If you want to increase your levels of happiness, or introduce more calm into your life, these free mindfulness practices can help.
Mindfulness works best when you find a practice that suits you. We have short 1, 2, and 5 minute guided-mindfulness practices for those busy times. We also have practices for sitting, to walking, or drinking a mindful cup of tea. Find some you like and do your best to stick with it. The benefits will come...
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is about being aware of our present moment experience. It is a particular type of attention that means that we are intentionally present with awareness with whatever is happening in the moment. Mindfulness practice is about developing a skill that can enable us to live with more engagement in the present, and to view our thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations and environment with more spaciousness, acceptance and without judgement.
How will mindfulness help me?
Mindfulness practice can help people cope with stress, change and uncertainty, and can improve your ability to respond mindfully, rather than react without awareness. With practice, we end up spending less time thinking about the past, and less time imagining the future, which means more time living in the present moment. This can then lead to more confidence, calm and emotional intelligence in our lives.
Beginners
This first section is for those who are new to mindfulness and who want to learn how to practice in order to get the benefits. But it is also suitable for those returning to practice or those wanting to revisit the basics.
The audios below allow you to practice as often as you want. Daily practice is recommended to get the full benefits, and that is why there are various lengths of practices to suit all needs.
Try listening to the first audio introduction below:
(click the button to access the practice)
Introductory talk on 'What is Mindfulness?'
How does Mindfulness work?
First Guided-Mindfulness Practice
Access 30 more Mindfulness Practices below for £10 lifetime access:
LIFETIME ACCESS TO OVER 30 MINDFULNESS PRACTICES
Mindfulness for anxiety, sleep, building resilience, mindful walking and micro-mindfulness practices from 1 - 5 minutes. Plus mindfulness for breath, body and mind.
You might also like to try our Mindful Resilience Course
The Research
Mindfulness has become very popular in recent times, but what is the science behind it?
You may not know that mindfulness has been around for centuries, and we now have the technology to show how it benefits us. Read on for more...
Mindfulness can increase relaxation. Law (2011) found that just 10 minutes of practice can help.
Frederickson and colleagues (2008) found that meditation can increase feelings of love, contentment and joy. From their research they predicted greater life satisfaction and gratitude for life.
Mindfulness meditation can give tremendous benefits for those with chronic pain. With mindfulness you learn how to use your attention and an attitude of non-judgement, which will lower the effects of the pain. Carson and colleagues (2005) found that mindfulness practice significantly reduced chronic low back pain.
Decreased headaches. I have often had people that I am teaching tell me that their mindfulness practice helps in reducing headaches and even migraines. And now there is some research to back this up. Tonelli (2014) found that a brief mindfulness practice can reduce migraine pain as well as the emotional tension associated with it.
Leung and colleagues (2013) found that Mindfulness can increase emotional intelligence.
Harvard researched Mindfulness and found that regular mindfulness practice can give us a one second gap between an event or stimulus and our response to it.
One study by Kearney and colleagues (2013) found that meditation reduced symptoms of PTSD and depression.
Mindfulness is also likely to increase empathy for others as well as self-compassion (Hoffman, 2011).