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The most overlooked secret for transforming your health & your life!

TheMindfulness

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

IntroductIon ..................................................................................................................480/20 ......................................................................................................................................................4Mindset ...................................................................................................................................................5Mindset=Mindfulness .............................................................................................................................5Mindfulness ............................................................................................................................................5

About this report and how to use it ............................................................................... 5

undErStAndInG MIndFuLnESS ...............................................................................6What is Mindfulness anyways? ..................................................................................... 6

The Monkey Mind ........................................................................................................ 6

Why has mindfulness become a buzzword? ................................................................... 7

Debunking mindfulness myths ...................................................................................... 7

You can only practise mindfulness when you sit in meditation ......................................... 7

Mindfulness is for religious people ............................................................................... 8

Mindfulness has to be practised for long periods of time ................................................ 8

You will only get the full benefits if you practise mindfulness with yoga or other eastern practises ............................................................................. 8

You need a qualified mindfulness teacher ...................................................................... 8

thE MIndFuLnESS LInk ...............................................................................................9Why Mindfulness is the most powerful tool you can use to achieve your goals .................. 101. Use Mindfulness “evaluation” for your goals ......................................................................................112. Bring awareness into your “concluding” mind ....................................................................................113. Use mindfulness to break down large goals into smaller ones ...........................................................11

Working in vs. Working out-Mindfulness and increasing anabolic activity ........................ 121. Do mindfulness meditation before bed to calm down the nervous system ........................................122. Practise mindful breathing immediately after training .......................................................................123. Use “body” awareness to relieve muscle tension ................................................................................13

Managing stress through Mindfulness ........................................................................... 13

How to use mindfulness for stress management ............................................................ 141 Tune into the breath .............................................................................................................................142 Use your surroundings as a circuit breaker .........................................................................................143. Have “periodic” breaks from technology .............................................................................................154. Reconnect with nature ........................................................................................................................155. Use mindfulness gratitude to “disarm” your stress .............................................................................15

Managing food cravings through mindfulness ................................................................ 151. Bring intense awareness to your cravings ..........................................................................................152. Focus on your self -dialogue................................................................................................................163. Circuit -brake your cravings by going for a mindful walk .....................................................................16

rESourcES SEctIon .....................................................................................................17

FInAL notE .........................................................................................................................18

About thE Author ........................................................................................................19

“Surrender to what is.Let go of what was.Have Faith in what will be”Sonia RicottiIntroductIon

Starting out early in my career, it was interesting to see that the categories “fitness” and “well-ness” were counter to each other, as if they were two totally different ends of a pole on a magnet. “Fitness” being the word to describe physical ca-pacity, associated with any form of exercise, and “wellness” being the word to describe mental, emotional, and physical equanimity, associated with more tame pursuits such as yoga, qigong, mindfulness meditation, and healthy eating.

Now while on the surface level they may seem separate, intrinsically they’re inseparable, as in the same way just because you exercise and deem yourself “fit” doesn't mean you’re healthy, and just because you deem yourself “healthy” doesn't mean you’re fit!

Like links on a chain, a truly effective health & fitness program needs to encompass a variety of practices that all bond together to bring about the desired physical transformation, whether you want to look like a million dollar model, have muscles like Henry Cavill in Superman, or just want to feel amazing from the inside, you can’t separate “fitness” training from “wellness” train-ing.

You may be able to gain some sort of superficial change, some bigger muscles, the ability train longer, or to fit in those clothes from 10 years ago, and yes these are all fine and dandy, but being a personal trainer for over 6 years, train-ing hundreds of clients with diverse goals, has taught me one thing...

80/20

Yes, 80/20! 20% of the clients I train are able to truly make an internal and external change, one that is lasting and not a temporary fix. The other 80%, well, it’s a short term game for them.

They commit to fitness, to eating healthy, to be-coming better people in life, but low and behold 2 3 months in they throw in towel, with excuses such as:

�I can’t afford it anymore�Health & fitness is just not my priority anymore�Exams are coming up�I just love food too much�I love this one, works just to busy at the moment so I need to focus on that

I could churn the list down even more, but the exact point I’m trying to make is that there’s a separation, a “from good to great” kinda thing you know.

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So what constitutes the separation?

Is it the lack of excuse manufacturing?Is it bold and unbreakable willpower to stay on course with your health & fitness goals? Is it pri-oritizing health & fitness as a personal value?

Well, the above sure does help, and it’s part of the toolkit, but let me sum it up into one word so we don’t beat around the bush here.

