Often the most difficult mindfulness exercise for many is to eat with mindfulness or ‘when you’re eating just eat’. So no TV, no social media, no phone, no friends and family, no newspapers just you and your meal! Easier said than done, but there are a few tricks.

1. Prepare your favourite food.

2. Prepare a nice space/table with a napkin

3. Load up your folk and put it down while you chew the food – don’t continue to load up the next mouthful!

4. Chew your food! Digestion begins in the mouth. It’s called mastication and it’s where the food is broken down. We should chew our food 50 times! Try for 20 – even the counting of chews will help you become more mindful.

5. Notice, taste, savour. Attend to the smells and flavours, listen to the sound of eating and drinking (it’s normal to make some noise!)

6. Maybe contemplate how the food got to be on your plate. If someone else made it, appreciating their efforts. If the food is from a far off land appreciating the journey the food has gone on and how many people were involved in delivering the food to you. If it’s local produce thank the farmers and locals who helped produce it.

7. Enjoy your meal.

Mindful movement promotes body awareness through bringing 100 percent of our attention to our movements. In this practice be fully with your moment-to-moment experience of moving the body. In mindful movement we move slowly with ease and awareness taking into consideration how our body is feeling,
noticing and responding to the body’s needs. We move in ways that fully respect the body and are gentle with our own limits.

If you have any medical or orthopedic problems, please check with your doctor before attempting any movements.

Formal mindful movement includes:
• Yoga
• Tai chi
• Pilates
• Khi Cong

If you can’t attend a formal class you can still learn some simple movements that are flowing and graceful and not too fast. Each movement should be coordinated to be in harmony with our breath. This allows us to practice sensitivity and awareness to our body, our breathing, and the interconnectedness between our body, our breathing and our mind. Our bodies were made to move and they respond well to movement co-ordinated with the breath
– it can be really invigorating and relaxing at the same time.

Mindful movement practices are undoubtedly physically and mentally beneficial. However, overly strenuous physical activity can lead to injury. Check with a doctor before beginning any exercise regime. And be sure to listen to your own body and do only what feels comfortable to you.

Coffee shops are everywhere these days and most of us have a box or two of fancy herbal teas in the cupboard, but do you know how to enjoy that expensive cup of coffee or that exotic tea? With mindful awareness, we can appreciate and savour our hot beverages!

We can turn our daily experience of drinking a cup or tea into a mindful moment. My mindfulness teacher Vietnamese Master Thich Nhat Hanh says:
“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.”
We can make drinking our tea, coffee or other hot drink into a daily mindfulness ritual. The power is in doing it every day, creating a new ritual. ‘Drink your tea’ means that when we have a cup of tea we place all our attention on to drinking the tea. We don’t read a book or check Facebook or even talk to our friends and family – we just be with the experience of tea drinking.

Everything can be a meditation, not just sitting on a cushion, we call it informal mindfulness practice. Tea Meditation is commonly practiced in Japan by
Zen Monks. All over the world most of us reach for a morning cuppa. Why not turn this daily habit into a mindful moment? The practice can also be done
with ordinary builders tea, coffee, even hot lemon water if you’re super healthy!

1. Select your tea with awareness, gather the cup and tea pot.

2. Boil the kettle – as you wait for it to boil use it as opportunity to breath and smile. Don’t do anything else. Notice your breath and allow yourself a pause. And reflect. You are 70% water, the earth is 70% water. Water is a miracle so is the electricity causing it to boil. Appreciate the miracle and the convenience we have.

3. Pour the hot water into the tea pot (or mug). Notice the steam wafting up. Notice the aromas arising out of your cup. Breathe easy.

4. While waiting for tea to cool– maybe only two minutes, take the time to notice your senses awakening… what can you smell? Maybe you are holding the cup in your hands, what can you feel? Has the colour of the water changed? Breathe and just observe. Appreciate the fact that this tea was made possible by someone
thousands of miles away who picked the leaves for your drinking pleasure.

5. Now is the time to drink your tea. Raise the cup to your mouth and take a sip. Sip slowly. Hold the tea in your mouth for moment savouring the taste and refreshing elements. Is it earthy or grassy or floral? How does the tea feel in your mouth?

6. Enjoy drinking your tea. You may notice that taking this time to enjoy just one activity enriches all the other activities in your day. That’s not because the activities have changed. But you have. This little ritual can set you up for the day or you can do it at night-time with Ovaltine or hot cocoa or even a bedtime tea like camomile.

Enjoy!