How to Be Mindful Every Day: 7 Simple Tips

While the benefits of mindfulness are plenty – visit our mindfulness page to learn more – it is clearly not an easy task to be mindful every day, in everything you do. Right?

Well, incorporating mindfulness into your daily routine does not have to involve sweeping changes. Sometimes, it is the smallest things we do that can have the biggest impacts. Below I wanted to share with you seven simple tips for integrating mindfulness into your day — from morning until night — to enhance your mental concentration and improve overall well-being.

However, before I share these tips I think it is important to discuss briefly what we consider to be mindfulness and what its antithesis is. The best definition for mindfulness is “to be here, now”. Mindfulness is the skill to maintain your attention, your concentration, and your focus on everything you do. The original concept first arose from an ancient civilisation over 5000 years ago. If you want to learn more about this visit our Ultimate Guide to Mindfulness for Beginners. 

The antithesis of mindfulness is automatic, conditioned, behaviour. Conditioning and automation are important aspects of our existence, they allow us to do everyday tasks such as walking and brushing our teeth. But, when we are not conscious of this process and we would like to be mindful, this automation is the worst enemy of mindfulness.  

Let us explore this in more detail: 

1. Start Your Day Mindfully

Waking up can often feel like a race against the clock. To bring mindfulness into the start of your day, give yourself a few extra minutes each morning to sit quietly before the day begins. Resist the urge to dive straight into your digital devices. Instead, spend a few moments in bed, taking deep, conscious breaths. Reflect on your intentions for the day and set a positive tone that will carry you forward. If you want to learn more about how to do this, you can read our article: 7 Things You Can Do Today to Incorporate Mindfulness into Your Routine

2. Mindful Communication

Humans are social beings and if we are going to be successful we will interact with many people every day, whether face-to-face or in our digital lives. Oftentimes we are inundated with messages and requests and we just want to get through them as quickly as possible. I would not recommend this strategy. 

Every interaction you have is an opportunity and if you just respond automatically you will miss these opportunities. So instead of just trying to get through the mountain of messages and requests, take a brief moment to focus on your breathing, to enter a state of mindfulness. 

Entering this state will help you quieten any reactive impulses, allow you to respond more thoughtfully and deliberately. In conversations, listen better and use your skill of mental concentration (mindfulness or dhárana) to be fully present and attentive to the speaker, enhancing the quality of your interactions.

3. Embrace Mindful Eating

Eating is arguably a moment in which we are mostly in automatic mode. Most people tend to eat in front of a TV or phone, or even while working. As a result there is no attention given to the act of eating, nor the food you are eating. This decreases your enjoyment of the moment, your pleasure for food and can even make you gain weight!

Therefore, instead of eating in front of the TV or computer, focus solely on the act of eating. Notice the textures, flavours, and aromas of your food. Eating slowly and without distractions not only enhances your dining experience but also improves digestion and satisfaction with smaller portions.

4. Transform Routine Moments

Routine activities, like brushing your teeth or waiting in line, are another moment in which that automatisation kicks in, and therefore opportunities to tune into mindfulness. 

My favourite way to use these moments is to become more aware of myself. How am I feeling? What is on my mind? What are the things that I need to add to my daily list of actions or to my end of day review – if you want to learn more about this read our article: 7 Things You Can Do Today to Incorporate Mindfulness into Your Routine.

Another use of this time is to really experience the activity you are doing, for example: while brushing your teeth, be aware of the taste of the toothpaste, the sensation of the brush on your gums, and your reflection in the mirror. These moments of awareness can become islands of calm in your busy day.

5. Mindfulness Training Movement

Do you ever have the feeling that a day has run away from you? Well, it is likely that you have not lived each moment of your own life fully. Well, if you would like to avoid this experience of time passing by and leaving you behind, all you need to do is pay attention. This simple change can keep a series of disorders away from your mind and improve your performance in everything.

I know that we all do it, it is very tempting to check emails or messages during a meal. We may think that we are saving time by combining two actions, multitasking, right? In reality, we fail to do either activity, the meal or the checking of messages, properly.

There are many issues which are attributed to the habit of ‘not being present’, such as agitation and anxiety, difficulty relaxing or learning new things, or adapting a new mindset, fatigue, and even a feeling of exhaustion.

Mindfulness is the insight that keeps all these away. Mindfulness can be seen as the science of developing your awareness, to be fully present in everything you do. Although it may seem very simple, this technique does require training, nonetheless, the results really are worthwhile.

Therefore, take a moment of your day, 5 minutes, and train yourself to be able to enter the state of mindfulness, of concentration. The more you train this, not only will you begin to experience this state more naturally at will, but you will be able to enter it much more quickly, to remain on it for longer and to rely on it on important moments, even if you are tired. 

6. Reflect at the end of your day

Just as you started your day with mindfulness, and hopefully created a list of items you wanted to achieve on your day, I recommend that you also spend a few minutes in the evening to reflect on how your day unfolded. 

This will allow you to effectively measure your success, to establish clear metrics and benchmarks. Without these metrics, individuals may feel lost and directionless, leading to frustration and confusion over their efforts and outcomes. This lack of clarity can ultimately erode motivation and commitment, as it becomes difficult to see and measure growth.

To combat the loss of enthusiasm and maintain focus, integrating well-defined metrics into daily planning proves beneficial. If you have followed our suggestions and set clear goals each morning, you can now easily monitor your progress, bolstering confidence and satisfaction from concrete evidence of your accomplishments. This structured approach helps maintain motivation by providing a clear path to follow and measurable objectives to achieve.

Applying this methodology involves dedicating time each evening to reflect and assess the day’s activities. This includes reviewing completed tasks, evaluating whether the goals were set too high or just right, and understanding the reasons behind any failures. Recording these observations helps in learning more about personal work habits and setting more accurate targets for the future. By continually refining daily goals based on previous outcomes, you can improve your efficiency and deepen your self-awareness, leading to more consistent and meaningful success in your life.

7. Mindfulness Before Sleep

A surprising number of people have issues with sleep , research, such as a study from the Netherlands, indicates that one in four young adults struggles with sleep, underscoring a widespread concern. 

Mindfulness offers a potent remedy for the restless minds that often keep us awake. By engaging in mindfulness practices before bed, we can quiet these mental noises and prepare our minds for a restful night.

Next, another extremely effective technique within the DeRose Method is the Assimilation Technique, which combines physical relaxation with mental stimulation to foster peaceful sleep. This method involves a deliberate mental review of the day’s activities, which helps unload preoccupations and smooths the transition into sleep. The Assimilation Technique further enhances this process by relaxing the body and allowing you to set mental templates for future objectives, leading to profound improvements in sleep quality and mental clarity upon waking. This practice not only prepares you for the night but also sets the foundation for a mindful and productive day ahead. 

Final words

Mindfulness doesn't require you to alter your entire life; instead, it invites you to change your relationship with your daily activities. By integrating these simple tips into your routine, you can enhance your mental concentration, improve your interactions, and foster a greater sense of well-being.