Many of my clients ask me, how can I feel calmer?

When your mind is calm and focused, life just seems easier, problems are more manageable and you’re able to see things with a clearer perspective.

There are many ways to calm the mind down. It could be by drinking red wine, making love, perusing the Daily Mail ‘sidebar of shame’ or getting lost for hours in social media. However not all of these things are available, feasible or healthy, so I’ve put together 5 of the best ways to switch off and calm the mind, wherever you are.

‘Feel’ your body 

How are your hands feeling right now? Are they warm or cool? Do they feel heavy? Tingly? Take a moment to feel the energy in your hands, the aliveness.

Now simultaneously while you keep focused on your hands, try to worry. You can’t, can you? When we are fully focused on the body, or as Ekhart Tolle puts it, on the ‘life’ and ‘energy’ in the body, we can’t worry at the same time. Doing this calms down the mental chatter. Start off in your hands or your feet and then spread the awareness to the whole body. Try to keep that awareness for as long as you can, for instant relief and calm.

Do one thing at a time

Despite popular belief, multitasking isn’t actually possible. Just as a computer appears to be doing things simultaneously, but is in fact very quickly switching from one task to another, so do our brains. By trying to do more things at once, we can overwhelm ourselves and even decrease our efficiency, since switching from different tasks takes longer as we refocus each time. Work on focusing your full and undivided attention on one task at a time, before moving on to the next.

Tune into your senses

Borrow this trick from Buddhist ‘mindfulness’. Tune into your senses and notice everything you see, hear, smell, taste and feel. Try this as you walk along the street; feel the ground underfoot, the breeze on your skin, smell the air, tune into the sounds all around you, notice the colours and the feelings in your body and you move. By focusing the mind on our senses we are calming down our thoughts and tuning into the present moment.

Switch off Alerts

Change the settings on your mobile phone so that you no longer get beeped or alerted every time you get an email or a tweet. Constantly being alerted means we are continuously overloading the mind with still more information and distractions. Another demand on our time and attention. By switching off alerts we are helping ourselves to create more mental space and a chance for more peace. For me, doing this at the beginning of the year literally changed my life!

Prioritise Peace of Mind

Brain Tracy said ‘Set peace of mind as your highest goal and organise your life around it’. What’s more important than your peace of mind? When your mind is calm and clear you can show up more effectively for work, for your family and friends and for yourself. Think about what changes you could make to incorporate more time for yourself, to reduce stress, get more support or develop a new healthy habit.

For more on creating more calm in your life and to get your FREE relaxation MP3, see www.calmer-me.com

Image from Gabby Bernstein