Five Transformative Mindfulness Exercises to Try

By Shannon Thompson

     As a mental performance coach for elite athletes, my job is to see the best in people, and to help them to see this in themselves. My job is also to help people perform at their best when it is important to do so. The most powerful skill a person can learn in order to perform their best—and to learn to see the good in themselves—is the ability to control one’s attention. I am constantly teaching people strategies designed to strengthen their attention control. This piece will outline five easy strategies you can use to strengthen yours. We’ll begin by learning the basics of mindfulness meditation itself, and then move on to some specific mindfulness strategies. For the greatest benefit, I encourage you to practice these strategies daily. Research has found that practicing mindfulness for six minutes a day is related to an increase in the size of the parts of the brain associated with attention control. 

Mindfulness Meditation (best for training your ability to focus and gaining overall thought and emotion control).

     Mindfulness meditation, originally a Buddhist practice, is approximately 2,000 years old. Due to the findings of extensive scientific research, which highlights the widespread benefits of mindfulness, it is gradually becoming a staple of performance psychology programs.

    Simply, mindfulness increases the strength of your ability to pay attention. By asking you to focus on a point of your choice in a non-judgmental way, your ability to concentrate is increased, and your emotional reactivity is decreased. This is very helpful in all performance environments where performers always have a choice to focus on numerous aspects of their environment in a multitude of different ways. Some points of attention and others are unhelpful to our performance. Mindfulness gives us the ability to notice our options for our attention, and the choice to adjust that attention as desired.

     Mindfulness should be practiced regularly in order for you to get the maximum benefit from it. Daily practice for 5 -10 mins can improve your attentional strength. I suggest carrying out mindfulness meditation in a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. However, it can be carried out anywhere, anytime. You can practice mindfulness using guided meditations, like the ones associated with the link below. Or, you can simply focus on the sensations of any given moment; for example, you could mindfully brush your teeth, noticing the feel of friction and the taste of the paste. The important key is to pay attention to something non-judgmentally, in the present.

     Keep in mind that mindfulness is not a goal-oriented practice. Your attention will wander. There is great benefit in noticing your mind wandering, and in redirecting it back to where you have chosen your to focus. Each attempt at refocusing is like completing a strength building “rep” for your attention. 

     There are countless forms of mindfulness meditation. The link below will introduce you to meditations that focus on the breath, the body, your thoughts, and even people you care about. Really, any time you ask your attention to remain on a focus of your choice, non-judgmentally in the present moment, you could be said to be practicing mindfulness meditation. The exercises to follow could all be considered mindfulness exercises if the person practicing them attempts to keep his full attention on the exercise.  

Here is a link from the UCLA Mindfulness Center that offers numerous different types of guided meditations.

Belly Breaths (good for reducing fight or flight response)

    Belly breaths could be considered a fundamental mindfulness exercise. After all, the breath itself is a fundamental requirement of living. The breath is also a convenient point of focus considering it is always with you. Also, within numerous languages and faiths the word “breath” can be translated to “spirit,” which adds a comforting element to the exercise for those who have strong spiritual lives. The belly breath is especially useful with respect to treating anxiety. When a person breathes with a soft belly, the vegus nerve is activated. The vegus nerve plays an important role in our relaxation system (parasympathetic nervous system) because it is responsible for slowing the heart rate. Begin each breath by filling up your belly with air, then letting the air travel up to your chest. Exhale by letting the air slide out of your chest and toward your soft belly. Try doing 3-10 in each sitting. Work up to longer sessions as desired. Don’t force yourself to breathe so big and long that it feels uncomfortable. Make these easy. 

Progressive Relaxation (best for relaxing the body, and reducing anxiety. Very useful when trying to fall asleep)

     Progressive relaxation is a technique that also shares similarities with mindfulness. The practice involves tensing and relaxing large muscle groups for five, slow, seconds at a time (five seconds of tension, followed by five seconds of relaxation). The purpose is to direct your attention to a part of your body in the moment (and therefore away from what might be prompting anxiety), and to help you notice the difference between tension and relaxation. 

     Just like the belly breath, it’s important to practice this regularly in order to develop strong relaxation skills. At first it might take you a full 10 minutes to relax, but in time you can train your brain to relax immediately with a simple squeeze and release of your muscles. Similar to mindfulness, I suggest beginning this practice by listening to the link below in a quiet place. However, you will quickly see how simple progressive relaxation is, and how it can be inserted anywhere. I have done it myself while running, public speaking, and riding horses. I work with athletes who use it while competing in high intensity events (albeit they are limited to what parts of their body they can tense and relax while in action).

