Mindfulness For Stress Reduction & Daily Peace

This is a recording of our "Daily Mindfulness with Diana Mirs" live event, which includes practical tips for incorporating mindfulness into your daily routine. Together with your Mind-Body Connection Coach, Diana Mirs, learn simple, effective techniques to cultivate present-moment awareness, reduce anxiety, and find daily peace. This recording introduces mindfulness basics, explores its neuroscientific benefits, and guides you through a mindful breathing practice.

Perfect for beginners and anyone seeking quick stress reduction and enhanced well-being.

I invite you to check the "Daily Mindfulness with Diana Mirs" playlist for the recording of other events and guided meditations from this series.

Transcript

Hello guys!

Welcome back to our lives.

You are always welcome to share your opinions,

Your experiences,

To speak up,

To express yourselves in many ways here during our lives.

It is a safe space to be yourself.

And let me mention a few words about me.

My name is Diana.

I am a Mind-Body Connection coach,

A psychosomatic specialist and a meditation teacher.

I'm really happy to see you guys here today.

Please also shortly introduce yourselves and tell us where you are joining us from.

Right now I'm in Brazil.

It is 6 p.

M.

And starts to getting dark and rainy.

If I'm asking you guys how you are feeling,

Let me also think about it myself.

I think I'm feeling very centered and very peaceful,

Relaxed,

A little bit tired by the end of the day and very excited to connect with all of you guys.

And I'm looking forward to discussing our today's topic.

So the series of this life events are called Daily Mindfulness with Diana Meyers,

Which is I am.

And I will be hosting this series of life events every Monday approximately the same time because I'm a digital nomad and I'm moving quite frequently.

So the time may vary and I'll do my best to notify you guys in advance about the next sessions.

There are already a few ones scheduled for February for the whole month.

So please guys follow my profile here on Insight Timer and you will see all of the lives that you can attend also in the future.

So you will not miss any of them.

And in these life events we will be speaking generally and covering various topics.

Of course I want to encourage you guys to express your interest,

What you would like to hear,

To know,

To explore during our lives.

My main vision is to cultivate a community of mindful people.

Of course we all are here on Insight Timer so I want all of us to just have a specific time to gather together and to just embrace ourselves,

Life,

Mindfulness,

All of the mindful practices that will help us to improve the quality of our life.

Of course another objective is to learn something from the Mind-Body Connection as I specialize in this topic about stress reduction and the perhaps particular steps or some helpful tools to build the life of our dreams.

And of course something very practical,

Something that we will also discuss today a little bit ways to reduce stress.

I'm sure that this topic itself deserves a lot of attention in the modern world and it will be extremely beneficial for many of us I'm sure to discuss and to dive deeper into this topic.

And specifically for this life event and for this series that I'm hosting this year,

By the way it is the first life event so welcome all of you guys,

I have created a short very compact and very effective guide in the PDF form which is called 5 ways to reduce stress in less than 5 minutes.

And literally there are just 5 techniques or tools that you can use in a very short time that will definitely scientifically proven not only in my experience or experience of my clients but scientifically backed how to reduce stress and how to feel better.

I hope it will be helpful,

It is completely free,

It is just for the use of all of us for the benefit of the whole community and I'm sure that having this guide will be just something very supportive and helpful that we can open at any time of the day in any place,

Most of the techniques if not all of them can be practiced anytime anywhere and yeah something that we will have in our pocket when we truly need to use it.

Alright guys,

So I see that there are a few of us here already,

Please guys share something about yourselves whether you have joined my previous life events last year or the previous years or not,

How you're feeling today,

What your expectations are perhaps from our gathering today and yeah something just to hear back from you guys I'm always very happy to connect.

Okay,

Hanem,

Hi I'm from Finland 11 p.

M.

So in bed already first time with you.

Alright that's quite late and thank you so much for popping up here before your bed time.

Great,

That's good to see you,

Always welcome.

I have never been to Finland but I have lived a few years in Russia so I can imagine how the weather is in Finland now as well.

That's great,

Yeah I to be honest miss snow a lot.

So if today let's guys concentrate on the topic of mindfulness as it is one of the key words here in the whole series of events and my question to you all is how do you understand mindfulness?

