What is Mindfulness

Mindfulness is something you can practice in a multitude of ways. Here are a few of our favourites:

Breathing exercises:

This thousand year old ritual has been practiced by nearly every culture in the world. When we connect to our breath, we connect to our present moment. When we breath deeply, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system. We send signals to the anxious part of our brain that we are safe and don’t need to be in fight or flight. You want to let your lungs and belly fill, sending the air deep into the body rather than keeping it shallow in the throat and chest. It can be particularly helpful to do exercises with mental visualisations. “Visualise your breath as fresh and positive and then imagine releasing that stale air along with all that is holding you back.”

Alternative fitness:

Alternative fitness is any kind of movement that has more of a rhythm to it. It’s not static, it’s active. Things like dance, martial arts, ballet and yoga are active. You have to be focused on the moment you are in to be able to do it. When people speak about these activities, they often talk about their mind ‘turning off.’ That is the feeling of dropping into the physical body, and out of the mind by engaging your muscles, raising your heart rate, and focusing you on the task at hand. Beyond this, these exercises are an act of joyfulness.

Equine therapy:

Horses are highly limbic creatures, meaning they have an alert emotional system. They have the ability to sense our tensions and mood and are easily affected by it. If someone is off, a horse will feel it and can be triggered by it. This requires the rider to be aware of their own emotions too. You have to be mindful not only of yourself but another being. This, as Abdullah says, “expands your brains capacity for attention, and allows you to access a higher level of consciousness.