Here is a link to a very good progressive relaxation meditation.

Visualization/Imagery (best for mentally practicing new skills and generating confidence)

     The practice of visualization shares a great deal with mindfulness meditation. The difference is that imagery asks you to imagine what you want to happen in the future.  Imagery is most frequently used prior to practice or competition. The athlete will imagine the scenario he or she wishes to unfold in as much vivid detail as possible. Imagery is most effective from an internal as opposed to external perspective (i.e., as if you are viewing the scene from within your own body as opposed to watching yourself on a video). It is important to involve all the senses, and “live” the experience as close to reality as possible. 

     Research, as well as personal accounts from elite athletes, has shown imagery to be a very useful technique for increasing confidence and facilitating desired performance. It is critical that you imagine your performance as you wish it to be. Do not spend time imagining catastrophes (unless you also see yourself recovering well from them). If your mind tends toward seeing errors, simply “rewind” your imagery and try again to see the event unfold positively. For those who wish to use visualization regularly, I encourage you to incorporate normal adversities into that visualization. Visualize encountering a common roadblock and overcoming it successfully. For example, if you are using visualization in order to prepare to give an important presentation, imagine yourself forgetting one part of your presentation, but recovering with a terrific anecdote. Or, you could imagine yourself being asked a difficult question by an audience member and replying with an insightful comment. If a person only visualizes things going perfectly, she can be thrown for a loop when a normal adversity occurs during the actual performance.

Here is a link to a guided meditation for performance imagery.

Tonglen (best for managing difficult emotions)

     Tonglen is an ancient Buddhist practice initially intended to grow compassion and self-compassion. It is especially helpful when a person is feeling ashamed for a feeling she is having. For example, perhaps you are feeling incredibly nervous about an upcoming meeting with your boss. You might say to yourself, “What is wrong with you? You’ve been doing great work, and there’s no reason to be anxious,” and yet you undoubtedly are feeling anxious. Often in scenarios like these a person is not only upset, she is upset that she is upset, which worsens her distress. The key principle underlying the practice of Tonglen is that all feelings are part of the human experience. So, being nervous about meeting your boss, regardless of whether or not you have a clear reason to be nervous is a normal human situation. We all feel things that we believe that we “shouldn’t” from time to time. Here are the steps to using Tonglen:

1. Begin with three 30-second belly breaths. These will calm you, and make the process to follow more effective.
2. Either out loud or internally, acknowledge the thoughts and emotions that you are experiencing. No thought or emotion is “bad,” or exempt. Simply speak what your experience is. Also, notice the sensations you have in your body when you feel this way.
3. After acknowledging the thoughts and emotions you’re experiencing, breathe them in. I know it sounds strange to breathe in emotions, particularly negative ones. This part of Tonglen is an expression of acceptance. It says, “I accept these emotions as part of my human experience.”
4. After deeply inhaling, slowly breathe out space for your emotional experience. You can repeat steps 3 and 4 as many times as you like.
5. Think of all the other people who might feel the same way you do. You can limit this to the other people in your immediate environment, or you can expand it more broadly. Breathe in the difficult emotions these people are experiencing, then breathe out space for them. Doing so reduces feelings of isolation by helping you recognize that you are surely not the only person experiencing difficult emotions. It will also help you generate compassion for others.

    We have barely begun to scratch the surface of the available forms of mindfulness. Copious research has found that regular practice is related to improved sleep, immune function, focus, well-being, and performance in numerous fields. Considering the enormous benefits of regular, long-term practice I am very careful regarding how I introduce mindfulness strategies. My suggestion is to plan to do mindfulness at a time that is easy for you to do it—when you want to do it. If you struggle with consistency at the beginning, that’s okay. Motivation to adopt a healthy habit can be very tricky—especially at first. Be patient with yourself.  Be patient with your consistency, and be patient with your ability to control your focus during sessions.  Mindfulness gurus will often tell you that it is crucial that you do not emotionalize the experience of getting off track.  When you are off track, the key is to gently bring your attention and your efforts back to your intention.

Personally, I now practice mindfulness daily, and I’m quite consistent. However, this consistency took three years of gentle experimentation to establish. I suspect that if I’d been strict with myself at the beginning of my relationship with the practice, I might not have the warm, strong desire for it that I do now. In their song, “Hands,” the Roo Planes say, “Hold gently to what you wish to grow old with.” Those who wish to build a lifetime practice of mindfulness would do well to do the same.  

About the Author 

Shannon Thompson is a mental performance consultant who specializes in high performance sport. Shannon holds a Masters of Applied Positive Psychology degree from the University of Pennsylvania.