MindsetYou're probably thinking “oh my god, mindset, another f$%king buzzword, are you gonna try and motivate me now?”. Not exactly. You see I’ve done the whole mindset thing, books, sem-inars, courses, just take a look at my (slightly scattered mini) library of literature below. Been there, done that my friend.

To me mindset runs deeper than motivation and positive thinking. It’s a lot more about un-derstanding your relationship with the mind, how you react to your thoughts, and your ability to see things as they are, rather than how you would like them to be.

Which takes me to my next link in the chain

Mindset=MindfulnessThese top 20% of people, through their long term dedication to health & fitness, have gained a much greater awareness of themselves and how they see things. Exercise, eating healthy, and setting and achieving goals will do that to you, trust me.

This long term journey to mastering health eventually reaches a kind of “pinnacle”. A heightened state where people, for lack of a better word, “know” themselves on such a deep level, that results in cultivating the lasting hab-its they need to think, look, and feel amazing!

What do you need to reach this level of self-mas-tery?

MindfulnessNo not mindset, mindfulness, simple straight up mindfulness. It’s a trait all life masters have. And I’m bringing this trait to the health & fitness world, because without it, we will be like the other 80%, constantly falling off the tightrope of health, with only a crashpad of bad habits, self-destructive thinking, and a bunch of ciga-rettes and alcohol to land on.

About this report and how to use itThis is not an overly scientific report, as I don’t want to bore you and make your eyes bleed. There’ll be references and links to all that stuff, towards the end, I just want to get to the juicy stuff, which is as follows:

Section 1 - Understanding mindfulness�What is mindfulness anyways?�Why has mindfulness become a buzzword?�Debunking mindfulness myths

Section 2 - The mindfulness link�Why mindfulness is the most powerful tool you can use to achieve your goals�Working in vs. Working out -mindfulness for increasing anabolic activity�Managing stress through mindfulness�Managing food cravings through mindfulness

Then the boring stuff

Section 3 - Ending�Resources (books, websites, apps)�About me (not so boring)

Alright then, you ready for some study? Good (imaginary fist bump) let’s go!



“If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything”Thich Nhat Hanh

undErStAndInG MIndFuLnESS

PART 1

What is Mindfulness anyways?The immediate association you may have with mindfulness is to the discipline of meditation, which is a two- thousand year old mental train-ing technique performed by practitioners of eastern religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism.

Yet this association can limit most people's de-sire to explore mindfulness. Due to the religious context it can sometimes present itself in, mind-fulness can be assumed as some sort of ancient practice reserved only for the people who crave mystical experience.

Firstly, mindfulness has nothing to do with any-thing “occult” and “otherworldly”, it is far from it. Mindfulness is about being aware of the immediate moment, what is happening right here, right now. Bringing your fullest attention to whatever it is you’re doing. Whether you’re riding a bicycle, getting into a fight with your loved one, eating breakfast, or in an arena with thousands of people watching a football match, you’re completely alert of what’s happening.

Now as simple as this sounds, you’ll be sur-prised how mentally strenuous this can be. You may be asking yourself “How can it be so hard to be aware of what I’m doing, I mean I just do things, right?” Well just try sitting still for 10 min-utes and doing nothing but concentrating on the present moment.

After about 4 -5 minutes, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The subtle yet insidious flow of thoughts, sticking to your attention like super glue. Each thought can either be a flash in the pan, or a dramatic soap opera. Thoughts can ei-ther be fleeting, or they can cause you to make up the most ridiculous stories about situations that will never likely happen in real life. Either way, our thoughts act as a veil to the present moment.

the Monkey Mind

In Buddhist teachings, the mind can be likened to a monkey that’s drank too much red cordial. Swinging from branch to branch, jumping up and down, and never staying still. Our monkey



mind is never in the centre, it’s either reminisc-ing about things we did in the past, or anticipat-ing events in the future. As a result of this, we’re never truly at one with reality, instead we live in a phantom world of thoughts.

Mindfulness is the ailment to this mental dis-order. There's no pills you need to take, no su-perfoods you need to eat, no special tea you need to drink. Mindfulness works directly on this problem and brings you into full attention without identifying and sticking to every single thought that pops up in your head.

Why has mindfulness become a buzzword?Mindfulness has been increasing in popular-ity, not only in the health & wellness industry, but also in the corporate world. World class entrepreneurs such as Tim Ferriss, bestselling authors like Robert Greene, and marketing ge-niuses like Seth Godin, all practise some form of mindfulness training, either to enhance creativ-ity, boost work productivity, or to just calm down the mind.

