Sometimes, a small adjustment can make quite a difference to our lives in the long term. I’d like to share with you six simple ideas you may like to try out sometime – I’ve had great feedback about them all. They are, in no particular order:

1. If you find yourself frowning, try a gentle half-smile instead. This is not about putting on a fake happy face when you’re not in the mood. Rather, the gentle half smile is very subtle, but can do wonders to lift our mood. You can think of it as being ‘behind’ the face, even in the heart centre or the abdomen. Play around with it – experiment with what feels right for you.
2. Practise (perhaps in the privacy of your home) walking around with a paperback book on your head. While this may feel like being in a deportment class in a girl’s finishing school, it’s actually the best exercise I’ve come across to really get a sense of where your head should sit in relation to the neck. Our heads are very heavy, and being slightly off-centre may cause tension in our neck muscles and shoulders. The book lifts your head up and into exactly the right position. You will walk like an Egyptian princess, and the rest of your body will send you grateful thanks. It’s also wonderful for those who practise sitting meditation – try it during meditation, and you may be surprised at the difference it can make to your posture, and to how long you can sit comfortably.
3. Learn diaphragmatic breathing. You might have heard the instruction ‘breathe into the belly’, but your lungs are in your chest – so how does that work? The diaphragm is a sheet of muscle below the rib cage. When your lungs are fully filled with air, the diaphragm is pushed down and the stomach expands. The easiest way to get a sense of this is to lie on the floor with a heavy book on your stomach, and to feel the book rise and fall. Later you can try it sitting and standing (without the book this time!). Diaphragmatic breathing is great for a number of reasons – firstly, we get more oxygen into our lungs, and thus also into our body. Diaphragmatic breathing also signals to the brain that you’re not in fight/flight (i.e. high alert and stressed) mode. So there can be plenty going on in your life, but your brain is receiving messages that all is well, and that you’re comfortable and in control.
4. Notice the ground under your feet as you walk. Whether it’s crossing the car park, walking to the photocopier, or strolling in a park – noticing the contact between the soles of your feet and the earth is wonderfully grounding. It connects us to our body and to the earth, and stops us from being so caught up in our thoughts. It’s worth practising this somewhere quiet, walking really slowly, where you notice the touch of the heel on the ground, the transfer of the weight onto the foot, then the weight onto the other leg. Once you’re familiar with this feeling, you can use this technique in everyday life, at your normal walking speed. Which brings me to idea number 5…
5. Slow everything down by 10%. Some people are naturally steady and well-paced in their activities, but most of us can do with slowing down a little. You don’t have to go from frenetic super-achiever to the pace of a zombie. But even a small decrease in speed might give you a lot more opportunity to simply be present with what is happening right now, rather than always mentally rushing ahead of yourself.
6. Start a gratitude journal. If you’re not already doing this, I would highly recommend it. Each night, I write down three good moments I experienced during the day – just a few words for each. They tend to be very simple, such as the opportunity to go for a short walk at lunchtime, or eat some vegetables from the garden, or have a nice chat with a colleague or neighbour. We’re hard-wired to be constantly on the look-out for perceived dangers or ways we in which we might be missing out. Taking the time to remember three good things which happened that day helps us to appreciate what we have, and to become more aware of the times when life is actually blessing us in many small ways.

I wish you all the best with these practices! 🙂 Anja