​Caring for Yourself

Dedicated to our Healthcare Heroes!

Exploring Mindfulness to care for ourselves

  • Dropping the anchor in the waves
  • Caring for ourselves
  • Bringing Mindfulness to your daily activities
  • Check-in questions.

Dropping the anchor in the waves

Taking 10-15 seconds to do the following:

  • Pushing your feet into the floor and straightening your back
  • Noticing your breath consciously
  • Allowing your eyes to linger around and notice 5 things you see
  • Allowing your eyes to close and notice 5 things you hear
  • Notice where you are and what you are doing
  • How am I doing right now?

Caring for yourselves

Self check-in at the end of the day

How am I doing?

What feelings might I be bottling?

What can I put down? What am I ready to be done with? What don’t I need to carry with me for another day that I would like to put down now?

You could consider journaling or talking to someone supportive about the above.

Might this also be happening?

Often, we spend a lot of time thinking about what is not going on in the present moment, i.e. events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all.

The practice of Mindfulness can help us return to the present.


Bringing Mindfulness into your daily activities

Practice mindful eating

Getting in touch with the experience of eating. Feel free to use raisins, small pieces of chocolates, nuts, etc.

Imagine the item you have chosen is something you’ve never seen before, as if you had just dropped in from another planet this moment and you had never seen anything like this before in your life.

1. Taking the item and holding it in the palm of your hand, or between your finger and thumb (Pause)

2. Paying attention to seeing it (Pause

3. Looking at it carefully, as if you had never seen such a thing before (Pause)

4. Turning it over between your fingers (Pause)

5. Exploring it’s texture between your fingers (Pause)

6. Examining where the light shines (Pause)

7. Letting your eyes explore every part of it (Pause)

8. And if any thoughts come to mind about "what a strange thing we are doing" or "what is the point of this", then just noting themas thoughts and bringing your awareness to the item (Pause)

9. And now, taking the item to the mouth, maybe noticing how your hand and arm know exactly where to put it, perhaps noticing what happens in your mouth as it comes up (Pause)

10. And then gently placing the item in the mouth, noticing how it is "received", without biting into it, just exploring the sensations of having it in your mouth (Pause)

11. Exploring the item with your tongue, noticing the sensations as you move it around the mouth (Pause)

12. And when you are ready, very consciously taking a bite into it and noticing what happens – the tastes that it releases (Pause)

13. Slowly chewing it.. Noticing what is happening in the mouth… the change in consistency of the item (Pause)

14. And when you feel ready to swallow, seeing if you can first detect the intention to swallow as it comes up, so that even this is experienced consciously before you actually swallow it (Pause)

15. Finally, seeing if you can follow the sensations of swallowing it, sensing it moving down to your stomach, any after taste, then noticing the absence of the item in the mouth – and what does the tongue do when it is gone (Pause)

Practice mindful standing

Cultivating a sense of groundedness by coming into a mountain pose.

1. Standing with our feet hip-width apart, with our arms by our side, palms facing it, gently touching the thighs (Pause)

2. With our feet parallel to each other (keeping the knees unlocked), noticing the sensations of our feet in contact with the ground (Pause)

3. Becoming aware of the weight of our body being carried through our legs and feet to the ground. You may find it helpful to flex your knees slightly a few times to get a clearer sense of the sensations in the feet and legs (Pause)

4. Feeling the feet grounded onto the floor, feeling the sensations of the feet supported by the ground, in touch with the sensations of the body standing here (Pause)

5. ​Bringing our awareness to the breath, perhaps placing both hands on your belly, noticing the gentle rise and fall of the belly with everyin-and out-breath (Pause)

6. Gathering out awareness onto the sensations of the body standing and breathing here. Aware of sensations of breathing in our belly. Aware of our spine standing straight, our head balanced on top of the spine (Pause)

7. Standing here, pausing here for a moment (Pause)

Stay tuned for more content on self-care for healthcare workers.

Ref: L20