Ironically, mindfulness training has been prac-tised in the west for decades, but it was a select group of people who struck a cord which gen-erated huge momentum for the mindfulness movement. One person is Dr. Jon Kabat -Zinn, who is the founder of the hugely popular Mind-fulness based stress reduction program, which was founded in the University of Massachusetts medical centre. Other big names such as Thich Nhat Hanh, Deepak Chopra, Pema Chodron, Dr. Wayne Dyer, and Eckhart Tolle who is the au-thor of the phenomenal international bestseller “The Power Of Now”, are just some of the other names you can add to the list.

Mindfulness has also become a buzzword be-cause more and more people are experiencing the consequences of modern fast paced living, which is stress, panic, and depression.

Just have a look at the following studies:

80% of workers feel stress on the job and nearly half say they need help in learning how to manage stress. And 42% say their co -workers need such help – American Insti-tute of Stress

Alarmingly 91% of adult Australians feel stress in at least one important area of their lives. Almost 50% feel very stressed about one part of their life – Lifeline Australia

Approximately 1 out of 75 people may expe-rience panic disorder – National Institutes of Mental Health

Depression is among the leading causes of disability worldwide – World Health Organi-zation

We certainly need some mindfulness….

debunking mindfulness mythsBefore we get into the crux of how to use mind-fulness in your daily life, I would like to do some debunking with some common mindfulness myths, there’re 5 below I will cover.

You can only practise mindfulness when you sit in meditation

1. Mindfulness is for religious people2. Mindfulness has to be practised for long

periods of time3. You will only get the full benefits if you

practise mindfulness with yoga or other eastern practises

4. You need a qualified mindfulness teacher

You can only practise mindfulness when you sit in meditationWhile seated meditation can be considered the original form for cultivating mindfulness, it’s not the only way we can practise. In fact the whole



point of mindfulness training is to develop the ability to bring awareness into every activity we do, even the most mundane activities such as washing the dishes or vacuuming the house are perfect opportunities for focused attention.

(Seated meditation is the bedrock in which mindful-ness practise has been built. I don’t want to sound contradictory, but I encourage people to practise seated meditation and make it a part of their mind-fulness training. Simply because through my experi-ence, it’s the best way you can reach deep states of relaxation and awareness through, that being said, try all the different varieties of mindfulness training)

Mindfulness is for religious peopleBecause mindfulness spawned from Buddhism, it’s natural to think that we must believe in the Buddhist tradition and follow their way of think-ing. We must shave our heads and become monks in order to be mindful. No, absolutely not! Mindfulness is open to everyone from all walks of life. As the Buddha said himself “No one saves us but ourselves, no one can and no one may, we ourselves must walk the path”. Mean-ing it’s completely up to us, we don’t need to rely on religious dogma or someone else telling us what we can and can’t do, we are in control and we can practise whatever we want to.

Mindfulness has to be practised for long periods of timeWe may have heard stories of people sitting in meditation for up to 10 -12 hours. Maybe the thought of a 20 minute mindfulness practice is daunting to you. That’s ok, remove any expec-tation about duration of time. Like any new skill, it takes practice, it’s better to get our feet wet with a 5 -minute mindfulness meditation than not doing anything at all. Even something as quick as 3 deep mindful belly breaths (which is a technique where we breath deeply into the body and feel with our own hands the expan-sion of the belly) is a starting point to cultivating mindfulness.

You will only get the full benefits if you practise mindfulness with yoga or other eastern practisesYogis, Zen masters, Tai Chi instructors, Kung Fu teachers, all these people display amazing qualities of gracefulness, calm, and mental mas-tery. Do we have take up one or all of these arts to gain some level of achievement with mind-fulness? Definitely not! While there are count-less benefits of taking up one of these types of disciplines, mindfulness does not have to be connected to any one of these.

You need a qualified mindfulness teacherWith any type of learnable skill, It’s a wise de-cision to have a teacher who can educate you on the ropes, and it’s no different for the art of mindfulness. However you don’t necessarily need to spend hundreds of dollars on some sort of coach to teach you mindfulness on a regu-lar basis. You just need to have a basic grasp of how mindfulness works, which can be learnt through great books, workshops, and online content. From there you just need to decide how you will practise, whether you use guided meditations, mindfulness music & sounds, or something easy (or not so easy) as sitting down and watching your thoughts.



“One should become master of one’s mind,rather than let one’s mind master him”Nichiren Daishonin

thE MIndFuLnESS LInk

PART 2

the basics of mindfulness practise

Our external environment is rather unpredictable, the feelings, emotions, and reactions we have to our day to day experiences is subject to change. In the morning we can feel anxious, by lunchtime we may feel a sense of energy and happiness, by late afternoon we may feel frustrated and burnt out. Let’s face it, we humans ride the roller coaster of varying emotions, whether they be good or bad.

