Studies show that people who multi-task are less effective at their work, as compared to those who focus on one task at a time. Attention requires mental and physical energy that your body can create only in limited amounts. Focussing on anything consumes a considerable amount of glucose from your body and brain. This means distractions take a mental and physical toll on us.

Research also indicates that distractions take up almost two hours a day for most employees, most of whom only spend 11 minutes working on a project before they become distracted by something else, after which it takes them 25 minutes to refocus. So, in addition to affecting you at a personal level, distractions also have an adverse impact on your daily business targets.

Why do we get distracted?

Why do we get distracted so easily? Well, aside from distractions created by others, most of us become distracted by thinking about the past, the future… any time but the present. You have a limited amount of energy, especially for tasks that are not uplifting or relevant. Therefore, whenever you engage in less important tasks, you deplete your energy.

When you are in the present moment, you’re able to powerfully engage with those around you. Being alert and aware of the present moment, besides enhancing your productivity, also functions as an excellent tool for gleaning critical insights from your environment, and this helps you to make well thought out decisions at work.

For example, when you meet with your team, you can have two different types of meetings. One is where you are alert and open to both the verbal and non-verbal cues of your team, which helps you gather critical information to decide the next course of action. The second is where you have already made up your mind, and the meeting is held merely to manipulate others to accept your point of view; hence, you receive no valuable feedback from team members, which leads to sub-par performance.

How to come back to the present

During the course of your work it’s easy to miss the present moment and get overwhelmed with the demands of the day. Here are a few simple exercises that can help you regain your present-moment awareness. Use them at every opportunity.

1. Every hour, stop and ask: Am I really present in this moment? If not, what are my thoughts focussed on? Doing this often will help you return to the present moment.

You may wonder how to practise this if you are already doing an activity that is very engaging. Taking a moment to reflect on these questions will help you assess if you are really present and focussed on the priority task—which is good—or if you are focussed on a less important task.

2. Spend a few minutes each day with Nature; it will calm you. Watch a tree’s leaves move when the wind blows, reflecting non-resistance. While looking at the ocean, see the abundance, neutrality and oneness of the Universe. Nature has many messages for us and this practice will help separate your good thoughts from the cluttered ones. Spending some quiet time alone each day is essential to your inner wellbeing.

3. When in the moment, look at difficulties you have and ask: “What can I learn from this problem?” How is this problem affecting you in the larger scheme of things? Think about one thing you can do to minimise the problem and act upon it right away.

Why this approach? Because, it takes you away from worrying about the problem, which is pointless. Instead, you can view the problem from a distance and the objectivity will help you act on the problem. This will minimise the mental energy you invest in it and also offer a realistic perspective on the situation.

4. Ask yourself: “What can I do in the present moment to create a positive impact?

5. Say thank you a few times in a day for all the good things in your life. As you count your blessings, they multiply.

6. When driving, observe your surroundings, listen to music or an educational audio to stay in the present moment and avoid fretting about the serpentine traffic.

7. Forgive someone in the present moment by giving them the benefit of the doubt. This is liberating! Start with small things, such as when someone does not thank you for a favour you did, or when someone fails to apologise when they accidentally push you. As you get good at this, you will realise how much negative energy you stave off. This will help you forgive bigger transgressions, such as pardoning someone for taking away some of your business or cheating you on an investment deal.

8. Think of someone you care about and send loving thoughts in the present moment.

The post 8 simple ways to bring yourself to the present moment appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

When you eat in a mechanical way, not only do you enjoy it less, but your body is unable to extract the optimum amount of nutrition from the food, leading to problems such as indigestion, flatulence and bloating. Mindless eating also makes you vulnerable to overeating and weight gain. If you care about your health, you ought to stop eating unconsciously and learn the art of mindful eating today.

What is mindful eating?

Mindful eating is not a diet. There are no menus or recipes for it, nor does it cut out any foods from your diet.

Mindful eating simply means being aware of what you eat. It involves centering your attention on food in a non-judgemental way. When you are eating mindfully, you enjoy your food, savour it and also feel more in control. It’s the polar opposite of bingeing which is the ultimate example of mindless eating.

