When people think of meditation, they often think of someone sitting cross-legged in a quiet room or amid a spectacular vista attempting to become one with the universe. The truth is meditation can be much simpler, practiced anywhere and have an immediate impact in your day-to-day life. In fact, you can even meditate right in the middle of your workday. Here are three simple tips for incorporating meditation into your busy work schedule.
Do a simple check in at regular intervals
While it has become so habitual you may not even notice it, it’s a good bet that while driving you occasionally monitor your speed, check your rearview and side mirrors, and take stock of your gas gauge or other monitors. Meditation is the equivalent of checking in on your inner state every so often to make sure everything is in order and proceeding as smoothly as it should. A check-in can be as simple as closing your eyes, taking a few slow, deep breaths and determining if you are calm and at rest or if you are stressed out about something. If you are stressed out about something, you can then take further steps to address it, but you can’t address what you don’t recognize in the first place.
Use a meditation app
There are a number of guided meditation apps that can run you through a quick meditation on even your busiest and most chaotic day at work. When people need a quick pick-me-up at work, coffee has long been the favored go-to at the office. A guided meditation, however, may do far more to get you firing on all synapses without either the caffeine high or the inevitable crash.
Practice a mindful moment
At the office, we generally work hard to block out noise and distraction. Just like your interior check-in, however, it can sometimes be powerful to choose to be mindful of your surroundings rather than blocking them out. You can do this by closing your eyes, taking slow, deep, relaxed breaths, and seeking to absorb everything around you. Concentrate on the feeling of your clothing against your skin, smell the aroma of coffee, or the subtle mingling of the colognes and perfumes of your coworkers. You might be surprised at just how much insight and clarity these mindful moments might give you.
At the end of the day, what matters most is that you are taking a few minutes, or even seconds, to look inside yourself and monitor how you feel and what you need. On a micro-level, these moments of meditation will help you assess your best way forward to tackle the tasks and day ahead of you.