Is there some sort of magic trick that allows us to gain back some control over how we feel and react? Is there a secret, a hack maybe, that will increase our sense of mastery over our mind and emotions?

Yes there is, Mindfulness! It’s the most effective way to attain self -power, and guess what...it’s free. You don’t need to buy a pill or a remedy, or some magic drink, because our self -power comes from within us, not outside of us.

I’m about to lay the foundation of how we can easily apply mindfulness practice to the different situations in our life. This is based on my own clin-ical experience as a coach and personal trainer, as well as personal experience.

Before we dive into the meat of how we can ap-ply mindfulness into our daily activities, there’s always a foundation that needs to be laid out. Like anything, it’s always getting started that’s the hard part. Once you break past the “resis-tance”, which is usually a voice in the head that says “what on earth are you doing, this is a waste of time” you can slowly ease into the present mo-ment and enjoy the benefits of mindfulness.

So how do we bridge the gap from a mind that’s in turmoil, to a mind that is fully present. Well it’s simple, S.T.O.P. Not only does this literally mean stop what you’re doing, but there is an acronym attached to it that will serve as the basic starting point for mindfulness practice.



S -Stop what you’re doingTo become mindful at all, you must recognize first that something is not quite right. A nega-tive thought or feeling could be lingering in the backdrop, affecting whatever task you’re do-ing. Or you may feel like reacting to an external event in front of you. Whatever's going inside of you, recognize it, stop the activity you’re doing, and bring your fullest attention inside yourself.

t - take a breathBreathing is the gateway to mastering your mind. By taking deep breaths and allowing your mind and physiology to relax, you can see re-ality for what it is, as opposed to reality cloud-ed by your own neurotic thoughts. Once you’ve stopped what you’re doing, take a few deep breaths through the nose, really expanding your belly and slowly breathing out. Really tune into your breathing and the flow of your breath. Feel the air travelling in and out of your nose and into your body.

o - observeHave you ever just objectively observed your own thoughts? Just looking at them without any judgment, prejudice, and interpretation? Well if you can teach yourself to just observe the self -chatter in the skull without reacting to it, you’ve won the battle. By combining slow, deep breathing with objective observing of your mind and body, you’re in the practice of mind-fulness. There will always be apart of you that wants to label things, that wants to react, but YOU too need to observe that side of yourself and not get swept away.

P -ProceedTo proceed does not mean to just jump right back into the thick of things. It means to return to what’s real, to the present moment, fresh and uncorrupted by negative thinking. Breathing

and observing are the fundamentals of mind-fulness, but we always want to flow on into the original we set out to do. This time though, we’re in control of our reactions, of how we see the external world.

In the following section I will cover 4 life situa-tions that I feel mindfulness training can best be applied to:

1. Mindfulness for goal setting2. Mindfulness for increased recovery

from exercise3. Mindfulness for stress management4. Mindfulness for food cravings

Why Mindfulness is the most powerful tool you can use to achieve your goalsGoal setting is absolutely fundamental if you want to progress in any area of your life. Wheth-er you want to make a move on your career, have a better relationship, or achieve some sort of athletic endeavor, we all must set goals! Mindfulness aids this process directly by giving you the utmost clarity on what goals you want to achieve.

Throughout my life I’ve must’ve set hundreds of different goals in multiple areas, but I could honestly say I’ve only achieved about 10% of all of them…..YES, ONLY 10%, why? Because only a small amount of those goals had compelling meaning attached to them. The rest of them were just “brain fart” goals. Random things I thought I wanted to achieve but really had no meaning.

By doing a mindfulness practice and getting in touch with our intuition (our inner voice that guides us through life) we can create mean-ingful goals that actually give us internal fulfill-ment, not petty goals based on short term plea-sure and social gain.

Here is how to apply mindfulness towards your goal setting.



❶ Use Mindfulness “evaluation” for your goals

As author Zig Ziglar quotes “you can’t hit a tar-get you cannot see”, goal setting all about cre-ating clear targets so we can hit the bullseye every time we release the arrow of action. But sometimes the targets we create are clouded, with no real meaning behind the goal except for short lived pleasure. By using mindfulness, we can enter deep into our minds and really envi-sion clear goals that will bring us fulfillment.

Next time you do a goal setting session with yourself, allow 5- 10 minutes for a mindfulness meditation. Sit down, close your eyes, and ponder deeply on the question “what goals, if I achieve them, will bring me the most fulfill-ment?” Just sit with this question mind and watch what arises up from deep inside of you. As you get further into the meditation, your in-tuition will start to talk to you. Your goals for the future will become more clear and precise and you’ll know exactly which ones you want to move towards because they’ll come from the heart, not from the voices in your head.