This word has been around for so many years and still yet I feel that perhaps we do not understand clearly or do not perceive clearly what mindfulness is or can be and of course there are many various definitions and none of them are right or wrong but I'm just curious about how you think about the topic of mindfulness what does it mean to you?

Emma,

Hi I'm from the UK nice to meet you from for the first time I'm also ready for bed soon yeah okay guys yeah okay so we are I can imagine on different continents right perhaps there is someone from America's here as well where it is not so late yet and also guys the ones of you who would like to join the conversation as well let me know what time of the day will be perhaps better for you to join our lives or if this schedule is good for you because I'm sort of flexible and I'm just trying to get the most of us together and Dennis here from Turkey well speaking about mindfulness before I will share some of my points on that I would like to hear from you have you had any experience with mindfulness before what do you think it is if not completely perfect you can just send some of your guesses do not worry about that Cecilia hi hello from Estonia it is good time to listen to you before going to sleep okay that's nice to know that thank you well to me I would say that mindfulness has a few components and I can look at mindfulness from quite different perspectives for example the biggest part of mindfulness takes awareness and it can be awareness of the present moment of our life and ourselves being here and now being mindful being aware of what is happening at the moment let's take a little pause and make a tiny tiny practice so let's try to be mindful of this moment together for a few seconds and I'm sure that all of us are having different experiences right where some of us mindfulness of the present moment can be as for me being online with their comments guys over the time perhaps with a space I find myself in my apartment or I am mindful of what I'm looking at there is a great view from my window I might follow that I'm aware of what is present in my experience right now for some of you it can be completely different perfect so that was a tiny practice and we got a taste of mindfulness Shelley hello from California okay first person from the North America now great hi Shelley another aspect of mindfulness which is crucial and very important in my opinion is mindful attention so where we place our attention or put our attention or pay our attention however it might be put in the words where our attention goes where our focus flows if we are doing it mindfully with intention or perhaps not if we are on autopilot perhaps we are lacking in that moment our mindful attention which is not bad we humans and other species on earth leave on autopilot some part of our lives and there is nothing wrong with that another the third moment of mindfulness for me is acceptance simply accepting experiences and life itself as they are without trying to change them or without complaining if we don't like something or even without being too excited or happy if there is something at this moment that we like too much simply accepting it as it is well let me know guys if it resonated with you whether you have something to add to mindfulness perhaps you may disagree with something and it's completely normal I encourage you guys also to express not only to agree but different perspectives I would like also to know you guys a little better in your experience has there been any moment or a part a period of your life where mindfulness played an essential role or changed something or helped you in a way it would be it would be a very inspirational and motivational to hear that for all of us I'm sure Emma time to pause time to pause yeah let me process that absolutely that's essential and kind of I'm adding from my side to slow down to pause to take a breath right but also not only perhaps to pause but being mindful in this pause that you're taking right so perhaps mindfulness will not be just the time to pause or it may be interesting yes thank you once again the question for you guys was has there been a moment or a time of your life where mindfulness really helped you in a way or was really essential some experience of yours with mindfulness of course I am open to share my experience with mindfulness and it is strongly linked with anxiety for I cannot say that I struggled with anxiety most of my life luckily not but there have been long periods in my life where I was just too anxious when anxiety became a part of my life a part of me and mindfulness is something that of course it was only one of the tools and techniques that I used but I can see how it truly helped me release the majority of anxiety that I was experiencing so see how it went for me I I was just noticing what I got or was getting anxious about whether it was about the future events what events in the future how far in the future there were what exactly in this event triggered my anxiety the same was about the past I was reflecting and try I was trying to kind of catch with my attention that detail or a few details that provoked anxiety so the those stressors I can even say and again thanks to mindfulness I developed at the same time the ability to stay a little bit more and more and more present with the anxiety with my experience here and now with myself so just being mindful of what was there for me in the moment helped me to be a little more grounded in the present so it means that anxiety associated with the past in the future was melting away and with a time when having developed this skill this sort of mindfulness muscle I can even say it is much easier now to stay present and to kind of navigate the anxiety waves if they come I know they will go the same way as they arrive so it gives me peace of mind I think that is the most important benefit of mindfulness for me peace of mind and of course as it is all connected to our physical sensations our physical body peace of my heart I can say peace of my body right so that is why I'm so passionate about mindfulness and I incorporated