Something I have been doing for quite a while now is practicing mindfulness exercises in the morning and evening when I brush my teeth. Mindfulness to me is paying attention to the present moment with some sort of attention and or action.

A really great way to start incorporating mindfulness exercises into your day is by simply practicing mindfulness while doing a daily activity, for example, brushing your teeth (which we should do morning and night!). As good mouth health is extremely important to our overall health – which you can see what I mean here!

Studies have shown that practicing mindfulness exercises on a daily basis has been found to be a key element in reducing overall stress. By definition, mindfulness is the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment and accepting it without judgement.

When I first was introduced to practicing mindfulness, I decided that I needed to pick an action I would do everyday, then find a way to implement some sort of element to do with mindfulness into it. Brushing my teeth is something I do twice a day and something that I knew would be relatively easy to remember.

If you have been following along with my 30 day cultivate your own happiness e-book – (which you can find here) – you would have seen that I spoke about this action within this.  I am all about creating sustainablehealthy habits, so instead of putting aside time out of your day, why not incorporate mindfulness into something you already do?

Well, I’m loving how the New Colgate Total helps me achieve whole mouth health. with their little jingle, teeth, tongue, cheek & gums (warning, oddly catchy!). So, I decided to put this into practice, by focusing on every part of my mouth, the sensation of brushing my teeth, then my tongue, then cheek and then finally my gums. I take the time to focus inwards on the feeling of the brush going up and down and back and forth.

It has been instilled in me since I was young, that we must brush our teeth morning and night. But for years, I did this mindlessly or while thinking about something else. If you did the math, to work out just how many hours that this would equate to a year, I would much rather know that I had spent this time working on my overall mental health, wouldn’t you?

So, next time you brush your teeth, why don’t you try incorporating some mindfulness exercises into your day? Even better, do it in front of the mirror and finish off with a smile to help release a nice serotonin boost. Something as small as a smile can cause a chemical reaction in the brain that releases hormones such as serotonin and dopamine.

Kx

Disclaimer: This post is proudly sponsored by Colgate, as always, all views and opinions are my own.