❷ Bring awareness into your “concluding” mind

Setting fulfilling goals are always coupled with a level of resistance, usually the bigger and more ambitious the goal, the more intense the resis-tance becomes. Our mind concludes that our quest is outrageous and that we don’t have the

resources and energy to achieve it. That little voice in your head that says “no, it’s too hard, stay in your comfort zone and you’ll be just fine, don’t stress yourself out”. We can call this voice the “concluding mind” and we must defeat it.

How do you defeat it? By bringing intense aware-ness to this part of your mind. By not identifying with this voice, and knowing it’s just negative self -chatter designed to keep you comfortable, you can bypass it and see into its false nature. Watch and hear that tiny little voice, laugh at it, smile at it, and say to it “I understand you just want to keep me comfortable and safe, and I ap-preciate it, but I’m not fooled by you!”.

❸ Use mindfulness to break down large goals into smaller ones

Grandiose goals can sometimes be so intimi-dating because of the sheer work volume that comes with achieving it. And because of this fear, we can give up before we even start. Trust me, I’ve been there. But by bringing mindful-ness into the mix, we can break down the larg-est goals into bite size pieces and tackle them one by one. You see the key to achieving big goals is to focus on the “NOW”, what’s right in front of you instead of what's in the distance. By giving your fullest attention to each and ev-ery brick that must be laid, and enjoying each step, before you know it, the house is built.

Practising mindfulness can allow you to see the nature of the grand goal, which is a journey of steps that must be walked, regardless of how many hacks you have or how much power and money you may have, every journey must be walked.

If you find yourself daunted by your own goals, then close your eyes, bring awareness to your breath, and look at the goal from a bird's eye view. Begin to breakdown the goal into smaller sub -goals, steps that you will need to take to get you closer to achievement. Once you have become clear on the sub -goals, write them down on a piece of paper and take action!



Working in vs. Working out-Mindfulness and increasing anabolic activityYou would probably think that mindfulness training is that last thing that would come to mind as an aid for increasing post -workout re-covery, but believe me, it is an effective tool to have in your armory for closing the circle of ana-bolic muscle tissue repair.

(The term “Anabolic” refers to the anabolic hormones in the body that stimulate protein synthesis, muscle growth and insulin. In non sciency terms, it means the state in which the human body is repairing damaged muscle tissue)

Here's how it works:

After performing intense bouts of physical training, whether it be a long distance run, or a session of heavy weight training, you want to lower a specific stress hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is your body’s low grade “fight -or- flight” hormone that gets stimulated when we exer-cise. If cortisol remains elevated after training, then our bodies anabolic repair systems cannot work to their full capacity, which results in poor recovery from exercise.

Cortisol also gets released during basic dai-ly stressors such as traffic jams, verbal argu-ments, poor diet, work deadlines and negative thinking. So if we don’t have an effective strate-gy to lower cortisol, our nervous system is con-stantly in a state of arousal, leaving the door wide open for ailments such as sleep problems, inflammatory conditions, hampered muscle tis-sue repair and overall poor health.

Mindfulness practice is a powerful way for re-laxing the nervous system and lowering corti-sol, especially when done at night time before bed. By calming down the nervous system, the body’s natural repair hormones can begin to do their magic and repair damaged muscle tissue from exercise.

Here's how you can use mindfulness practice to tap into the body's healing system to improve your recovery from exercise.

❶ Do mindfulness meditation before bed to calm down the nervous system

The greatest recovery from exercise happens when we sleep. But if you struggle to get your body into a deep sleep, or if the simple act of falling asleep is such an endeavour, then it’s code red. Mindfulness meditation at night time will not only help calm down the monkey mind, it will allow your natural healing system to work at its full capacity.

My favourite way to practise mindfulness be-fore bed is to sit down in a comfortable position, play some sort of meditation/relaxation music, nature sounds also work a treat, and I will focus on my breath. From here after settling in, I will then bring awareness to the sounds that are playing in the background, this helps to bring my attention into the present moment and not drift off into thought. This mindfulness practice lasts anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. I encour-age to try this mindfulness exercise before bed.

Another option is to do this laying down. How-ever I recommend doing it on the floor, lying on a mat of some sort, or if you're happy you can just lay on the ground with a pillow on your head.

One more note: if you want to double the effec-tiveness of this mindfulness meditation for im-proved recovery, then combine an epsom salt bath (use really hot water) prior to the medita-tion. This will increase overall body relaxation tenfold, allowing you to sink deeper into mind-fulness.

