Here are a few mindfulness exercises for professionals that will help you to take charge of your mood, no matter what kind of day you’re having:
As a professional, you may have realized that it’s very easy for your mind to get scattered. Most people have a number of chores on their desks. On a good day, you’re going to get the majority of them done. On a bad day, you might hit a snag and get stuck on one. But no matter how your work is going, you can still remain calm within yourself. You don’t have to let what’s outside you influence the inside.
Keep the big picture in mind: is your life generally moving in the direction that you want? If so, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t keep feeling good. And even if you feel that your life is not moving in the direction that you want, letting yourself get bogged down and feeling bad about it isn’t going to make things better. Here are a few mindfulness exercises for professionals that will help you to take charge of your mood, no matter what kind of day you’re having:
- Smile. Changing your outside can help you to change your inside. If you smile and make an effort to continue working normally even while you’re feeling disappointed or anxious about something, this might actually help you to come back to normal. Just smiling once may not have a long-lasting effect but it will at least give you a few moments away from whatever’s bringing you down.
- Take deep breaths. You’ve probably heard this so many times before, as a palliative for anger, anxiety and other emotional issues. As human beings, the one thing we do without even thinking about it is breathe. However, when you’re in the grip of an emotion, you might start breathing shallowly without realizing it. So take a few minutes to give your body some oxygen. This works even better if you’re standing under a tree or in a patch of green because plants give out oxygen.
- Write it all down. If you’re feeling upset about something, it can help to write down whatever’s going through your head. Don’t stop to think about what you’re writing, just write for half a page or a full page, letting your pen flow across without censoring yourself. It doesn’t matter if you’re repetitive, whiny or irritating. No one’s going to read what you write except yourself. And this will help you to get it all out, just like a therapy session would. Sometimes, you might even find solutions to your problems coming up in your writing.
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