Ever desperately need a way to help relax your mind and body after a long hard day? We spend a good amount of our days working or studying in fast-paced environments, which can be extremely draining for our mental and physical health. It is important to take some time each day to recenter ourselves. One way to calm our mind is through meditation. Meditation is a practice using techniques such as focusing on a particular item or activity in order to achieve an emotionally calm and stable state.
Mindful meditation is one form of meditation. The goal is to practice focusing on your breath and re-focusing if your attention wanders. To clarify, this will not erase the countless tasks or stressful thoughts in our mind, rather aim for mindfulness. A few simple steps to start mindful meditation are:
Reflect on the experience once you are done. How often did your mind wander from your breath? Were you able to focus your attention back to your breathing? Practicing mindfulness is an essential step in recognizing the draining feeling of our minds wandering and taking a pause from the persistent distractions.
If you are able to access a bathtub, there are additional benefits to meditation while taking a bath. Baths are a great way to calm your mind and body because they give you a sense of comfort and easiness, which allows your body to relax. This can make it easier to focus on your breathing rather than the to-do-list in your head. Baths are an uninterrupted space you can use to feel refreshed, which aids in being mindful of allocating time for yourself. If you are interested, there are relaxing benefits to adding soaks in your bath. Salt soaks have shown to soothe muscles, hydrate our skin, and can relieve internal swelling. For those reasons using salt soaks when you are tense or anxious is beneficial. Oat bath soaks contain anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties due to a large amount of vitamin E, ferulic acid, and avenanthramides. Colloidal oatmeal is filled with water-binding polysaccharides, which helps the skin hydrate and retain water. Using an oat bath soak is great for moisturizing and soothing, among other things, dry and itchy skin. Both forms of bath soak will make you feel calm and relaxed internally and externally. For a salt bath soak, we recommend using our Arnica Detox or Mint Eucalyptus Salt Soaks. For an oat bath soak, we would recommend using our Sensitive or Floral Oat Soaks.
Here are some ways you can reuse your bath water!
References
Chen, Andrew. “The Benefits of Bath Salts.” Maude, Maude, 7 Oct. 2019,
getmaude.com/blogs/themaudern/the-benefits-of-bath-salts.
Elizabeth Scott, MS. “Relax With This Unique Stress Relief Technique Done in the Bathtub.” Verywell
Mind, 22 Apr. 2020, www.verywellmind.com/relieve-stress-with-a-bath-meditation-3144781.
Nall, Rachel. “Oatmeal Baths: How They Soothe Skin.” Healthline, Healthline Media, 4 July
2051, www.healthline.com/health/oatmeal-bath#how-it-works.
Staff, Mindful, et al. “How to Meditate.” Mindful, 27 Mar. 2020,
www.mindful.org/how-to-meditate/.
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Sara Kalet-Schwartz
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