not only in my meditations here on inside timer but also in the work with the clients whether it's mind-body connection coaching or individual sessions or psychosomatic not only practicing it myself but also sharing this incredible tool with others so I hope you guys will be also inspired to include a few more moments in your daily lives to practice mindfulness and a little bit later in our life today we will talk about the practices that will help us develop mindfulness I would also like to mention that I upload the recordings on this life events as talks and the parts of the live events as guided meditations which we will have at the end of our today's session here on inside timer so please follow my profile so you can really listen to some parts of our lives that probably you skipped or you would like to revisit so we will stay connected this talks and guided meditations from lives are usually uploaded and released within a week or ten days so to give you guys an approximate timeline and of course you already can find in my profile various playlists from the mind body connection series from the mindful goodbye to the year which we were having at the end of the last year a lot of my body connection meditations and practices and of course the courses I hope some of them will be of your interest all right so I hope that all is clear and we can move then to the next part of our life today so I am very passionate about neuroscience and all of my offerings all of my kinds of work that I'm doing I try to be based on neuroscientific research because it's not only interesting to me but it is also a great motivation for me to practice something or to develop some sort of skill when I know how helpful it is for our bodies or our minds from the physical and from the scientific point of view so I hope this will be also of your interest and certainly the biggest benefit in my opinion of mindfulness is stress reduction and not only mindful meditation but other mindful practices that we will discuss in a few moments have been shown to reduce the activity of amygdala it is the part of our brain which is responsible for our emotions or fear and regulating that part of our brain leads to the reduction in stress hormone cortisol so practicing mindfulness helps us to reduce stress it also activates our parasympathetic nervous system which means the part of our body of our nervous system that is responsible for promoting relaxation a sense of calm and security and safety and as a result of that studies have shown that mindfulness practices lower our blood pressure our heart rate and even breathing rate the key indicators of stress reduction so I find it fascinating how our minds and bodies are linked to each other and can influence each other for the better so regulating with a mind with mindfulness practices our body is incredible and once again do not forget to get for free completely the guide five ways to reduce stress in five minutes or less and I'm sure that it will be as well very beneficial you can find and experience the effects of mindfulness on reducing stress in your own well another benefit which is crucial for for us and relationships in our lives is improved emotional regulation and what I mean by that is that we become more aware of our emotions of our responses to triggers stressors and we become more skillful to regulate these emotions as well let me quickly mention a few other benefits because I'm afraid we will not have enough time then for our guided practice another benefit enhanced cognitive function we can strengthen with mindfulness practices areas of our brain that are responsible for executive function for memory and not only we can improve the decision-making or problem-solving abilities with mindfulness practices but also improve the quality of our attention and overall cognitive performance so simply speaking we can become smarter if we practice mindfulness and that is how I usually explain the benefits of this kind of practices and meditation for example to children another benefit of mindfulness is increased self-awareness so we already talked about it shortly when we were speaking about emotional regulation we can understand our own patterns and behaviors much better improved sleep quality which I'm sure that most of us would like to get improved sleep quality sounds amazing and that is what mindfulness can also do for us here another moment perhaps is not so obvious pain management but studies have shown that mindfulness based interventions or practices can help reduce chronic pain by altering pain perception and enhancing pain tolerance so if you guys are struggling with some chronic pain or some long-lasting pain mindfulness practices can be a great tool to help yourself with this kind of problems so definitely give it a try what else immune system boost and yes as I mentioned previously overall well-being some research suggests that mindfulness practices may have positive effects on the immune system by reducing inflammation and boosting immune function so again a few meditation practices and mindfulness practices help us to reduce inflammation in our body so why not again give it a try and to wrap it up the last one that I have marked for myself is increased compassion and empathy with these kind of practices we can cultivate compassion or empathy by fostering a deeper understanding not only of ourselves but expand it to others to others to even the whole society so of course it requires much more practice I would say of mindfulness but it's another great benefit that will increase not only the quality of our lives but of the whole society and I find it also very very inspiring if the topic that we are discussing today and mindfulness especially the benefits of mindfulness I forgot the word I'm so sorry sometimes it happens if it motivated you guys to dedicate time to self-practice I'm sure that the guide that I was mentioning earlier will be also very useful helpful and effective for you five ways how you can reduce stress in less than five minutes so the next part before we will be moving to our guided meditation I would like to mention the practices