Mind over matter

Your body is the temple. But your mind is the altar.

While we try firmly to look excellent from outside, we often fail to look within. The lockdown and quarantine seem to be the new normal, at least for the meantime.

One of the best lessons the staying at home culture has ever taught is to take care of our minds. Being locked within the four walls of the home has been a tedious challenge. Now, more than ever is the time to choose mind over matter.

“The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” – John Milton

Remind yourself to choose mindfulness over anything with the below important tips and practices.

• Embracing acceptance:

The journey of acceptance doesn’t succeed overnight. It starts with you not being able to accept some hard-hitting realities and truths. But acceptance is significant for achieving mindfulness. It may be a small room, but you attain peace once you enter.

Not embracing acceptance may lead to poor mental health and affects your relationships with others. Life is synonymous with yin and yang. It is a mixture of good, bad, and the ugly. Welcome the best but also be ready to accept the worst.

Acceptance helps one to acknowledge the problem and solve it better.

• Break the patterns:

Following the same routine and patterns in life leads to quick burnouts and exhaustion. It limits your progress physically as well as mentally. It is like drinking water from a waterfall. Overwhelming.

Mindfulness is not just hinged on acceptance of a situation. It goes much beyond to encourage cutting ties with the usual patterns and make room for the new.

• Build resilience:

Resilience refers to “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness”. How we row the boat of life through choppy waters determines how resilient we are. The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened concerns regarding mental resilience and trauma.

Certain traits and temperaments are genetically influenced. Yet, the role played by genetic factors is less. Resilience is related to a person’s past, setbacks, setting he/she grew in, and attitude.

So what makes one resilient?

1. Not dwelling in negativity. Building a positive outlook.
2. Resilient people have a strong attachment to personal values. They distinguish things as right and wrong. Their life decisions are backed up by personal examples and introspection.
3. They make themselves selfless to a degree. But at the same time, are dedicated to incline towards analyzing things before stating their opinion.
4. They believe in the give and take relationship with people. Aimed to build a social support system, they are sociable yet decisive.

• Digital detox:

The gap between the virtual and reality is slowly diminishing. Digital stuff is alluring. Its benefits cannot be underestimated. Technology has made our lives convenient and enriching.

But detaching yourself from the screen once in a while is extremely important for your mental and physical health. It is more required now due to the amount of information we consume every day.  Pertaining to the pandemic and lockdown, we have been updating ourselves with too many traumatic incidents. That’s because the novel coronavirus is extremely unpredictable and turbulent.

Constant tech activity hampers the mind. Research suggests that it leads to panic and anxiety. Turn off the screens and engage in subjective activities once in a day.

• Mindful workouts and games:

Who said workouts are only for the body? 1400 gms of flesh deserve equal attention and exercise.

Mindful workouts put your mind to constructive test. Some of the best and widely accepted practices include meditation, yoga, and pranayama. One’s mind is trained to enter calmness amidst the chaos. Starting your day with a good meditative session helps you incorporate good vibes.

Another way to enrich your mind is to play mind games. Immerse yourself in stimulating your brain health. Some effective mind games include Jenga, Sudoku, crosswords, memory puzzles, etc.

Now that you are here:

Times have been hard for all of us. It is indeed tough to practice being positive at the moment but not impossible. Know that it is not selfish to spend time in self-care!