3 easy ways to bring more zen into your life
Whether you’re wrangling toddlers, pets, or just your over-demanding boss, the chances are you could do with a bit more zen in your life, right?!
We all live Busy-with-a-capital-B lifestyles these days, leaving precious little time for most of us to actually feel relaxed. And we’re not talking quick 5-minute Instagram scroll levels of relaxation - we’re talking full-on calm, collected, chilled-out relaxation.
Surely if it was possible to live a zen-but-busy life, we’d all be doing it - so it can’t possibly be possible.
It’s tempting to believe that, but in reality it is possible (and not even that difficult) to find moments of zen in the everyday - and we’re about to take you on the journey to zen you’ve been dreaming of…
Wait, what is zen?
Officially, Zen is a school of Buddhism that focuses on “rigorous self-restraint, meditation-practice and the subsequent insight into nature of mind”, according to the ever-reliable Wikipedia.
Much like the philosophy behind yoga, Zen in the traditional senses uses breathwork, chanting and seated meditative positions to encourage self-reflection and a deeper connection with the inner mind - which is why your mind might have pictured a cross-legged person chanting ‘ohhhmmm’ when you read the word ‘zen’.
But most of us nowadays don’t think about the hundreds of years of Buddhist history and philosophy behind zen. Instead, we focus on what the practice of Zen wanted us to achieve: an enlightened, mindful inner peace, or the state of zen.
So, for our purposes, the answer to the question ‘what is zen?’ is this: a relaxed, calm state of mind where we’re able to feel peaceful, focused and unburdened by the everyday stresses of life.
How to achieve zen, every single day
Those ‘everyday stresses of life’ are pretty pervasive for most of us though. So how can we simultaneously function in modern society (holding down a job, raising kids, doing grocery shopping, cooking healthy meals, getting enough sleep, having some form of social life) whilst also feeling ‘unburdened’ and finding a sense of inner peace?!
That is the million-dollar question.
But before we answer it, we need you to start thinking about zen a little bit differently. It’s not an all-or-nothing concept - it’s not that you either feel zen all the time, or never at all. It’s a feeling that can come and go as easily as any other feeling you have - and that makes it far more achievable in our lives.
Because every single one of us can spare a few minutes a day to achieve even a brief state of zen that’ll help us tackle the rest of our busy lives with more compassion, tolerance and understanding.
That’s the zen we’re about to help you achieve.
🏃 Move your body
The problem with finding zen usually starts in our own brains. They’re too busy, too full, too focused on the next thing we absolutely must do that they have no time, energy or space to feel unburdened or remotely relaxed.
That’s why moving your body is one of the most effective ways to find mental peace.
Going for a run around the park, joining your favourite yoga class (at FOLD, of course), or collapsing in a pool of sweat after a spin class - no matter how you exercise, the fact remains that moving your body gives your brain a break.
For the period of time you’re dedicating to physical activity, your brain has the time to decompress, helped by those handy little positive endorphins exercise gives a big dose of to your brain.
You’re focusing on moving your limbs, not worrying about whether you’ve got enough halloumi for dinner. You’re focusing on breathing, not worrying about whether you used an acceptable number of exclamation marks in that email to your boss. You’re focusing on not falling over, not worrying about whether you remembered to turn the washing machine on this morning.
Moving your body, particularly in a mindful way like through yoga, gives your mind no choice but to switch off temporarily. Of course, movement can’t actually solve your worries (although as soon as we’re successful in inventing a magical yoga flow that does the dishes for us, you’ll be the first to know) - but it gives your brain the chance to reset, find some zen, and tackle the rest of the day’s challenges with a fresh perspective.
🤗 Practice positivity
It really is true that a positive outlook changes everything. You’re probably fed up with seeing those Instagram posts telling you to practice gratitude - but (annoyingly) practising gratitude does actually work.
Over and over again, studies show that gratitude is strongly and consistently linked to higher levels of overall happiness.
Our silly little brains have a natural tendency to gloss over the positive and focus on the negative, which is why that one piece of negative feedback you get from your boss will stick around in your brain far longer than the hundred pieces of positive feedback.
But our silly little brains are also malleable. We can change the way they see things, the way they think and, ultimately, change the way we feel. By actively going out of our way to identify the positives and the things we’re grateful for, our brains will start to make that the default.
Again, this isn’t an all-or-nothing thing. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we just can’t find a positive way to spin a rubbish situation. But starting or ending the day with a quick 5-minute list (mentally, in your phone’s notes app, or on good old-fashioned paper) of 3 or 4 things we’re grateful for or something good that happened to us today will, over time, encourage our brains to be more positive and help us find some inner peace, even in challenging situations.
Pro tip: if journalling is something you want to try but you have zero clue where to start, this 5-Minute Journal might be just the thing! It claims to be the simplest way to make your day happier - we’ll take some of that!
📵 Ditch social media
Or at least have firm boundaries in place!
There’s nothing worse than having a fairly good day, treating yourself to a quick Instagram scroll, and then seeing something that completely derails your mood.
We’ve all been there. Whether it’s comparing yourself to strangers on the internet or just getting stuck in a doom-scroll of terrible news (politics, we’re looking at you) - social media has the potential to turn your day terrible without anything terrible actually happening.
And when you’re in the social-media-induced funk, it’s almost impossible to drag yourself out again and find a state of zen instead.
So, the best defence against social media funk is to reduce your social media usage.
Which we all know is easier said than done… so here are some tips to help:
Move your social media apps on your home screen regularly - this will disrupt the muscle memory in your thumb and stop you opening the apps without even realising you’re opening them!
Use your phone’s app time limits to at least remind you that you’re using social media too much (because you’re definitely going to ignore those reminders a fair few times, we’ve been there!)
Don’t go on your phone first thing in the morning. Get yourself an actual alarm clock (if you’re feeling fancy, a Lumie daylight alarm clock is game-changing!) so that you can leave your phone charging in another room - so there’s no temptation to start your scroll as soon as you turn your alarm off
In the moments during your day where you’d automatically reach for your phone, try practicing some mindfulness instead. If you’re waiting for the kettle to boil, do some deep breathing exercises. If you’re waiting for the bus, make a mental list of good things that happened today. If you’re sitting on the sofa trying to recover from your day, pop an on-demand yoga class on instead (we happen to know some very good ones).
Whatever you choose to do with your extra time, it’s almost certainly going to be better for your brain than mindlessly scrolling through social media - and get you one step closer to another moment of zen in your day.
Feeling relaxed?
We hope so!
There’s no avoiding the fact we have busy, hectic, pressure-filled lives - but armed with little changes, you can bring moments of zen into even the most stressful of days.
And we wouldn’t be good yogis if we didn’t mention one last thing… Yoga’s pretty good at busting the stress and bringing the zen! Whether you join an in-person yoga class in our London studio or practice a quick daily flow in our online yoga membership, we hope to see you flowing full of zen soon!