As the co-owner of Heartsong Yoga in East Longmeadow, MA. Sheila Magalhaes has been helping her students and fellow instructors learn and appreciate the wellness benefits of mindfulness for more than 25 years.
With so many stressors impacting life for everyone today, Prime reached out to Magalhaes for advice on how practicing mindfulness can help improve our health and well being. Here’s what she shared:
“Mindfulness is not a religion, it’s a practical tool for accessing health and happiness. It’s not just sitting in meditation or stillness, (although that’s a great way to help train the mind) instead, it can spill out to everything in everyday life; chopping carrots, making beds, working at the desk with a pile of paperwork, talking with loved ones, eating dinner, walking your dog. It’s not hard to learn, but it takes intention, commitment and practice.
“My favorite definition of ‘mindfulness’ is ‘paying attention, on purpose, without expectation or judgment.’ It’s an invitation is to get your attention to present time, focus on the moment, resist multi tasking and notice when your mind is racing ahead to the future or slipping back into the past, or if you’re running on autopilot or empty. Without expectation or judgment means that as you see more clearly what’s happening now, you can allow things to be as they are, and have the space and time to recognize that while you may not be able to change the circumstance, you can shift or change your response instead.
“This clarity allows you to have more appreciation of the goodness all around you, and to recognize challenges as opportunities for growth. Mindfulness helps you savor your life.”
“Starting a mindfulness practice is as simple as noticing your next breath. Seriously…take a moment, right now, and purposefully notice your in-breath, and then your out-breath. Breathe in and out through your nose, and feel that precious breath enter and exit. You don’t have to fix it, change it, or make it different. Just observe it. That’s a mindfulness moment. Because a mindfulness moment is as simple as watching your breath, you can do it anywhere, anytime. Next layer on one more thing, smile, and invite in gratitude for that instant of peacefulness. How lucky are we to be able to take that breath?
“At home, when attending to the most basic tasks, do them with your full attention. Enjoy your shower. Make your bed. Wash dishes, chop carrots, and fold laundry without rushing through, enjoying the process. Drive your kids around and delight in that time with them, eat your dinner at the table, turn off the TV, unplug the phones, and notice the deliciousness. At work, tackle projects, paperwork and emails one step at a time, resist the culture of multi-tasking, rush and hurry. Breath by breath, trust all will be accomplished, in the right way and in the right time. Instead of worrying about what’s coming next, truly experience what’s happening right now.
“Another practice of mindfulness is watching your thoughts. Start to be aware of when you’re wishing to be somewhere other than where you are right now, or wanting something that someone else has, or wishing circumstances were different than they truly are now. When you notice your mind in that wandering place, take a breath, come ‘back.’ When you notice you are judging something, or someone, with mindfulness you’ll be more likely to ‘catch’ yourself doing that. Take a breath, train your mind to come to rest, flip around that thought, and send loving kindness towards that person or situation you are judging. Allow yourself to be perfectly OK with where you are.
“Mindfulness accesses the ’Relaxation Response.’ the opposite of fight, flight or freeze when stress hormones flood your body and can negatively impact your health and well being.
"Studies show the benefits of mindfulness include lowering stress, decreasing depression, increasing focus, better moods, stronger relationships, increased resiliency, and improved working memory. My favorite of all is the ability to relate to one’s self and others with patience, kindness, acceptance and compassion. Exactly what the world needs more of, now!”