Here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Store food mindfully

If you can see it, you are more likely to want to eat it, even if you aren’t hungry. You may not have been craving donuts until you pass them in the lunchroom. Then, you can’t get them off your mind. Strategically placing food falls in line with the “out of sight, out of mind” principle.

In a 2006 study, researchers from Cornell University examined how many pieces of candy office workers ate when a candy dish was nearby. They found that people ate more candies when they were visible and easily accessible. Convenience leads to mindless munching and grazing. The opposite is true as well: You are more likely to eat healthy foods if they are placed within your easy reach. Keep healthy food handy instead—a fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, or a healthy snack such as nuts in your purse or bag. When you don’t have healthy food handy, you are tempted to eat anything, even if it’s unhealthy.

2. Avoid multitasking

When you eat, just eat. It’s tempting to eat while you work, talk on the phone or answer an e-mail. But according to research, multitasking can actually interfere with mindful eating, or eating enough to satisfy your hunger without going overboard.

A 2001 study by French researchers, France Bellisle and Anne-Marie Dalix, found that women who were distracted by a task versus those who just focused on their meal ate 15 per cent more [72 additional calories] and enjoyed their food less. It’s better to eat for a short amount of focused time than to do two things while you eat. So during the few moments that you eat, put down whatever else you are doing and focus on your snack.

3. Have TV-less dinners

This cannot be overemphasised! It’s tempting to turn on the TV while you eat. But, studies show that this leads to mindless eating. TV commercials stimulate hunger, and your attention is focused on the TV show and not on your food. Also, watching news or anything stressful such as action movies interferes with your digestion, causing various health issues.

4. Always sit down to eat

We often eat standing over a counter, nibble at something while walking or munching as we make dinner, never realising how much we eat. When you sit down, you tend to focus on it and pay much more attention to how much food you eat. So, sit and real whenever you eat.

5. Leave evidence

Leave a trail. Keep the candy bar wrapper on your desk. Don’t throw away the baggie once you are finished with the bag of pretzels. Keeping physical evidence or reminders helps you to be more mindful of what you eat.

6. Take mindful bites

Make each bite a mindful bite. Think of your mouth as being a magnifying glass, zooming in. Imagine that each bite is magnified a 100 times. Pay close attention to all your senses, use your tongue to feel the texture, gauge the temperature and take a whiff of the aroma. Ask yourself, “How does it really taste? What does it feel like in my mouth? Is this something I really want? Does it satisfy my taste buds? Is my mind truly present when I take a bite so that I experience it fully?”

7. Follow the ‘like it, love it’ principle

When people begin to be more mindful of what they eat, they are able to distinguish between foods they really love and enjoy, and the food that is mediocre. This helps them to cut out the foods they don’t really like. Mindful eaters don’t deliberately stay off food to lose weight, like in dieting. They just becoming choosy about what they feel is worth their time to eat, thus improving their eating experience.

8. Pay attention when you shop

Mindful eating begins with mindful shopping. If you’ve just started mindful eating, here’s a fun exercise to do. Take an old grocery receipt and circle all the items that were impulse buys and/or contributed to your mindless eating. This should help you to gauge some of your vulnerabilities at the grocery store. Many people race through the store trying to the get the task done. Instead, schedule a time when you can leisurely stroll through the store and investigate new products. For some, making a list prior to shopping helps them be more aware of the foods they ‘need’ versus the foods they ‘want’.

9. Buy the highest quality of food you can

Chocolate is a great example. Consider how you approach a cheap bag of bulk candy versus an expensive bar of high quality bar of chocolate. Many people savour an expensive bar and can make it last a week. In contrast, it is easy to munch mindlessly on inexpensive chocolate kisses. The cost of food matters—it makes us much more conscious of what we eat.

10. Soothe yourself without food

Your refrigerator is a lousy source of comfort. Using food to soothe ourselves is like taking an aspirin for a broken arm. If stress drives you to munching, it’s time you considered mindfulness as a stress-buster.

Last updated on 11^th September 2019

The post Stop! You are eating mindlessly appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.