Tag: mindfulness

Life Changing Habits Start in 5 Minutes

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The idea for this site came from the discovery of how much power ‘5 minutes’ can have. From journaling, meditating, or just chatting to someone close to you, 5 minutes can make a big difference in improving our mood. 

I think there’s somewhat of a gruelling and unattractive stigma to things that are good for us; we like the feeling and product we get after, but we aren’t as motivated to actually do it in the first place. 

I’m thinking of things like going to the gym, starting a healthier diet, or getting more work done. Losing ‘x’ amount of weight, getting that so-called ‘ideal’ body type, or things of this nature require a dedicated commitment and a supreme amount of work.

We all want things like this, but the ease and simplicity of basic tasks like watching TV, or good ol’ fashioned procrastination often take advantage of us any time we’re feeling less motivated.

The thing is, things that are positive and good for any aspect of our health don’t demand this type of rigorous action that seems to drain us even just by thinking about it.

This is where 5 minutes come into play.

It’s a seemingly inconsequential slot of time – it’s usually used to describe the simplest and easiest of things. But 5 minutes committed to virtually anything can start paying real, valuable dividends to us should we actually start doing something.

It doesn’t matter what it is, starting with an action of 5 committed minutes to something we care about starts to become an investment. Whether it’s exercise, reading, mindfulness, or anything positive, 5 minutes is the deposit you can make into the account of ‘you.’ There’s evidence showing how Olympic athletes gained more aerobic capacity by training in short intervals that totalled 4 minutes than training for a total of 60 minutes. Done in the right way, the athletes had less overall stresses on their body and more time to take care of themselves by stretching and moving onto other aspects of training.

Of course, it’s not all about physical exercise, but the same concept applies to other areas. By starting a 5 minute meditation, you can lower your stress, anxiety, depression, and increase protective grey matter in your brain.

By using 5 minutes to make an effort in reaching out to people you care about, you can increase your social connection, which is actually a vital need of ours that has a habit of being grossly overlooked in modern society.

The possibilities go on and on, and it’s up to us how we choose to use these valuable little slots of time. As I mentioned earlier, it’s an investment into ourselves and the things in life that serve to help and make us better.
And as with investments, these things grow. Cementing a habit for 5 minutes has the potential to snowball in the direction we like, with the habit making it easier to ‘slip’ into doing more because of that coveted feeling of being on a roll.

Many times, once we feel good about doing something it’s easier for us to keep going, because we gain a little more motivation from the addicting feeling of achieving something.

By dividing these important things into manageable, seemingly ‘insignificant’ chunks of time, we’re kind of hacking our brain by making them much easier and accessible.

5 minutes can be the vehicle that moves us along positive, life-changing routes, by making them simple, doable, and ready for us to start.

What can 5 minutes give to you?

Practice happiness, reduce your stress with a simple guided journal, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced writer.

Order your copy of ‘The Five Minute Mind’ here:

https://www.amazon.ca/Five-Minute-Mind-Jordan-Britton/dp/B08PJPWLGK/

Book Launch Coming Soon

We’re Holding On To Things We Don’t Even Know Are Hurting Us

Published on by The Five Minute MindLeave a comment
There’s something challenging about looking within. 

And since the only person who will ever truly be able to do it is ourselves, that makes it a pretty big challenge. 

Objectively, I think that everyone has the capability to take a look at what’s brewing underneath their own hood- and there are major health benefits in doing so. 

Being self-aware and taking the time to look at ourselves can help us notice and address things that aren’t helping us anymore; things that could actually be hurting us yet we’re entirely unaware of. I’ve been learning about how the body can store different types of emotional pain in different areas of the body.  This means that how something made you feel can literally translate to physical discomfort or pain building up in your body somewhere. 

When our hand touches a hot stove, or even feels some heat coming off of it, we immediately pull it away, or better yet keep it away from the stove altogether. This is common sense, that s*** is hot, why would we want to burn ourselves. 

The problem with emotional and psychological pain is that there’s a lot of it that we don’t see or have an idea about. And you can’t fix a problem you don’t know you have, right?

The thing with taking a look at what’s happening inside the mind is that it’s no coincidence that we’re oblivious to what’s happening. As already mentioned, we can’t see it ourselves; so unless we actively put an effort to peak at what’s inside us, it’s never going to happen. Nobody on this earth can do it for you.

So why don’t we then, if the onus is really just on us?

The answer is that it can be a pretty daunting, scary, and damn right uncomfortable thing to do. Who we are inside is between one person and one person only. We can’t blame something we don’t like on someone else, a situation, or some other thing. Which, as it turns out, is what our minds really like to do. Whether we like it or not, the conscious and subconscious parts of our mind are constantly justifying and explaining things to ourselves to reduce the amount of distress or tension that we feel. 

