Zen Partner | Find Your Zen

Mindfulness is a technique you can learn which involves making an effort to notice what's happening in the present moment - in your mind, body and surroundings.

It aims to help you:

Become more self-aware
Feel calmer and less stressed
Feel more able to choose how to respond to your thoughts and feelings
Cope with difficult or unhelpful thoughts
Be kinder towards yourself

Introduction to Mindfulness

Our People Development Consultant, Andy Hollingworth, has been practising mindfulness for over 5 years and has delivered many programmes internally to our people. In this video he runs through what mindfulness is, the science behind it as well as a look into the myths and best practices so you can start to introduce mindfulness into your lives, if you aren't already.

Mindfulness Exercises

Thanks to Rochdale & District Mind here are a few exercises you could try. You don't need any special equipment. Different things work for different people, so if you don't find one exercise useful, try another. You can also try adapting them so that they suit you and are easier to fit into your daily life.

Mindful Eating

This involves paying attention to the taste, sight and textures of what you eat. For example, when drinking a cup of tea or coffee you could focus on how hot the liquid feels on your tongue, how sweet it tastes or watch the steam that it gives off.

Mindful Colouring & Drawing

Focus on the colours and the sensation of your pencil against the paper, rather than trying to draw something in particular. You could use a mindfulness colouring book or download mindfulness colouring images. This is a great one to get the family involved in!

Body Scan

This is where you move your attention slowly through different parts of the body, starting from the top of your head moving all the way down to the end of your toes. You could focus on feelings of warmth, tension, tingling or relaxation of different parts of your body.

Mindful Meditation

This involves sitting quietly and focusing on your breathing, your thoughts, sensations in your body and the things you can hear around you. Try to bring focus back to the present if your mind starts to wander.

We'll be looking further into meditation during week 4 so have a look out for more information then.

5 Ways to Wellbeing

From getting active to sitting and being mindful, this guide shows you 5 things you can introduce into your daily life to improve your well-being.

30 days of Mindfulness

This handy guide from Headspace gives you small actions you can take every day over the next 30 days. How many will you complete?

What is self-care and why is it important?

The term self-care is used a lot these days, but what does it really mean? This great article from BMI Healthcare looks into what self-care means in practice and the benefits to your health – both mental and physical.