Blog Posts Tagged "Positive Psychology".

Perfect for the Xmas season and/or if you are prone to rumination.

Things you can do in 1 Minute to give your brain & body a break from overthinking and stress.

1.

Pick 1 daily activity that you plan to do mindfully (with your full attention).

For example, kiss your child mindfully when they are leaving for school.

2.

One minute of paying attention to something relaxing.

e.g., looking out the window at the movement of leaves in the wind.

3.

One minute of mindful single-tasking on whatever you are doing right now. Each time your mind wanders to the past or future during the one minute, gently bring your attention back to your single task.

For example,

- If you are walking, then walking mindfully for 1 minute. Pay attention to how your body feels walking, the air on your skin etc.

- If you are eating a chocolate, pay full attention to the sensory experiences – the weight of it in your hand, the feeling of it against your lips, the smells etc.

4.

One minute of mindful breathing. Drop your shoulders then just slow breathing. Approx 3 seconds in, 3 seconds out for a total of 10 breaths in 1 Minute.

5.

One minute of mindful lying down. On your back. Let your feel fall away from each other (fall outwards). Stretch your arms out palms up. If you are at the computer a lot this will give your pecs a nice stretch. You can use bolsters like in this pic.

I recommend just doing this on the floor. If you do it on your bed you might start to feel sleepy.

Or, any other “Restorative Yoga” pose for 1 minute. Restorative Yoga is yoga that gives your body a break from holding itself up. You can just google restorative yoga poses and will find heaps of info. If you find a pose, try it, and like it – I would love it if you would tweet me or put a link to the pose on the blog’s Facebook wall. It’s helpful for me to know what poses people like and find easy to do, so I can recommend to others.

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The November 30 Day project is going to be 30 days of – Savoring one thing per day. I’ll be posting my daily update on Facebook (most days, I usually don’t post on weekends), and I invite you to join in.

Each day I’ll do one of two types of savoring once a day:

1. paying greater attention while having a positive experience

or

2. reflecting on something positive that has happened in the day (e.g., reflecting on the feeling of satisfaction at finishing a task).

Why You Might Want to Participate: The Rationale

This is a great first 30 Day project for people who want to:

1. Increase willpower by picking something small and sticking to it consistently (especially good if you are stuck in boom and bust cycles of activity)

2. Increase positive emotions. Increasing positive emotions is not just hedonistic, pointless or selfish. Research shows that increasing positive emotions increases flexibility of thinking, increases creativity, improves cooperative problem solving, enhances realationships, and even improves physical health. Cultivating good mental habits also helps protect against depression and anxiety (especially if you have a tendency to get depressed).

Start date is Nov 1.

Observers welcome too but if you’re curious about participating, hopefully you will. It took me ages of following other people’s projects before I started doing my own because I was worried I wouldn’t stick at them, but I have found that I get so much out of them that I do stick at them. I’m also getting better at setting more reasonable daily goals for myself, which is leading to increased success.

You’ll need to “like” the Facebook page to post on the page. The idea is that I write my update and other people write their update as a comment to mine. You’re likely to find that posting your update each day helps you stay on track with the project. Latecomers also welcome, so you really have no excuses if you are curious about trying this ;-)

Link below – Join the “Savoring One Thing a Day” 30-Day Project

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Alice-Boyes-Psychologist/146054325428624

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Something you can easily try today…..

When you kiss your partner goodbye at the start of the day, or kiss them hello at the end of the day, linger a little bit longer with the kiss. Kiss them for 1-2 seconds longer than usual.

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