Mindful Every Day: Simple Strategies for a Calmer Life
My daily routine for more mindfulness and less stress
I sometimes wonder if stress was encoded in my DNA from the moment of my conception.
Add in the scary man who stalked my neighborhood when I was a child and the landlord who caught me alone and pushed his lips onto mine, and you know why I ended up with a dysregulated nervous system prone to stress.
All my life, I’ve been startled by the tiniest noise and jumped sky-high when a butterfly moved through my peripheral vision.
My hair-trigger responses to regular and unusual occurrences began to soften, however, once I got hip to mindfulness.
The practice of mindfulness has been found to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression in more than 200 studies. Can you argue with that?
But it’s not enough to sit on my sofa and watch my breath for twenty minutes each morning—at least not for hypervigilant me. I must integrate mindfulness into my daily routine to reap its full spectrum of soothing benefits.
Here are my steps to create a more mindful, serene, and quietly enjoyable day.
