Is Your Mind Full or are you Mindful

Minfulness

Busy busy busy! That’s my mind state lately. When asked by friends and colleagues how things are going, I reply with a release of breath:

“Busy…but good busy”

However, I am beginning to question the ‘good busy’ response. What I really mean is that at times it feels like I’m pulled in millions of directions and my head is so full that I long for a moment of peace and quiet. But I convince myself that it’s all ‘good busy’.

I know it’s good to be busy; I am a ‘doer’ and find it difficult to sit down and relax. I seem to fill the space with things.

There’s always something.

If it isn’t work or treatments, it’s family life, being a taxi, the garden, sewing, dog walking etc. etc.

Always something.

Yet although I long for a stopping moment, I still create more for myself to do.

I think that this is the downside of being self employed and feeling the need to prove to the world that you do actually work, even though you are at home. And that working from home and running a successful business, whilst being a mum and wife, is perfectly possible.

Looking busy must mean that all is going well…yes?

Peace and quiet – a steady mind. That’s what is really needed.

There is so much on the web now about the over stimulation of our brains. It has been proved that our brains aren’t actually able to multitask and that by trying to do more than one task at a time our brains can’t do either in a productive way. We are able to quickly switch our brains from task to task, but we aren’t actually able to do more than one thing at the same time. But research has also proved that by switching from task to task we reduce our ability to do those tasks well. Microsoft tested out the findings of David Meyer at Michigan University, who found that by switching your tasks from one to another increases the time it takes to accomplish them by 25%. When putting this to the test they found when allowing their team to be interrupted from their task by emails, texts, phone calls etc. they took longer to go back to the task at hand, and would allow themselves to become distracted by social media and surfing the web.

So now that my illusion of being a brilliant multi-tasker has been shattered, I have started to approach my day in a different fashion. Recently I met with a friend who plans her day to the hour, including domestic and work appointments. Initially I was secretly a bit terrified of that, convincing myself that I would feel restricted and my creativity would be crushed! But given that my mind has been racing at a million miles an hour, it’s not really been very creative, which has led me to feeling restricted anyway!

Last week, when I was feeling totally overloaded, I sat down and diarised my day. I then took a moment to visualise my day, running through the timings I had set for myself. And do you know…I accomplished all I had visualised. I did swap a few things around and totally underestimated how long things would take to finish, but at the end of the day I was able to say I had done what I had set out to do.

The effect on my busy mind was a completely different mind-set. My mind just focussed on what I had decided to do, rather than the usual racing from one thing to another, whilst reminding me I had to put on the washing, do the hoovering and plan the dinner, oh and that I hadn’t booked my son’s extra ballet lessons, and so on. And the feeling of ticking off the tasks as I accomplished them was wonderful.

Mind Full or Mindful?

I know that being more mindful is the way I want to be and I am working towards that. I am now putting in place a new way of working, which enables my brain to steady and be mindful of the task at hand. Step by step and day by day it is becoming more manageable and my mind is steadier. You never know, if I carry on like this I might actually tick off all the things on my list!


Amy is the founder and owner of Nature’s Wish and makes all of her products herself. Her extensive range of face and body oils, lip balms, essences, energy sprays, treatments and gift vouchers can be purchased at www.natureswish.co.uk

Amy is also our wellness expert and you can find our more about her as well as asking her anything you like about all things wellness by visiting her expert profile here!


Is your Mind Full or are you Mindful?

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