how we can develop mindfulness and here most of them perhaps will be quite obvious for most of us something that perhaps all of us are already practicing in our daily life but let's go through them one by one just to remind ourselves of what else we can do daily to become a little bit more mindful for example mindful breathing it is my favorite one because breath is something that we have with us all the time something that doesn't cost a cent and something that we can easily place our attention on being mindful of our breath it is something one of the techniques that we will practice in in the guided meditation later today another one is mindful eating it is my favorite practice because not only of course it helps to promote mindfulness but it makes food so much more delicious and so much tastier and that is true for many people so I encourage you guys to try to be a little more mindful when you are consuming foods or drinks just as a little experiment to see if you will be more satisfied with the food that you are consuming also it will help you with a better digestion with increased mood and better absorption of the nutrients from the food once again scientifically proven and backed so it's how our minds and bodies work together mind-body connection here and something that I to be honest struggle with practicing mindful eating because as perhaps many young people and and even the ones sort of addicted to social media which I am at this period of my life struggling with yeah so difficult to stay away from YouTube or the phone while eating okay let me know if you guys can relate to that or not but again I am working on that for myself another practice is mindful walking something that I get to practice very easily first of all I love walking I love exploring places of course being a digital nomad it's a big part of my life and I love being present with my body as it moves either through the city or on a hike in nature wherever it is mindful walking mindful movement mmm brings me so much joy another mindfulness practice is mindful listening something that can not only help us enhance the skill of mindfulness but also improve our social connections I think I don't have to explain that and it is something that more people I would say or I hope will practice mindful listening well and something very practical something that I will have to do after our life event finishes after having dinner mindful washing dishes or any other chore at home or even at work that we have to do just being mindful of what you are doing for example washing dishes what can be more boring right oh yeah maybe something can be but it's one of the most boring things that I have to do in life and to make it a little bit more effective to myself to my living experience is just to be mindful of what is happening what my my body is doing or why I'm doing that just being here and now perhaps listening to the water running or experiencing the softness of the soap or the heaviness of the dishes or whatever it might be for you or the temperature of the floor that you're standing on any detail can be the anchor for mindfulness and to be honest any activity as we are speaking about mindfulness I would like to give you a few tips that will help you to incorporate it in your daily life so the most important is start small you may begin with just a few moments of mindfulness in a day then a few minutes and then growing the time of being mindfulness with different practices throughout your day be consistent so instead of practicing even 10 minutes once a week of mindfulness practice one minute of mindfulness every day and these accumulated seven minutes of mindfulness practice daily compared to the ten minutes of mindfulness practiced once a week which seems to be more time right will be more effective more helpful for you so consistency be patient and kind to yourself of course we cannot stay mindful all the time and it is not our goal so be kind with yourself and understand yourself and of course experiment find the ways that work best for you the practices that you enjoy the most to practice mindfulness perhaps something will not work for you at all and you don't have to force yourself to do that choose something that you will enjoy and that you will be happy to practice consistently and yes once again make it enjoyable something engaging something very personal and interesting to yourself and of course that remember that mindfulness is a whole journey we cannot train train train the mindfulness muscle and then who relax and stop and be happy that oh my god I'm mindful now I will believe in mindfully now this muscle will will live will decrease once again so we have to be consistent and we need to stay on this journey to be committed to it and to ourselves so once again you will find some of the mindfulness practices and other tools in the free guide five ways to reduce stress in less than five minutes it's made for you guys for all of us to practice just as something that we can keep close to ourself and use when we definitely need that all right say I hope I pronounce your name correctly any pointers on how to conquer unknown fears that's a good question give me a second to think about that unknown fears yes that's a good question unknown fears well I think it might be a long journey of discovery which we sometimes do with the in the mind-body connection coaching but what I can recommend it to start with is just to be with yourself and the emotions and feelings and especially sensations in your body when you experience this unknown fear try to be come curious about it try to look at your unknown fear from a side even without knowing it realizing it just be present with yourself with your sensations to connect with that unknownness and I'm sure that your it will help your subconscious mind to relax a little bit more and open the door for you to see what this unknown fear might be you will perhaps start getting some clues or some hints from your body or your subconscious mind of what it can be about so give yourself time and nurture yourself give provide yourself some sort of stability sense of safety somatic