❷ Practise mindful breathing immediately after training

The sooner we can bring down cortisol after training, the better our recovery will be. Supple-ments, food, and a hot shower can work fine, but most people wouldn't think about deep



breathing post workout to kick off your recov-ery cycle. Set aside 5 to 10 minutes after your training for the following practice. Do some light stretching to cool down the body, then sit down in a comfortable position and bring awareness to the breath. Begin to breath deeply into the belly and allow your tummy to expand to its full capacity. Exhale slowly and let go of all the air, along with any tension in your body. Repeat this breathing pattern, with each breath slow-ly lowering the pace, eventually bringing your inhale for 4 seconds with a 2 second pause at the end, then exhaling for 4 seconds with a 2 second pause at the end. Once you have done this breathing exercise for at least 5 minutes, you will notice a drastic shift on how your body feels, notably, more calm and centred. Which is exactly what we want post workout.

❸ Use “body” awareness to relieve muscle tension

After weeks of training, the sheer volume of ex-ercise can catch up and leave us feeling tight, sore, and wound up in our muscles. Getting a good massage would be the best option, how-ever, we can take matters into our own hands as well by harnessing the power of mindful “body” awareness to help relieve muscle tension.

During yoga practice, we are taught to breathe through our pain while we hold punishing pos-tures that can make any grown man cry like a whimp. But once we settle in comfortably into the postures and gain control of our mind, breathing can act as a sort of release valve for all the built up tension in our muscles. You too can breathe out and melt away muscle tension. Next time you stretch, instead of just holding a stretch position, actually bring intense aware-ness to the muscle. Breathe deeply as you slowly sink further into the stretch, imagine breathing out all the stacked up tension in the area that is tight. Overtime, with practice, stiff muscles will loosen up, and your body will feel the benefits of “body” awareness breathing.

(please note: Static stretching and “yoga” style stretching are best done after training when the mus-cles are warm, this will allow you to sink deeper into your stretches without the risk of pulling muscles.)

Managing stress through Mindfulness

The modern world has brought us extraordi-nary advances in technology and efficiency of living. Activities that used to take us hours to do, can now be done in mere seconds. But as the punchline goes “speed kills”, and the trade off for the speed of modern living is the rate in which stress can arise in our internal environ-ment.

We want everything done smoothly, quickly, and without disruption. But when randomness comes along, and things don’t go our way, we either panic and start to blame the world for our problems, or we get anxious and weird because we have to pause and practice patience, which is a virtue that is pretty much non -existent in the western hemisphere. We may think we’re practising patience, but we kid ourselves, be-cause our smartphones soon exit our pockets in moments of intermittent pausing.

Once we so called “plug in”, our minds enter an abstract world of social media, fake news and impulse advertising that brainwashes our cur-rent state of thinking and robs us from truly enjoying the present moment. You can say our phones have become portable television with just a lot more features.



I’m not suggesting that we never look at our phones, because I too enjoy the occasional browse of articles, products, and the latest up-dates on certain subjects of life, but the larger problem is that most humans have this default reaction to constantly pick up their phones whenever they have a moment to themselves. Long term, this can be disempowering and very stressful because we become slaves to tech-nology.

On a whole the modern lifestyle may seem ex-trinsically designed for comfort and abundance, but intrinsically it triggers more stress and con-fusion than it does pleasure. Welcome to the 21st century!

If you feel that you don’t stress ever, then skip this section, you're not human. But for those who want to take action on their stress and gain back some self -power, then read on my fel-low warrior!

how to use mindfulness for stress managementThere are many different antidotes for modern stress, but I believe mindfulness is the “white knight” that truly makes the long term differ-ence. Understand: Stress really is all about per-ception, the “lense” of how we view our external world. But that “lense” is created inside of us, it’s manufactured internally through the mind and our thought patterns, and mindfulness practice gives us the ability to take control of our perceptions. Instead of blunting our stress through short term fixes like alcohol, cigarettes and entertainment, mindfulness allows us to transform our stress by making us completely responsible for mastering how we feel, without relying on anything that is of outside influence.

We all react differently to stress. For some, it can make us feel depressed and hopeless, for others, feelings of anxiousness and unease can take over. When we do our mindfulness practice for stress, we want to pay very close attention to where we feel the stress in our body, is it the

stomach? The chest? The upper back? Usually for most people, stress can be felt like a tight knot in the gut area.

Here is your mindfulness practice for managing stress and experiencing more peace of mind

❶ Tune into the breathWhenever we feel that stress is taking over us, tune into your breath. Notice how you’re breath-ing, is it fast? Heavy? Is there a burning sen-sation in your chest to react emotionally to the perceived stress? Once you have gained aware-ness of your breath, begin to slow down your breathing by taking air in through the nose. Re-ally breathe deep into the belly and blow the air out through your mouth. When blowing the air out, really imagine you're blowing all the tension out of your body. Do this breathing technique 3 -5 times.

