Your mind and emotions play a key role in your health. Through mindful awareness and self-care tools, you can take charge of your health and well-being to live your life to the fullest. Breathing space is one area of mindful awareness that can help you become fully aware and tuned in to what is going on right now, in the present moment, and without judgement.
Best of all, you don’t need a lot of time to begin practicing. You can practice being mindfully aware at different times throughout your day (in line at the grocery store, during your commute, while talking with coworkers or friends). If you are interested in a guided mindfulness meditation practice but are short on time, consider the three-minute breathing space meditation.
In the three-minute breathing space meditation, there are three steps: 1) Becoming aware and noticing what your experience is right now, 2) Directing attention to the breath and the sensations of the breath, and 3) Expanding awareness beyond your breath to also notice sensations of the body. Ready to give it a try? Join Dr. Brandon Yabko, program director of the Mindfulness Center at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System, in this three-minute breathing space meditation.
Did you know that you could have mindfulness tools at your fingertips?
Mindfulness Coach is a free and publicly available mobile app for people who are interested in learning about and practicing mindfulness. This app provides users with education about mindfulness, a self-assessment for mindfulness mastery, a training plan, and exercises that can help users build a daily mindfulness practice and opportunities to find support.
Mindfulness Coach | VA Mobile.
Looking for more breathing exercises? Breathe2Relax is a portable stress management tool that uses breathing exercises to manage stress. It uses animation, narration and videos that help you have an in-the-moment experience. This mobile application was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense and is available for free on Apple and Android platforms.
Breathe2Relax on the App Store (apple.com).
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.havabee.breathe&hl=en_US&gl=US.
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I was taught mindfulness meditation at the Coatesville, PA Medical Center in 2008 while attending a for veterans with PTSD. I am a Vietnam veteran who had led a combat infantry platoon while serving as a first lieutenant at age 21.
We started meeting once a week to meditate for some 20 minutes or so. But within a few weeks, we asked the psychologist who taught us to allow us to meet on a daily basis.
I have since joined a Tibetan Buddhist sangha to practice and a Christian weekly guided meditation session. I have also walked with Thich Nhat Hahn on a five-day retreat in upstate New York when he was alive. I feel more comfortable with my PTSD and even started writing a blog about it and other subjects.
Thanks for this article and all the help meditation guides can provide veterans.