movement can help a lot in that breath where it can help a lot as well so some practices that will help you to build trust with yourself between your mind and your body yes I hope that is clear and another moment I want to mention here you said to conquer unknown fear I would say to either get to know the unknown fear or even to befriend the unknown fear because if we conquer something if we have this intention it creates some sort of resistance or forces us to do something it creates a lot of unnecessary tension and you definitely don't need this tension you need kindness love support that you can provide to yourself on this journey if you need some guidance on that some help some personal coaching let me know you can always contact me here on this a timer all right thank you so much for your question that was interesting and well I think for now it is time to move to our guided meditation and as I already mentioned previously today we will be mindful of our breath and our bodies today so the practice will take just about 10 minutes it is time for us to de-stress at the end of the day or before going to sleep for some of you to give our side ourselves this gift of just being with ourselves just being not doing something not worrying about something not analyzing something but just living so I welcome you to find a comfortable seated or lying position and allow your body to sing gently into the support beneath you close your eyes softly or allow your gaze to rest gently on some point in front of you and let's begin by simply noticing bring your attention to the sensations of your breath how your body breathes here and now feel the cool air entering your nostrils perhaps a slight tingling sensation as it makes contact with your skin notice the gentle pause at the top of the inhale and a moment of stillness before the release become aware of your inhale and the pause at the top you now gently allow your attention to shift to the exhale feel the warmth of the air as it leaves your body and perhaps a slight coolness against your upper lip notice the gentle sigh of the exhale the release of tension and effort continue to observe the natural rhythm of your breath the gentle rise and fall of your chest and your belly and there is no need to manipulate the breath simply observe it as you would observe the gentle sway of a tree in the breeze notice how your body breathes itself you don't have to do anything for that no control just surrender and appreciate how wise your body is to breathe and express gratitude for your body breathing now let's gently bring awareness to the body and start by noticing the sensations in your feet feeling the weight of your feet pressing against the floor or your bed how your feet experience the softness or hardness of the surface beneath them you gently move your awareness upwards noticing the sensations in your legs your knees your thighs allow any sensations to be as they are and imagine the earth gently supporting you in just being continue this journey of awareness and bring your attention to your abdomen to all of the organs inside to your lower back your middle back your chest area and upper back notice what is present for you there perhaps some movement tightness discomfort or the feeling of openness bring your awareness to your shoulders and arms elbows hands and fingers notice the sensations of either tingling or warmth or coolness and allow yourself to be present with the sensations without judgment or analysis finally bring your awareness to your head your face your skull even the hair and the brain just notice if there is any tension or pulsation any sensations that are there in that area notice the sensations of your breath once again as it passes through your nostrils and the touch of your hair on the skin and let's return to our breath for a few more moments notice how your breath feels different now perhaps it is deeper calmer or more relaxed feel the connection between your breath and your body how each inhale brings in fresh energy and each exhale releases tension and allows for renewal take a moment to notice how you feel generally whether there are any changes from the beginning of our practice perhaps you feel more relaxed more centered more connected to the present moment and if not it is perfectly fine too you can continue to cultivate this sense of mindfulness throughout the whole day by simply bringing your attention back to the breath whenever you feel stressed or overwhelmed if it feels right for you you may add some movement into your body and open your eyes thank you so much for practicing with me and this concludes our guided meditation for this live event today please guys let me know how you are feeling your experience throughout the guided practice your general thoughts about our life whatever you feel you want to share with all of us once again I would like to remind you guys a free guide on 5 ways to reduce stress in 5 minutes or less I am sure this will be a very helpful tool for you guys to keep beside you and use whenever you need it I personally love doing the practices from this guide before going to sleep even if I am short in time I can dedicate from 2 to 5 minutes and it will improve the quality of my sleep so I hope you guys will find it helpful as well alright guys so if there are no questions once again thank you so much for your presence we were 80 meditators here in the room I am extremely happy to see this number so the last comment was from you thank you for the insight of course my big pleasure I am always happy to connect with you guys to hear back from you so do not hesitate to reach me on insight timer and please subscribe to stay tuned with the future live events each live event will discover different aspects of mindfulness of stress reduction techniques of some tools and practices that will help us improve the quality of our lives please guys feel free to check the courses,

Meditations premium tracks here on insight timer I wish you guys to enjoy the night the evening or the rest of your day wherever you are in the world thank you for your time once again and I will see you next week bye