❷ Use your surroundings as a circuit breaker

I learnt this technique from Dr. Elise Bialylew, the founder of “Mindfulness in May”. Whenev-er we feel stressed, we can immediately access our environment through the senses to help us “circuit -break” from the feeling of anxiety and worry. To start off, listen to the sounds in the room, bring your attention to the ears, then begin to feel your body in space, feel the emp-tiness of the space you’re in, the sensation of your skin connecting to the outside world. Look at what surrounds you, the shapes and objects of different features in the room. By taking a moment to fully immerse yourself in your sens-es, we give ourselves a break from constantly “identifying” with stressful thoughts and feel-ings.



❸ Have “periodic” breaks from technology

By constantly having our focus on technology, such as computers, tablets, and phones, our minds can get lost in a “conceptual” world. This can lead to an insidious type of stress and feel-ing of “disconnect” with our bodies. By schedul-ing periodic breaks from technology into the day, we can allow ourselves to reboot mentally and bring awareness back into the present moment.

❹ Reconnect with natureDuring your lunchtime break, or any other scheduled break, make an effort to go outside and into nature. If you’re not near a park or place with grass, just go for a walk. Take note of the temperature, is it a warm summer's day? Then stand out in the sun and feel the warm sensation on your body. Is it an icy winter's day? Not to worry, exposing yourself to cold tempera-ture is perfect to bring your attention into your body. Feel the cold air brush against your skin, notice how your body reacts with the aliveness and crispiness.

❺ Use mindfulness gratitude to “disarm” your stress

Ever since I made the decision to practise grat-itude more often, I’ve noticed my overall stress levels have gone down. By switching your at-titude from “expectation” to “appreciation”, our petty worries lose their grip on our minds, and we can really see how much we have to be grateful for among the turmoil of modern living.

The best way to practise mindful gratitude is to set aside 5 -10 minutes before bed each night and write down 5 things you’re grateful for that happened during the day. It can be anything from a stranger's smile, the beautiful sunset you managed to catch a glimpse of, the fact that you’re able to enjoy good quality food while other people in the world are starving. You can even bring your gratitude journal with you to work and look at your notes in times for stress.

Managing food cravings through mindfulness

Giving in to the occasional food craving is not a crime, but when it becomes an obsessive vice, we can lose our self -control and feel powerless against unhealthy food. And it can become es-pecially frustrating when you have a goal to lose body fat and look your best.

How do we control our food cravings? Well first we must be eating a clean diet and get-ting in regular exercise, but sometimes that’s not enough. The thirst for sugar and and oth-er sweets can arise spontaneously, sometimes at intense levels. So many of my coaching cli-ents report to me that they become “mindless”, binge eating without any second thought.

If becoming “mindless” is the catalyst to giving in to food cravings, then becoming “mindful” is the “inhibitor” that will slow down our impulses and give us our power to control our decisions.

Here’re the best ways to master your food crav-ings through mindfulness.

❶ Bring intense awareness to your cravings

Most people are unaware that any thought that drives action is always accompanied by a feel-ing that develops somewhere in the body. And it’s this feeling we respond to, not the thought.



With food cravings, the feeling begins with sal-ivation forming in the mouth, as we anticipate the pleasure of eating this particular food. This is soon followed by a “pull” in the stomach, sensing eager expectation, we want to get our hands on the food so badly. It’s precisely at this point we need to bring in mindfulness.

Start by becoming “intensely” aware of every-thing that is going on in your body. From the mouth, to your stomach, to the thoughts in your mind. Realise deeply that you’re in control and you always have a choice. Allow this “craving” to arise and then slowly wither away without getting caught up in the “storm” of obsessive thinking about the particular food.

❷ Focus on your self -dialogueSelf -dialogue refers to the “chatter” that goes on in our skulls. This chatter can come in the form of words, images, numbers, and symbols. With food cravings, the most “notorious” self-di-alogue punchline that tips us over the edge is this: “Go on, you only live once”. If we hear this enough times over in our head, then we will dive right into that box of doughnuts or tub of ice cream.

Do we have to believe in the voices in our head? Are they true? No, they’re not. You have to be responsible of picking and choosing which thoughts will empower you, and discard the thoughts that will result in self -sabotage. By be-coming mindful and focusing on the self -chatter, we can make our thoughts less sticky. Close your eyes, do some mindful breathing, and let your thoughts run wild while You sit back and watch them. That’s it, just watch them, but don’t take action upon them.

