Mastering Mindfulness Techniques: 7 Tips to Elevate Your Practice

Whether you’re brand new to mindfulness or you’re a long-time mindfulness veteran, taking a bit of extra time to devote yourself fully to your mindfulness practice can be a worthwhile endeavor. When when you have a mindfulness routine already in place in your life, it’s possible to become complacent and just go through the motions. Instead, you can reexamine what it means to truly be mindful, all while improving your mindfulness practices in the process. Here’s how you can improve your mindfulness techniques so they can serve you best!

1. Take a Bit More Time

Of course, the beauty of mindfulness is that you can take it anywhere with you. Therefore, if you don’t have the extra time to devote to a longer mindfulness practice, that’s perfectly okay. However, if you’re looking to expand and improve upon your mindfulness practice, devoting a little bit of extra time either to your meditation practice or to specifically designated mindfulness activities can improve your mindfulness experience and help you feel more involved in your practice.

2. Switch Things Up

If you feel like your mindfulness practice itself is becoming a bit repetitive, you can always try switching things up within your mindfulness practice. Whether you usually stick to a few techniques or you simply have one that you favor, trying out different mindfulness techniques can give you a bit more variation in your practice. In fact, exercising your brain’s muscles in a new way can often broaden your view of mindfulness in general.

3. Involve Others

Another fantastic way to improve your mindfulness experience is to involve others in your mindfulness journey. Well not everybody has a mindfulness journey of their own, you can talk to your friends about it or join specific groups designated to practicing mindfulness, wellness and meditation. If you happen to have friends that are interested in mindfulness, practicing meditation together and talking to one another about your mindfulness journeys can be a fantastic way to expand both of your practices.

4. Apply It to Other Areas of Life

Mindfulness can truly be a part of your life throughout the entire day. Although you might be used to applying mindfulness in specific scenarios like meditation or grounding techniques, expanding your mindfulness practice to apply it to new areas of your life can improve your experience with it. Try out mindfulness techniques that you haven’t experienced before — like mindful eating and setting daily intentions — you might be surprised at how transformative that experience can be.

5. Slow Down

Similar to — but not quite the same as — taking more time for your practice, slowing down your mindfulness practice that you know and love can breathe new life into it. All too often, once we get into a routine with something, we can tend to rush through it and miss some of the amazing parts of it. With mindfulness, one of the most important parts of experiencing the full benefits is to slow down and utilize the practice fully. If you notice yourself simply going through the motions of your mindfulness practice, try slowing down and paying a little extra attention to each of the details along the way. That truly can make all the difference.

6. Use Grounding Techniques

If you aren’t already familiar with grounding techniques, they can be a huge part of mindfulness. One of the great benefits of grounding is that you can pretty much do it anywhere, so there’s no need to stress about adding it to your routine. Grounding techniques can involve breathing exercises, full-body scans, connecting with nature and even mindful movement. If grounding feels like a place that you are lacking in your mindfulness practice, you might want to look into adding grounding to your routine.

7. Unplug

While tossing your phone into the river and riding off into the sunset might not be feasible for everybody, you can take a little bit of time to unplug and go without technology for your mental health. Unplugging and getting out of the digital landscape for a while can be an extremely important experience that helps you feel connected both to yourself and the world around you. If you want to improve your mindfulness, try spending a few hours a day without your phone.

Making the Most of Mindfulness

Everybody has their own mindfulness practice that works in their lives, but switching it up can be a great way to make the most out of your practice, no matter what that entails. Whether you plan to slow down or unplug, simply thinking about how to expand your mindfulness practice proves that you are already well on your journey!