Mindfulness Strategies

What Is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the practice of intentionally paying attention to the present moment with openness and without judgment. It involves noticing your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations as they arise.

Mindfulness helps you shift from reacting automatically to responding with intention. It creates an internal pause, giving you a chance to notice what is happening and choose how you want to respond rather than reacting impulsively. This can make it easier to manage stress, regulate emotions, and stay grounded during difficult moments.

Mindfulness is not about “clearing your mind,” achieving perfect calm, or avoiding uncomfortable feelings. Instead, it teaches you to observe your internal experience with curiosity and compassion. Over time, this awareness can strengthen your ability to pause, reflect, and choose how you want to move forward.

Mindfulness also doesn't have to look like formal meditation. While many people practice mindfulness through meditation, it can also be incorporated into everyday activities such as eating, walking, exercising, listening to music, or spending time with others. The goal is not to carve out large amounts of time, but rather to bring greater awareness and presence to your daily life.

Below you will find a few strategies to begin cultivating mindful awareness. You can work with your therapist to learn additional strategies and develop ways to informally incorporate mindfulness into your daily life.  

Why Mindfulness Helps

Research suggests that regularly practicing mindfulness can have meaningful benefits for emotional well-being and daily functioning.

Mindfulness practices can:

• Reduce feelings of stress and overwhelm
• Improve emotional regulation and resilience
• Increase awareness of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
• Enhance focus, concentration, and mental clarity
• Encourage self-compassion and acceptance
• Promote a greater sense of calm and grounding
• Strengthen the ability to tolerate difficult emotions and experiences
• Deepen present-moment awareness and engagement in daily life

These strategies work best when practiced regularly, even for just a few minutes a day.

Mindfulness Exercises to Try:

1. STOP

S – Stop what you’re doing.

T – Take a slow, deep breath.

O – Observe your thoughts, feelings, and body.

P – Proceed with intention.

2. Body Scan

A body scan helps you reconnect with your physical experience and notice tension, comfort, or even emotion held in the body. You are always in control of how far you go with this exercise, and you can stop or shift your attention at any time.

Try this gentle, 1–2 minute version:

1. Begin by choosing a posture that feels safe and supported. You can sit, stand, or lie down — whatever helps you feel grounded.
   
   
2. Bring attention to your breath without trying to change it. If focusing on the breath feels uncomfortable, you can instead notice a point of contact, like your feet on the floor or your hands resting on your lap.
   
   
3. Slowly move your attention to one area of the body that feels neutral or okay. This might be your hands, your shoulders, or even just the feeling of clothing against your skin. Stay with that area for a moment.
   
   
4. If you’d like, gently expand your awareness to another part of the body. You’re not looking for anything specific — just noticing sensations, or even the absence of sensation, with curiosity rather than judgment.
   
   
5. If you encounter an area that feels tense, activated, or uncomfortable, you can skip it, return to your breath, or shift your attention back to a part of the body that feels steadier. Skipping is always allowed.
   
   
6. End by noticing one thing that helps you feel grounded right now. This might be the chair supporting you, the temperature of the room, or the rhythm of your breath.

The goal of a body scan is not to explore every part of the body — it’s to practice gentle awareness while honoring your own boundaries and comfort.

3. Grounding Exercise

Grounding exercises help reconnect you with the present moment during times of stress, overwhelm, or worry. By intentionally focusing on your surroundings, you can shift attention away from racing thoughts and back to what is happening right now.

1. Name three things you see.
   
   
2. Take a slow breath.
   
   
3. Name three things you hear.
   
   
4. Take a slow breath.
   
   
5. Name three things you feel (for example, your feet on the floor, the fabric of your clothing, or the support if your chair).
   
   
6. Take a slow breath.
   
   
7. Repeat the exercise using two things you see, hear, and feel, and then one thing you see, hear and feel.