❸ Circuit -brake your cravings by going for a mindful walk

There is no better way to disengage from inner turmoil by going for a nice long walk. This can be outside of work, in your backyard, or just simply walking away in a different direction from the food you crave so badly to eat.

When the craving bug rears its ugly head, stop what you’re doing and go for a walk. Bring your attention to the surrounding environment. If your backyard is full of plants and trees, notice them, deeply. If you decide to walk in the front yard near the footpath, bring your attention to the feet hitting the hard concrete. Look at the different cars in yours or your neighbor's driveway (without looking like a creep). If you're at work, go for a walk around the building, take a minute and go somewhere away from where all the food is. Remember, you always have a choice.



PART 3rESourcES SEctIon

The Power of Now by Eckhart tolle

The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh

The Mindful Month by Dr. Elise Bialylew

Mindfulness in Action by Chogyam Trungpa

Websites:www.wildmind.org

www.eckharttolle.com

www.mindlifeproject.com

Apps:www.headspace.com/headspace- meditation- app

www.omvana.com

Below is a tiny little resource section you can re-fer to for more on the subject of mindfulness. I didn't want to bombard you with a hefty load of links and material, as the best way to understand

mindfulness is to actually do it! However, the fol-lowing books, websites, and apps are a treasure trove for helping you get started on your mind-fulness journey.


http://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577314808

http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Mindfulness-Introduction-Practice-Meditation/dp/0807012394

http://mindlifeproject.com/product/mindful-month-ebook/

http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Action-Yourself-Meditation-Awareness/dp/161180020X

http://www.wildmind.org/

http://www.eckharttolle.com/

http://www.mindlifeproject.com/

http://www.headspace.com/headspace-meditation-app

http://www.omvana.com/


Being somewhat of a learnaholic, I’m constant-ly practising and pursuing many different disci-plines. And I can honestly say, from the core of my gut, that the practise of mindfulness has rad-ically changed my life.

I wouldn't consider myself an “enlightened” hu-man being, I’m simply a human being, someone who encounters the day to day frustrations, anx-ieties, and setbacks just like everyone else. But when i’m bestowed with life's trials and tribula-tions, I choose to take full responsibility of how I react to these situations, and mindfulness is the act of taking responsibility, of being completely aware of how we respond to the outside world, then transforming that response into something that will give us more peace than suffering.

Understand this: While the media and big indus-tries play on our fears and uncertainties, mar-keting products and remedies that will numb our chronic frustrations of life, there’re people out there leading a revolution, a revolution of mind-fulness and self -power.

More and more people are waking up to the fact that the world is becoming a plastic jungle, and while material abundance reigns supreme, con-fusion, disappointment, and uneasiness also are at peak levels. We need to take a step back and connect with ourselves on a deep level, to re -kindle our intuitive voice and become our own masters instead of relying on technology to bring us salvation.

We hold the power inside of us.

Everything needed to be brave, courageous, and responsible lies inside of us, we just need to open the door to our minds, walk in, take a look around, and do some tidying up. Mindfulness is the key to open that door. I’ve essentially given you the key to your own door,

will you open it?

Michael keon

FInAL notE



Michael keonPersonal Trainer, Coach, Author, Speaker, Mindfulness Teacher

About thE Author

The health and fitness industry is one of the most rewarding industries to work in, but there is also a cluster of misconceptions and discon-nects about what truly works to bring about lasting transformation. Any trainer or coach who has been in the industry long enough will tell you that after digging deep into the rabbit hole of knowledge, there comes a realisation that the world we live in is completely out of balance, and we are not living in harmony with ourselves and the external environment.

I myself, have gone through this realisation, a profound one. And my search for truth has led me to the amazing practise of mindfulness. And it has changed my life for the better.

Nutrition, exercise, sleep, and hydration are all fundamental elements to living a healthy life, but our relationship to the mind is something that has never really been spoken about in the health & fitness industry, yet the mind is the core

of where self -mastery occurs. And mindfulness is the practise, the martial of the mind, that teach-es us the discipline of managing our thoughts. I’m here to teach this mental martial art, you, and anyone can learn this, because it’s not reserved for the likes of mystical and religious people, it’s for every human being who wants to a live a bet-ter, joyful life.

My mission is to teach and guide people to self-mastery through health, fitness, and nutri-tion, while integrating mindfulness training in or-der to bring about amazing and lasting transfor-mations from the inside out.

I invite you to drink from this fountain of wisdom, and start your own journey of self -mastery and mastery of your own mind.

See you on the other side my fellow warrior and warrioress,


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