Has your pre-Christmas panic set in yet? The mushrooming to-do list, the calendar crammed with obligations, the TV shows and magazines telling us how to give fantastic gifts and have the perfect home, decorations, food and table settings. Not forgetting the perfectly beautiful you for all those glitzy parties with your glamorous friends! It’s enough to make anyone feel inadequate…and stressed!
So right about now, a bit of mindfulness is the very thing to keep sane and focussed. And Lagan Valley Regional Park is the very place to practice it.
But first things first. What is mindfulness? It’s the big buzzword in mental wellbeing circles these days. Probably because it is simple and really works. Founded in Eastern meditation, mindfulness is based around taking a few minutes each day to stop fretting about the umpteen things you need to sort out ASAP and just be ‘in the moment’.
According to the experts, mindfulness can help you: -learn how your mind works
-release yourself from/change thinking habits that are stressful or get you down
-get in touch with a different way of knowing yourself and the world
-experience small beauties and pleasures around you that you’re usually too busy to see or appreciate, instead of thinking too much
-be kind to yourself; not wishing things were different or pushing to meet impossible goals
Giving the brain a break could mean stepping out for a short walk along the towpath, feeling your feet striding along in comfy shoes, the breeze on your face, then smelling the earthy scent of fallen leaves. Simply enjoying not being at the desk or queuing in Argos.
And as you stroll, run or cycle, notice what’s around: -the amazing amount of greenery even in December
-the low winter sun shining through bare branches and turning the Lagan silver
-the cushion of russet pine needles underfoot
-the mysterious rustlings and chirpings of the birds in the forests
The Park is gearing up for Christmas too, with a particularly colourful and rich crop of holly berries.
Mindfulness is proven to be very effective in boosting focus and concentration, coping with anxiety and fatigue, and is used to treat depression as it helps to manage difficulties. In fact, people who regularly practice it are more effective at work.
So now that it’s all starting to get on top of me, I plan to walk (very fast) away from the plastic singing Santas, the towers of biscuit tins, and the migraine inducing fake cinnamon aroma and lose myself in nature. In other words, ‘get the head showered’!
For more on mindfulness, check out the BBC Radio 4 December 1st edition of All in the Mind, now on iplayer at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00p2hny, or better still, the December events at Lagan Valley: www.laganvalley.co.uk
Coming up soon: Birds associated with Christmas (and I don’t mean turkeys or geese!)
JOLLY HOLLY PHOTOS PROVIDED BY LAGAN VALLEY REGIONAL PARK