There’s a term for this, if you cared about these things. 

It’s called Cognitive Dissonance, and it’s a name for the mental stress we feel when we consciously do or think things that don’t jive with what our subconscious truly feels. 

For example, if you say you can’t stand when someone comes in late but had the time to stop and get themselves some coffee, and then you go ahead and waltz into a meeting 15 minutes past the start time with a pumpkin spice latte in your hand, it’s going to put some pressure on your mental (whether you know it or not). 

When things are going on that we don’t know about, there’s simply nothing we can do about solving them. I’ve found that looking deep inside of myself can be intimidating, because I find things that I like and things that I don’t. Looking at things that I don’t like about myself, for all intents and purposes, is uncomfortable. As it should be. 

Pairing that with an open-mind but more importantly, a willingness to grow can pay dividends in the long run when it comes to mental (which translates to physical) health. 

It takes courage to actively look into things about your personality and emotions and see them for what they are. And part of that is understanding who we are when we take that look. Being critical and just searching for things to criticize can deal significant blows to our psychological ego that we might not be prepared for. 

It’s like a simple form of pure observation: gently looking at everything we’re seeing with an open-mind, jotting down the things we notice. I find it just as important to be observing positive things as much as negative things, maybe even more. Fortifying the characteristics we love about ourselves by affirming them in thought, and being open and inquisitive to the things we find that we don’t like.

Authors that have influenced the way I think about these things talk about questioning these things, becoming curious about them in a non-threatening way. Simply challenging them in this way can start foraging a path for us to begin walking down.  

Pairing it with a strong perspective of a growth mindset can help us realize that growing through it and changing this aspect of ourselves is a very real possibility.

I used to struggle significantly with anger in my youth and as a young adult, and it’s through processes like this where I enabled myself to challenge it and grow. 

It’s not easy, instant, or fun; but its value is undeniable. Uncovering things about yourself might feel uncomfortable, but getting down deeper and exploring why you are the way you are about something can help take the ammo out of the gun that you don’t even know is firing. 

If it sounds like something you’re up to the challenge for, you’re going to have to do some convincing.

But only for one person.

Practice happiness, reduce your stress with a simple guided journal, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced writer.

Order your copy of ‘The Five Minute Mind’ here:

https://www.amazon.ca/Five-Minute-Mind-Jordan-Britton/dp/B08PJPWLGK/

Book Launch Coming Soon

Being Happy Is All About Right Now (One Habit That Will Blow Your Mind, This Is Totally Click-Bait)

Published on by The Five Minute Mind1 Comment

            When this site and page first began I had the intention to share the thoughts swirling around my brain and throw them out here, hot off the press. It’s kind of funny now with how little I’ve written over the last several months and while my mother might attest it to the lack of activity going on up there, I’d like to think it’s because of something else. In a way, she’s right.

I really don’t know anything. I enjoy writing about things about my life, and I can stick to that. It almost feels like I can’t write about things I don’t know much about, but I started by sharing my thoughts on things and I’m sure I can continue that. Over the last few years I’ve really become a hungry little nerd about life and growth and all the concepts that stem from this in various ways. At the end of the day, just laying back and writing about my thoughts is fun and as my friends can vouch for, I’m pretty good at entertaining myself- and I don’t think anyone laughs at my lame dad-jokes harder than I do. That’s just self-love, baby. 

Right?

I saw a quote last month that really reverberated through my mind, and it made an appearance on the Facebook page. It’s pretty easy to get carried away sometimes in thoughts, activities, planning, reflecting; a drink maybe. With thoughts and planning this is different though, with these two mental activities sometimes taking me off to the races. The distraction is real, too. Man if I had a nickel for every time I made myself look like an idiot by slipping into auto-pilot and doing something I was really paying no attention to because of the frenzy going on in the ole cranium. 

Of course, there’s more; like how these thoughts inch me further from what’s going on in the present moment little by little. I don’t think it’s all that bad though, as long as this doesn’t dominate my day. Mindfulness is really about observing these thoughts in a non-judgmental way, and since I could rant about that all day like a choirboy, I’ll just leave it there for now. The chorus of this song is just that thinking about these things, for me, can make me wonder about what’s to come or what has already happened. 

This is where one of the quotes comes into play, and is all about the presence of happiness. 

“Happiness is not in another place but this place… Not for another hour, but this hour.”

–Walt Whitman

It’s a bit of a funny relationship, the present moment and happiness. I don’t think many people struggle with staying present when they’re happy or engulfed by that good feeling of satisfaction. It’s pretty easy to just enjoy the ride when given those great moments. 

