That’s because it’s been shown to be helpful in forming good habits, and there’s some research to indicate that it helps with a whole range of factors that facilitate exercise, including improved attention control, elevated motivation and good emotional regulation.
Start off with mindfulness breaks built into your workout – you can do a walking meditation or a yoga class you found on the Peloton App. When you step into your workouts and allow yourself just to be, it helps to quiet the mind and focus on only your workout without other inputs.
Focus on Your Breath
As you exercise, your breath is always with you; you can always return to it as your mind wanders. Feel every inhalation and exhalation. Notice how it changes as you move, and its rhythm as you work out. Your breath can still be used as a tool to calm a racing mind during exercise, as well as to bring it back to centre when its attention is veering off track. A mental health professional may be a helpful resource to ease someone into it. Self-talk can also serve as a cue and reminder to breathe, such as keeping good form while working out: you might perform a body scan as you work out, beginning with your toes and moving up your body, bringing your attention to various parts of your body one at a time, or noting sensations and tension, as you go along. Other sensory anchors include the sound of someone walking down the hallway while wearing a pair of clodhoppers on concrete, or noting smells nearby. Mindful eating practices pay attention to taste and texture while dining mindfully.
Focus on Your Body
Incorporating periods of focus into your exercise routine, for example, as you cool down from a fitness activity, may help to prevent this kind of mindless repetition of movement, by alerting your brain to your movements, breathing and body sensations. Reminders can also aid us in noticing when we are on a track that could be regretted later, such as reaching into a bag of chips when watching a movie. Often, if you become aware of when that is happening, you can act differently – getting up and going for a walk of your own – and eventually escape that pattern more readily. Mindfulness meditation is only one type of mindful practice; any type of physical activity can be made to include mindful practice. Work on paying attention to your feet when you walk or practise a body scan while moving – working up from your feet up through your knees, hips, torso, arms and hands, then to your head. Note any differences in how the sensations change and focus on each area for a few minutes at a time.
Focus on Your Feelings
Whether it’s tennis, running or weightlifting, one becomes a meditator (the classic term for mindfulness meditation) when focusing on one rather than multiple sensory experiences, such as the feeling of one’s hand against the grip, the sense of breath flowing in and out of a chest-ribs holy place. You understand that the feeling is there, and you can Urge Surf it (accept and move with) for as long as it likes. Once anger subsides, redirect attention to the body for a few minutes. Such mindful exercise exercises are easy to offer as add-ons to exercise routines, creating helpful synergies between mindfulness practice and physical exercise – i.e., recruiting physical exercise to boost the mood-enhancing power of mindfulness, or leveraging movement to bring meditation to life. In fact, mindful movement exercises might make meditating ‘sit’ a less mysterious proposition; people might not need to sit still for extended periods in order to experience all the benefits of meditation.
Focus on Your
Thoughts If you notice that your attention starts to wander off your breath or becomes distracted by thoughts, bring your awareness back to the experience of being in the present moment. As you swim or run, notice the water on your skin, or the sound of your lungs as you pour air in, as you run, observe the moment your feet contact the ground and your breathing rhythm. Meditation is the perfect adjunct to your training because it can teach your brain to stay present while you tackle tough feelings that might arise during training – feelings of frustration, fatigue, or failure. Incorporating mindfulness into physical activity can boost satisfaction with your workout and help you stick with your activity programme. So next time you do yoga, go for a walk, or lift weights, turn it into a mindful meditation session. You might even find that you are in better spirits when you are finished!
