Member-only story
Walking Back to Happiness
Use mindful movement to bring you back to a calm centre
When you’re under pressure, there is always a very strong temptation to rush everywhere and to take life at a trot, if not a gallop. You may have kids with activities, fitness, lousy commutes, work, responsibilities that all take large bites out of your time, building up the feeling that you are never, ever going to achieve everything that you need to do.
As most of us aren’t bomb disposal experts, employed by the emergency services to be extremely calm, your child is not in any danger and the last time I researched this, being tutted at by that irritating person in the queue at Asda didn’t kill anyone, you can hopefully get yourself out of a stressed-out mindset by employing a few tricks and tools.
Whether the stress you’re feeling is due to external factors, or something that you are generating yourself (reader, please note, I am very good at this myself), there are ways and means to create a little stillness that will allow you to regroup, to enable you to marshal your thoughts and bring yourself back to a level place where your thoughts are less fizzy. Mindful movement can help with this as being conscious of the effect stress is having on you can help pull in the tentacles of your unruly mind.
Always remember that, more often than not, your brain is utilising its ancient reptilian responses to react to stressful situations. This means that your thoughts are not necessarily going to be useful or constructive. In times of stress and anxiety, your brain literally throws the kitchen sink of boundless and irrational possibilities at you. But utilising some simple tools that help you filter the useful out from the noise and turn the volume down on your thoughts so you can *actually* think will always help.
Here are my top tips that can be applied at any time. I’ve deliberately pitched this as the walking that you get to do between activities on a normal busy day, rather than when you get to choose where, when and at what pace you undertake your mindful movement. Practice mindful movement in a work building, or on an industrial estate if you like.