But that’s not really what this quote is saying. Since this isn’t much of a struggle to do when wrapped in those warm feelings, it definitely points to the way we choose to view all of the other times where it isn’t so easy. I find it super easy to boost myself sometimes by thinking of some upcoming event that will improve my mood or lift me up a bit. It could be a basketball game that night, some plans with friends, a new episode coming out. But the reason I love this quote so much, and perhaps why it resonated with me so strongly, is because it reminded me that focusing on loving ‘the now’ is such a vital habit. Sure, it’s definitely nice to look forward and be excited about something, this isn’t discrediting or villainizing that. It’s just a simple reminder not to habitualize this as a main source for some emotional satisfaction. Looking for love in the present moment, the present hour, minute, and second is a great alternative habit that really develops like a skill over time. I’m just one big ole bag of my own habits as I’m sure many other people are, and getting the same repetition for things like this is much like the way I try and develop new habits and skills as an athlete. 

This quote just gave me a tug of concentration back onto this message, and led me to begin asking myself something I love about ‘the now’ in times I drift off into the future. It’s wild how something so insignificant can influence our thoughts. For the people that already do this so effortlessly, that’s dope and I aspire to be more like that. 

As for right now, I’m happy to come out of my writing cave and get some new content out there.

What about you?

As always, any sort of activity on social media goes a long way- any likes, shares, etc. on all posts are super appreciated! 


The Past Will Haunt You And The Future Can Destroy You, If You Let It

Published on by The Five Minute MindLeave a comment

Aside from maybe when I was a kid, times where I’m truly ‘in the moment’ are rare for me.

And honestly, up until a couple weeks ago, I was entirely ignorant of it and what it was doing to me. Sure, I’ve heard endless clichés about “living in the moment” and cherishing the time you have in the present, but I had become so desensitized that they were left at just that: clichés.

Call it ignorance, call it whatever you want; the fact is that I was obsessing over the past and thinking too much about the future. Apart from the fact that this completely robbed me of the whole, complete, enjoyment in most of what I was doing, the effects it had on my mind are clear.

Depressive moods, like sadness and regret, have an intricately dependent relationship with the past. Basically, sadness is caused by something that has happened at some point in our past- fresh and recent, or long ago. These two sister-like characteristics of sadness and the past rely on each other, coexisting. They share the fact that neither really thrive without the other. If you feel sadness, especially regret, it is because of something that has already happened- not something impending and coming soon. An easy way I found to look at it objectively was to think about how I feel after leaving a holiday, or a vacation of some sort. Naturally, I’m a little bummed because the glow is over and in the past- everything else in life is not much different.

Now you may be thinking of how you can be sad about something in the future, however it is a different quality found there.

Anxiety is based on fear about the future, and this fear (like it’s cousin, sadness) is also entirely dependent on the concept of the future. You simply can’t be anxious about something in the past, because it is done. Therefore, it is this other, futuristic side of the spectrum that hold this pair of correlated concepts. Another way to look at it is the excitement I feel before the glory of the incredible vacation mentioned earlier, as excitement and anxiety are so closely related emotionally that they can be viewed in the same sense. It is this excitement that is brought on solely by the anticipation of an event coming in the future.

Sadness is caused from an event of our past while anxiety looms from something in our future.

This may seem like common sense, but the reality is that most of us (and myself, without a doubt) aren’t aware of it, which means we can’t really counter it properly.

The truth is that my habit of living in the future and always thinking 5 steps ahead of myself was giving me anxieties that I wouldn’t have had I put my mind in a better place to enjoy the moment.
In short, I was always thinking about my next move, the next part of my day, and what was to come after whatever I was doing currently.

Like I mentioned earlier, this also affects the satisfaction of experiencing the moment, and I was making things way less enjoyable for myself.

If you’ve ever been surrounded in the bliss of a warm summer vacation, you likely know exactly what it’s like to be lounging in the sun, maybe on a beach or by some water- with not a thing to do or worry about except relaxing and enjoying every second. There’s a whole host of other factors that contribute to these habits, like my cellphone and busy mentality.

Just like any other group of habits, there are ways to replace them with better ones.

Focusing on engaging your senses is the bees-knees when trying to stay in the moment. Concentrating on things you can see, feel, hear, taste, and smell is exactly what helps to keep you anchored in the present. Sounds so simple, right? Unfortunately, with technology and all it’s progresses, this becomes increasingly more difficult. The human mind is more engaged than ever before, thanks to these cellular ‘joys’ of innovation, so being mindful of the moments that make up your life gets harder and harder. The effect that being present in each moment you experience does wonders for your own mental health, so taking time to realize it’s importance daily can really reinforce the good feelings of psychological tranquility- which always seem to increasingly more elusive as the stresses and negativities in life pile up.

Just spreading a friendly service reminder of something most people know somewhere within themselves, in order to help keep what matters most at the forefront. As for me, I’m trying to get better at living fresh- and passing along my thoughts in the meantime.

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