Mindfulness Monday: Guided Imagery with Johns Hopkins

Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. This week, we meet the director of Johns Hopkins’ Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, Neda Gould, Ph.D., who is a clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences as well as Associate Director of the Bayview Anxiety Disorders Clinic. Dr. Gould and her group lead us in a Guided Imagery exercise appropriate both for adults and children.

Mindfulness Mondays: Back to School

Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. This week, we recognize that many have children that are headed back to school, no matter what back to school looks like this year. There is extensive research suggesting that teaching students mindfulness skills improves attention and reduces behavioral issues and, in turn, can boost grades. To help promote mindfulness in yourself and your children, check out this brief explanation and exercise from the folks at AboutKidsHealth:

Mindfulness Monday: Just Be

Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. For many of us, life was harried prior to COVID and now has only become more so. Running from responsibility to responsibility, it easy to sometimes just stop, be, and be grateful for our mere existence. Today, Dr. Erin Lohman of Wichita State guides us through a mindfulness exercise to address this, wherein we simply sit and observe, bringing ourselves back in contact with what is here and now. Enjoy, and be well!

Mindfulness Monday: Afternoon Reset

Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. We recognize that as you build your mindfulness practice it may be easier to incorporate exercises into the beginning or end of your day, whereas building it into the workday may be more challenging, though that is often where mindfulness is needed the most. Today, instead of reaching for a coffee when you’re feeling tired in the afternoon, try the Calm.com Afternoon Reset. You can do this mindful movement session at your desk!

Mindfulness Mondays – 3 Minute Breathing Exercise

Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. As we continue to adjust to life with COVID-19, many of us continue to straddle between the safety precautions that have been in place since March and returns to normalcy which, itself, creates more of a feeling of unsettledness and harriedness. As such, today we offer a very brief and very effective exercise. The goal of this activity is to notice when the hectic nature of the day is seeping in and to hit reset – spending just 3 minutes focused on your breathing. This exercise comes courtesy of the MyLife app.

Mindfulness Monday: The Anger Experience

Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. One emotion many of us are hesitant to acknowledge, especially in the moment, is anger. Like any emotion, in small doses and the right situations, anger has a job to do and can be beneficial. It is meant to motivate you and others to find solutions to problems. Tara Brach teachers us that, when anger is held in mindfulness, it can energize us to respond wisely to challenging situations. This meditation guides us in meeting personal or societal anger with RAIN – recognize, allow, investigate and nurture.

Mindfulness Monday: Self-Sooth

Self-soothing is something many of us learned to varying degrees from the time we were infants, through childhood, and something we refine throughout the rest of our lives. The core question when self-soothing is what simple thing can we do to make us feel better? These are usually based in the physical world, appearing to our five senses. The goal is to use them both proactively as well as when we are feeling distressed, when you feel that you cannot tolerate a situation anymore and cannot leave it. Today’s mindfulness exercise is brought to us by Tamara Levitt at Calm.com, who guides us through a 10-minute mindfulness meditation that can serve as an introduction to incorporating self-soothing into your day.

Mindfulness Monday: Being Present

Every Monday we bring you a mindfulness-based meditation to start your day and week off on the right foot. This week, we recognize that so much of what is going on can take our attention away from the present moment, and we miss out on important things. In this exercise, Tamara Levitt from Calm.com guides this 10 minute mindfulness meditation to restore and re-connect with the present moment.

Mindfulness Monday: Letting Go

Every Monday we bring you a mindfulness-based meditation to start your day and week off on the right foot. This week, we recognize that so much of suffering is magnified by holding on to those things that cause the suffering for want of control. Understanding that we are sometimes limited in our control, it can be helpful to learn to let go, which is what this exercise targets.

Mindfulness Monday – Mental Brakes to Avoid Mental Breaks with Steven Hayes

Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. Today we ask the question, how can we best deal with difficult or negative thoughts? Dr. Steven Hayes discusses language, cognition, and the science behind putting on the mental brakes, with mindfulness as the gateway.