5 Simple Habits To Practice Mindfulness In Movement — Myndful

Alex Bondoc
4 min readApr 13, 2021

However you move, be totally there.

We are no longer unfamiliar with the wondrous effects that mindfulness and movement can bring into our lives. Making time to meditate and/or work out in your day boosts your overall well-being.

Moreover, uniting these two practices may bring about remarkable health benefits, as studied by researchers from Penn State University. Jason Yang, who led the study, said, “You don’t need to exert a lot of extra effort in order to improve your well-being by being more mindful while you’re moving around.”

Mindful movement is the intentional act of moving the body while shifting your awareness onto the breath, body, environment, and activity at hand.

Developing this ability can reduce stress and anxiety, increase focus levels, ease low moods, enhance relaxation and sleep, and improve self-regulation. The key to earning these valuable benefits is in its consistent practice.

How to do mindful movement

Listen to your inhales and exhales. Let the breath be your anchor. Direct all your attention to your body movement. Maintain a gentle awareness in every motion and the subtlest of your gestures. Starting with your posture, how your chest expands with every breath, how you maneuver your limbs, and when you can, how your fingers and toes make contact with the surroundings.

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Observe the sensations of the body in motion. Ask yourself, “How does my body feel?” Notice any areas of comfort, tension, or pain. Silence thoughts that are not connected to the activity — avoid thinking about your to-do list or what you would eat after. To do this, get out of your head and totally engage in what you’re doing. More notably, always be kind to yourself. Whenever the mind wanders (and it will), instead of loathing yourself, simply smile and get back to the present moment.

Here are five suggested practices

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Even just mentally setting out to do yoga begets a certain solemnity. Coming into the studio, rolling out your mat, and picking up on all the energies from your classmates already puts you in an acute state of awareness. Together, you move slowly and deliberately from one challenging pose to another. You breathe in and out at the same time. Finally, you get a sweet release as you collectively meditate and rest with your well-deserved Savasana. There are many styles of this ancient practice an individual can explore. Among these, the ones that embrace a component of meditation are Hatha, Yin, Kundalini, Viniyoga, and Jivamukti.

Performed with gentle, flowing, and moderate movements along with deep breathing, you go on gracefully through a series of motions involving animal actions and martial art strikes without pausing. Its unique feature is that it is internal. You build the inner strength from inside out, running deep and strongly. Consistent practice will get you to enter a stage of serenity, a new zone where there is no hurry, a way of life in harmony with nature.

Literally translates to “energy work”, qi gong coordinates the breath, the body, and the eyes to channel energies. Tracking your movements with your eyes is crucial as they are the “command center” for the spirit to guide the energy in the body. The motions are dynamic, as massaging and caressing the body, and also use visualization techniques such as imagining to be “taking a chi shower” or swaying like a “bamboo in the wind.” The more fluid you are with the movement, the more you increase energy circulation.

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Nothing beats being fully immersed in water, the element of life. It gives a feeling like your body is so light that it is drifting up in space. Each repeated movement of your head popping in and out as you gasp for air, the lulling silence and pressure in your ears as it submerges, and the alternating stroke of your arms, fleet-footed kicks, and the worthwhile glide that comes after — becomes an entry into a flow state. You will always feel good after a swim.

This practice is a no-brainer activity — simply walk. Find somewhere pleasant and one foot in front of the other we go. While outside, try to notice what is going on around you and appreciate the environment. In Zen Buddhism, they call walking meditation ‘kinhin’, often performed in groups, single file.

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Pro tip: Doing this barefoot on natural grounds can elevate (or ground) the experience. This practice is called earthing, a therapeutic activity that electrically reconnects you to the earth.

As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” Whether it is dirt, grass, or sand, kick off your shoes and lay your feet flat. Reconnect and feel like you’re coming home. Or better yet, bury your feet as if to plug in the world’s most natural resource.

“All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.” — Martha Graham

Whatever your practice, participating with all your attention in the physical activity easily allows you to get the most out of the experience.

Originally published at https://myndful.ph on April 13, 2021.

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