15 Mindfulness Activities for Adults Who Hate Meditation

“I should’ve said this in that meeting… Wait, did I pay that bill? Focus! Ugh, what was I doing again?”

Sounds familiar? That’s your mind running a marathon when you just want to focus on one simple task.

It’s frustrating, right? When your thoughts are everywhere except where you need them to be. Like a TV with someone constantly changing channels.

Don’t worry, I’ve got 15 easy mindfulness exercises that will help calm that mental chaos. No complicated stuff, no hours of meditation. Just simple techniques that fit into your daily life.

15 Mindfulness Practices That Won’t Waste Your Time

1. Focus on Your Breaths

Focusing on your breathing pattern is one of the best mindfulness practices. It helps you to lower your stress levels and live in the present moment. 

Here are the steps by which you can perform it:-

• Look for a distraction-free and noise-free environment.
• Calm yourself and stay silent for a few minutes.
• Now focus on the air moving from your nose to your lungs and vice-versa. Another option is to focus on the air moving up and down from your nose. If you want, you can count those breaths too.

NOTE:- It is natural to get distracted while doing this activity, but you need to focus back on your breaths when your mind goes away.

2. Scan Your Body From Head to Toe & Vice-Versa

To perform the body scan activity, here are the steps that you need to practice:-

• Lie down in a relaxed position and take a few deep breaths to slow down your breathing.
• Further, start breathing from your belly instead of the chest and feel each breath. 
• Now, navigate your attention from your feet to the head and feel each part of your body.
• Whenever you feel uncomfortable while focusing on a specific part of your body, visualize it leaving your body into the air.

This body scan activity helps you relax, release stress, and become mindful of your body.

3. Listen to the Sounds Around You

The next mindfulness exercise is to focus and immerse yourself in the sounds around you.

• Sit silently or lie down on the ground as per your comfort.
• Now start focusing on one sound around you. For example, the sound of the ticking clock in your room.
• Further, increase the number of sounds that you observe in the surroundings.

This technique will help you to improve your awareness of your surroundings.

4. Let Your Thoughts Fly

In this exercise, you sit or lie down in a comfortable position, consciously focus on your thoughts and let them flow away. You simply observe those thoughts and allow them to take you wherever they go.

This activity helps your mind to free up from unnecessary confusion and the mess going inside your head. Further, you come back soon into the present having a better focus.

5. Observe What’s There in Front of You

Whenever you feel that your brain is constantly switching up thoughts, focus on the object right in front of you.

For instance, if you were writing something, start observing the pen in your hand. Look at its shape, design, and other characteristics. Else, you can even observe your hand lines or how your hand moves and helps you perform different tasks.

6. Feel Gravity

In this activity, you need to divert your attention to the gravitational pull of the earth. There are two ways you can perform it:-

• While going upstairs or downstairs, feel the gravitational force pulling you towards the ground and helping you to stand firm.
• You can also focus on the same gravitational pull while walking on the flat surface. Simply feel yourself getting attracted to the earth.

7. Observe the Colors Around You.

Whenever you feel that your thoughts are running from the present, start focusing on the various colors around you. 
For example, if you are sitting in a room, start looking at the color of the walls around you, the color of the pen, or the color of your clothes, etc.

8. Go for a Soothing Shower.

A mindful shower could be a perfect start for the day. Here’s how to perform it:-

• As you undress, consciously name every article in your mind that you are taking off. It will help your thoughts focus on the present moment.
• Bring your attention to the point that you are going to cleanse your body and mind.  
• When you enter the shower, feel the sensation of every drop of the warm water going down through your body.
• Now visualize that all your negative thoughts and physical pains or problems are seeping down through the drain.
• Feel immersed in the moment and enjoy it as much as you can.

9. Focus on Your Tasks

As your mind starts skipping thoughts, bring back your focus to the task that you were doing. 

For instance, if you ‘re busy doing some official work, bring back your consciousness to the analysis:- 

• Am I doing the task right? 
• Will I be able to complete the task before the deadline?

Or, if you’re eating food, focus on the food going down from your mouth to your stomach.

10. Go for a Nature Walk

Every morning or evening, wear your shoes and reach your nearest park. Have a nice walk over there and observe everything that’s around you.

Walk barefoot on the grass and carefully feel its sensation on your feet. Hear the sounds of the birds chirping. Look at the sky and observe the clouds.

All you have to do is chill out in nature and observe its beauty.

11. Single Tasking

Multi-tasking generates multiple thoughts, which could easily make you feel lost in the clouds of these thoughts.
As you constantly shift your tasks, your mind keeps shifting its thoughts, and soon it becomes a habit.

One of the easiest mindfulness activities is to stop such multi-tasking. It becomes easier for your brain to process a specific task and help you stay in the present.

12. 3-Minute Breathing Space

The “3-minute breathing space” mindfulness activity involves 3 steps that you have to perform in 3 minutes.

• The first step is to think about what you’re doing right now in life for 1 minute.
• The second minute involves being aware of your breathing pattern. In this step, you need to feel every breath that’s entering or leaving your body.
• The third minute involves considering the body as a whole and acknowledging all the sensations in it.     

13. 5 Senses Technique (5-4-3-2-1)

The “5-sense method” works by involving all the five senses of the human body i.e. vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Here’s how to perform this activity:-

• Sit down wherever you are comfortable and think of the 5 things that you can see around you. It can be a book, a tree, a pen, a table, or anything else.
• In the next step, think of the 4 things that you are feeling.
• Further, think of the 3 things that you are hearing.
• Now think of the 2 things that you can smell.
• At last, think of the 1 thing you can taste right now. It could be anything like a tongue in your mouth or a chopstick in your lips.

14. Focus on Lyrics

If you are a music lover, I’ve got a little surprise for you.

You can practice mindfulness by listening to music! Here’s what you need to do:-

• Pick up your mobile phone and put on your headphones keeping everything else aside.
• Now start listening to your favorite music and focus on its lyrics. You can also pick up a new song with your favorite beats and observe its lyrics.

Soon, you’ll find that your brain is now aware of everything going on around you. 

Just make sure you don’t go on and listen to the music for hours.

15. Stand on Your Terrace or Balcony

Just standing idle on our home terrace or balcony is something that we all do.

To turn it into a mindfulness activity, observe the cars moving on the road, stars in the sky, apartments in front of you, light poles, or anything else. Give attention to their characteristics, and soon, you will find your thoughts to be back in the present.

Parting Words

These mindfulness activities look extremely easy, but in reality, they aren’t.

Initially, you will be distracted a lot while doing these activities. You’ll try to focus again and again but, you’ll lose it easily. You might even get frustrated sometimes when your mind goes out of control.

But all you need to remember is that it takes time. 

Giving up won’t change anything, but giving it a try definitely could.

So just keep practicing. Don’t punish yourself whenever your brain gets distracted, as it’s natural. Just bring back your attention to the activity and train yourself to better each day.

I believe in you. You’ve got this!