Everyday Mindfulness - Mindful Drinking Exercise

You may have tried mindful eating, when you use all five senses to engage with a raisin or piece of chocolate. In this practice we'll use the same idea, with something most of us do hundreds of times a day, drink water. You can do it with tea, coffee or juice too.

Some of us find sitting in silence a challenge, so in this practice we get our senses involved, and we actively engage with our glass or bottle of water as a way to be more mindful in everyday life.

Make sure you have your your glass or bottle ready, then hit play to explore how to bring all our senses into play when we slow down and take a little longer over an activity which we usually do without thinking.

Transcript

Welcome to this mindful drinking practice.

Very much like a mindful eating practice,

It involves engaging our senses,

Engaging them to a degree that we wouldn't normally do.

So I'd like you to get yourself your water bottle,

Your glass of water,

Whatever the recipient receptacle might be,

And have that in your hand.

Let's say your left hand for now.

And what can we do immediately?

We can connect to our sense of touch.

What can you feel as you hold your bottle or your glass in your left hand?

You can feel the shape and texture of what you're holding.

You might be able to connect the temperature of it.

Is it warmer or cooler than the fingers that hold it?

We can look at it.

Does it have a color?

Does it have a shape?

If you tilt it in different directions,

Can you see light reflecting off it in different ways?

You might even be able to see some kind of reflection of a part of your room or something out of the window if you look carefully.

We can smell.

It may be pretty neutral,

But we can engage the nose.

We can have a have a sniff.

And we can engage our ability to listen as well,

Which you don't immediately connect to the idea of drinking,

But of course a gulp when we actually come to drink it will make a sound.

A sip.

But what I can get you to do is to take your fingertips and tap them lightly against your glass or your bottle.

It can be the nails.

It could be the pad of the finger.

You could scrape or scratch.

So we can turn a mindful drinking exercise into something that also engages our sense of hearing.

And of course the fifth one,

Our sense of taste.

So taking a small sip,

Just a small one,

Hold that water in your mouth.

Perhaps send that bit of water into different parts so that you can feel the contact of the water against the inside of your cheek in the space underneath your tongue,

On top of your tongue.

And then swallow.

Take a bigger sip,

A bigger,

Maybe a gulp this time.

Allow that water to be drunk.

Swallow it down.

And you'll notice there was a sound,

Wasn't there,

As that went down,

Even though we don't usually listen out for it.

One more drink of water.

And then a deep breath in through the nose,

Out through the mouth.

You can carry on with your day.

Thank you.

Reviews

A beautiful take on everyday mindfulness. I will sip my morning tea with more awareness now. Thank you!

Never thought of practicing this. A great way to take a mindful break between meetings!