Do you sometimes have a mind so loaded up with thoughts, tasks, people, events, memories that you become overwhelmed and exhausted?

The impact of such a busy mind can be numerous and disastrous for your health and wellbeing.

Some of the most common problems include:

• Poor sleep
• Lack of focus
• High levels of stress
• Poor decision making
• Irritable mood
• Anger
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Relationship conflict

Breaking the cycle

Sometimes the destructive cycle of an overwhelmed mind is exacerbated when people cope with numbing or wipe out behaviours such as:

• Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, including binge drinking
• Addiction to illicit drugs
• Over use of prescription medication.

In some meditation philosophies the ‘monkey mind’ is a term used to describe how the mind swings from one thought to another like a monkey swinging from tree to tree.

Taming of the monkey mind with meditation is an excellent idea and requires lots of patient practice. I highly recommend it.

Research has shown how regular meditation and mindfulness practice assists mental and physical health.

The Benefits

Some mental health benefits include:

•  Increase connection with yourself, your partner and to others in general
•  More balance and less emotional volatility
•  Experience more calm and peace
•  Developing self-acceptance and self-compassion
•  Becoming less judgmental
•  Experience difficult thoughts and feelings safely
•  Increase in self-awareness
•  Becoming less reactive to unpleasant experiences

Some physical health benefits include:

• Stress relief
• Aids in the treatment of heart disease
• Lower blood pressure
• Reduction in chronic pain
• Improved sleep

I want to share with you a mindfulness exercise. Give yourself just 8 minutes to practice!

I will guide you to clear some space in your head!

You can then begin to slow down, find some clarity or just simply press the pause button for a while and maybe even help you to sleep.

The benefits are enormous with regular practice. I suggest 2 sessions of 8 minutes each per day.

16 minutes per day in total is a great start.

The technique is narrated by my dulcet tones, please press the link below.