Focus your attention. A powerful technique for dealing with stressful situations is to cultivate your attention to focus on the present moment. Doing so reduces the mind’s tendency to wander and ruminate on the what-if thoughts that often add to stress. Focusing your attention takes practice, especially in a world that’s filled with text messages, social media and other distractions. To develop this skill, try focusing on the details in your everyday surroundings and experiences. Discover new aspects of old haunts and habits. Find the beauty in the mundane.
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present moment
Stress Hack: Tune In To the Present Moment
“Mindfulness means staying aware and conscious of your experiences. No matter what we’re doing, we can always make time to bring our attention to our breath and body and stay there for a short period of time,” says NIH psychologist Dr. Rezvan Ameli, who specializes in mindfulness practice. “Recent studies show that even short periods of mindful attention can have a positive impact on health and well-being.”
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Stress Hack: Focus on the Now
Returning your focus to the present will help you accept and let go of what you cannot control. It will also help you realize that you can’t change the past, and that the future hasn’t happened yet, so it’s a waste of time to keep thinking about them. (This doesn’t mean that you are unaware of what happened in the past or what is about to happen in the future.) Try taking a deep breath and asking yourself how you are feeling right now.
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Stress Hack: Reduce Stress in 1 Minute
Describe three things you see right now
Describe three things you see around you in terms of size, shape, texture, and color. For example, the brown, rough bark of a large tree. This exercise can be done indoors or outdoors. It brings your attention back to the present moment and neutral aspects of experience. This can take you away from your worries and fears about what might happen in the future. It is also a concrete task that can help disengage the default mode network in your brain that gets activated when you’re worrying, daydreaming, or thinking about yourself. Rather, it will activate your brain’s “on-task” network that is inconsistent with rumination.
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The Sound of the Sea ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Sound of the Sea
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Do not wait for life.
Do not long for it.
Be aware, always and at every moment,
that the miracle is in the here and now.
Today’s Reflection ~ Present Moment
I take it not only a day at a time, but a moment at a time, and keep it at that pace. If you can be happy right now, then you’ll always be happy, because it’s always in the now. ~ Willie Nelson
One Instant ~ Wu Men
One Instant is eternity;
eternity is the now.
When you see through this one instant,
you see through the one who sees.
Today ~ Thomas Carlyle
So here hath been dawning
Another blue day;
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
Out of Eternity
This new day is born;
Into Eternity,
At night will return.
Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did;
So soon it for ever
From all eyes is hid.
Here hath been dawning
Another blue day;
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
Thomas Carlyle
Today’s Reflection ~ Looking Ahead
There is nothing you can do about the past except keep it there. ~ Michael Connelly
Today’s Reflection ~ Change
Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay. ~ Simone de Beauvoir
