After New Years, it seems everywhere starts to scream ‘new year, new you’ with all sorts of ways on how to change your body but here at FASHOM, we believe you are beautiful as you are. We all have room for improvement in ways however these need to be done for you and your peace of mind, not because you are trying to achieve something someone else is telling you that you should be trying to achieve. So, this month, we went around the office here and asked everyone what they would like to work on for themselves throughout this year. The number one answer we received was how to be more mindful at work.
As a start-up, it can be very hard to keep yourself in-check during the busier times of the day when you are overwhelmed with responsibilities and have to wear multiple hats but we put together some easy and practical tips on how to be a little more mindful whether its before, during, or after work:
1: Bring your attention to your breathing: Focusing on your breathing doesn’t mean you have to sit down and meditate each time but just taking attention away from our minds to breathe can lower stress and help center you. This can be done for even just 5 – 10 seconds a few times a day.*
2: Bring your attention to things around you: Stop and look at a plant or even a chair for a few seconds; this will break your thinking pattern and help reset it. Many of us here have used this technique when we feel like we might be hitting a wall with something or feel like we’re running low on ideas.*
3: Take short walking breaks: When possible, take a quick stroll around the office or outside and remove your thinking self from the environment. This is also an easy way to help get in a little movement throughout the day if you have been sitting or standing in one place for a long period of time.*
4: Meditate: If there are facilities like a break room or even a meeting room, you can take 5 or 10 minutes to do a quick meditation session even just before/after a lunch break. You can find a lot of short, guided meditation apps and videos on the web that you can follow as a daily practice. Here at FASHOM, we try to practice 10 -15 minutes together a few times a week.*
(Retrieved via Unsplash)
The idea of being mindful is not to stop thinking or to sit down and meditate for hours but to more so just disengage from a mindset that is only making us hit a wall or more frustrated so we can be more aware of life around us.
*Disclaimer: No references from any other texts have been made throughout this piece. All thoughts and opinions are our own as team members of Fashom.
