How to plan your day in a mindful way

I know it seems easier said than done to try to live in a mindful way since we are all busy running on very little sleep.

However, there are tiny changes that you can make that do not take any extra time but will genuinely change your state of mind – now who doesn’t want that?

Being mindful in short means being aware. Finding awareness of how you are feeling in that moment and noticing how much it can change on a daily basis. I talk about dual energy in all of my Yoga work, without being a person who accepts all of their emotions can we really be a whole person?

It’s the like the night and the day, the yin and the yang, the positive and the negative we need both to create harmony in our mental, physical, and energetic body.

Although it is different for us all, I hope that these few tips may help you perhaps plan your day in a mindful way:

• Acknowledge how you are feeling in the morning, whether it’s full of energy or lethargic, happy or sad and take a moment to breathe and just notice it.

• Write down something you are grateful for and then the top three priorities of your day. Looking at them next to each other can help to give you a sense of relativity to your day ahead.

• Letting things go. This is a big one for me, I have a sensitive soul and this is truly the thing I am working on the most. The things that happen around us are out of our control but the way that we react to them is not. Take a big breath before you answer or write it down, then perhaps revisit it later in the day.

• Allow your breath to slow down your thoughts. If the exhale is slightly longer than the exhale it works with your parasympathetic nervous system to increase and in turn slow down your thoughts, calm the mind and actually lower blood pressure.

• Meditate. I know this is a big one if you are not used to it, but even try to just close your eyes at your desk for a minute and just breathe. Trust me, I was never into meditation and now I have to do it daily.

While this may seem like a lot and easy for me to say as a Yoga teacher, I too get what real life is like. I have 4:30 am starts, 10 pm finishes, I am physically exhausted most of the time, I have been dealing with an injury that needs surgery and still trying to teach.

However, I still choose to live in this way and allow myself to be in control of my own emotions – and nobody can change that. How awesome is that!