Practicing

Practicing Mindfulness - Worksheets

Week One: Mindful breathing.

Practice following the breathing exercise twice per day for the next week.

•  Focus on your breath
•  Follow it coming in and out as you breathe naturally and deeply
•  Let your attention centre at the bottom of your next inhalation…and the next one…and the next one…
•  Notice how it feels…

Mindfulness can be difficult to try at first, but it will become easier with practice. Mindfulness does not have to be a long exercise; you can do it for a minute or two at a time.

Week Two:

For five minutes, three times per day, practice being mindful of your breathing or of some other activity (walking, taking a bath/shower, doing dishes, reading, etc). In each instance, record the experience in the following table.

Week Three:
Every day, practice one of the mindfulness skills by doing the following.

• Try something you do every day as if you have never done it before. Record the experience in the first column below.
• Spend a few moments observing your thoughts and then try to adopt a non-judgemental stance. That is, identify judgements and try to restate them in a non-judgemental way. Record the experience in the second column.
• For a few minutes, focus on one thing. Record the experience in column three.
• Choose one thing in your day and focus on doing it effectively. Record the experience in the fourth column.