Take a mindful moment tailored to your fluctuating needs throughout the day – By pausing for mindful moments you can seize the opportunity to “serve the moment” with a mindful practice that is stress-relieving, relaxing, enjoyable, mood-lifting, self-nurturing, grateful, or kind.
Follow a practice or theme for a day (or designated period) – You may want to follow a theme, or do a practice just for the day that relates to some area you want to pay more attention to or improve. You might select a situation or circumstance and implement a designated practice each time the situation presents itself. Or you may pick a person to be the focus of your mindful moment practice for a day.
Set a daily intention – Setting a daily intention sparks an awareness you carry with you for the day. It can be a way to prompt you to activate a particular quality such as patience, generosity, or kindness. But you have to do more than set an intention—you need to specify what you are going to do to actualize your intention. When you set an intention for the day, you check in with that intention regularly by pausing for mindful moments.
Establish daily rituals – A daily ritual is typically done the same time every day and in the same way each time you do it. Your first and last waking moments are ideal times for establishing daily rituals so you begin and end your day intentionally being mindful. You can also incorporate a daily ritual into an already routine part of your day. For example, at your evening meal or transitioning from work.

When you alternate among mindful moments targeted to what you need at the moment, following a designated daily theme, setting intentions, and establishing rituals you can keep your mindfulness practice fresh and novel. Neuroscientists have shown that our brain thrives on novelty. The brain reacts to novelty by releasing the reward chemical dopamine. Novelty is one of the fastest routes to creating new neural connections. Mark Waldman reports in NeuroWisdom: The New Brain Science of Money, Happiness, and Success that anything novel and enjoyable causes dopamine to be released which wakes up the consciousness centers of the brain.

Taking multiple mindful moments throughout the day offers an opportunity for keeping your mindfulness practice new and varied. Novelty and variety not only stimulate your brain’s reward system, they also enhance your brain’s capacity for learning.