31 Day Mindfulness Challenge
[DISCLAIMER: All rights and credits belong to EmbracingMindfulness.com, this is their product. I’m just changing its
format from a pack of cards to a digital document for Hamza’s Cult to make it more accessible to the people who
deserve to see it the most. Please don’t kill me.]
How to –
Mindfulness is not complicated of difficult – the real challenge is to actually train your brain to think differently.
The idea behind “A month of mindfulness” is to find a few minutes every day within a month to practice
mindfulness. The tasks have been developed with a leading healthcare professional in the UK to have a positive
influence on your mental health. The exercises to be easily carried out even on your busiest days. Most of them can
be done anywhere, anytime, often without other people even noticing.
If you complete an exercise every day for a month, you should develop a more mindful attitude towards life and it
will help you reduce stress, be more confident and to be happier in general.
Now your challenge begins, complete one task per day from now on.
[Any additions I have made to the original text will be in italics.]
1) Watch a Sunset or Sunrise
Either today or tomorrow, take the time to watch a sunset or sunrise.
There are few things more present than the feeling of watching a day start or end. Aside from its natural beauty, the
sunset is also a great reminder that each and every day offers us a new end and a new beginning.
Peacefully enjoy the vibrant colours and spirit of the sun and leave your to-do lists and worries out of the moment.
[I love this one, I believe sunrises are more positive in nature than a sunset, as a sunrise signifies the birth of
something new. However, it can be hard to get a good point of view for a sunset/rise. If this is the case for you, an
alternative is to look at the stars or the Moon. Try to imagine how far away these celestial bodies are, or spend some
time learning how to spot the constellations or identify the seas or oceans of our Moon. For me, contemplating the
incredible size of the known universe makes my worries and problems look very small and much easier to deal with]
2) Mindful breathing
This exercise can be done anywhere, at any time. All you have to do is focus on your breathing for just one minute.
Start by breathing in slowly through your nose and out slowly through your mouth. One cycle should take around six
seconds.
Let go of your worries, to-do-list and all your thoughts for a minute. Simply be still.
Watch you breathing purposefully, focus your senses on its pathway and how it flows through your body.
[This is a good introduction to meditation, which I would highly recommend you try in addition to this challenge. Try
using the free Medito app. When I’m caught in a moment of anxiety, I often find that even a single deep breath can
suppress 90% of those feelings for a few moments, buying me time to organise my thoughts coherently.]
31 Day Mindfulness Challenge
3) Mindful nature observation
This exercise is as simple as it is powerful. It is designed to connect us with the beauty of the natural environment.
Choose a natural object, a flower, insect, tree – anything.
Now relax and explore this object like you’ve never seen it before. Visually explore every aspect of it and connect
with the object and its role in the natural world for as long as your concentration allows.
Do this exercise twice today.
[I prefer to choose plantlife for this, as it allows me to feel its textures. Plants may also have a pleasant smell. If you
choose a large tree, consider how old it is, and how much longer it could live for. Consider its role in the ecosystem.]
4) Mindful awareness
This exercise is designed to give you a better sense of awareness and appreciation for simple daily tasks and the
results the achieve.
First think of something you do every day more than once, that you take for granted. E.g. unlocking a door. Stop for a
moment as you put the key into the lock, feel the mechanism at work and how your body and the lock work
together.
Notice how you feel in that moment when you first prise open the door and how you feel about where the door will
lead you.
5) Mindful listening
This exercise is designed to open your ears to sounds in a non-judgemental way. Most of what we hear is influenced
by our past experiences but with mindful listening we can achieve a neutral, present awareness.
Choose a piece of music you have never heard before. Close your eyes and put your headphones on. Do not judge
the music my its genre, artist or title. Let go and let the music take you on a journey.
The idea is simple to listen without preconception of the lyrics or instrumentation.
Find a quiet space and listen to a new song today.
6) Mindful immersion
The purpose of this exercise is to cultivate contentment in the moment and escape the struggles we find ourselves in
every day.
Pick a mundane chore, try treating it as a completely new activity. E.g. doing the dishes. Notice how the water flows
into the sink, how the dishsoap dissolves in the water. How moving your hands in the water creates bubbles and
how these feel on your skin.
The idea is to get creative and discover new experiences with a familiar task.
31 Day Mindfulness Challenge
7) Mindful appreciation
Choose five things in your day that usually go unappreciated. These things can be objects or even people.
The point is to give thanks and appreciate the seemingly insignificant things in life. The things that support our life
but rarely get a second thought.
e.g., the electricity that powers your fridge, the postman who delivers your mail. Ask yourself:
How do these things work? How do they benefit me? Have you ever noticed the finer details of these items?
Have you ever thought about the relationship of these things and how they play and interconnected role in the
functioning of the Earth?
[This is also the start of gratitude journaling, which is simply involves committing these thoughts to paper. I strongly
suggest you continue this practice every single day; it only takes a few minutes. Try to think of new things every
time.]
8) Mindful tactile exercise
Pinch your arm and pay close attention to how it feels and what your emotions start to do. Pay attention to the pain
it causes, and how it radiates out and flows through your body.
This exercise can really tune you in to how your body deals with discomfort and the emotions that arise. Do you get
angry, annoyed or frustrated when you feel pain?
Do this exercise several times until you feel you appreciate and understand the sensation and how your body and
mind deal with it.
9) Silent walking exercise
At some point today, take ten minutes or longer to walk silently. You can do this indoors or outdoors.
Remain silent throughout the entire walk to hear what your mind produces.
As your attention is drawn to particular objects or sounds in your environment, to your thoughts and feelings, to
bodily sensations, call them out by saying them three times. E.g. when a car passes, say to yourself “car, car, car.” Do
the same when you feel stress arise.
10) Mindful waiting
An time you find yourself waiting today – in line at the shops, waiting for someone who’s late, waiting for something
to load on your phone or PC – take the chance to practice mindfulness, meditation, gratitude or prayer.
“What if you were to practice being on the lookout for moments of waiting in the day? In those moments, instead of
grabbing something to fill the space, you recognised it as an opportunity to be okay with just waiting.” – Elisha
Goldstein of mindfulness.org
Today, be happy to wait.
31 Day Mindfulness Challenge
11) Mindful tasting exercise
Taste something with a strong flavour such as coffee or a tangerine. Pay close attention to what happens in your
mouth, then the feelings that taste evokes.
Try to appreciate how the object tastes and how that object makes you feel. Breathe in deep without thinking of
anything else but that object and the feelings it provokes.
Try this a couple of times until you have fully understood and appreciated every aspect and emotion of the taste.
[As a bonus, if your diet is lacking in healthy fruit or vegetables, use those foods in the exercise to attempt to explore
why you don’t eat more healthily, or why you dislike these foods. This could form a small step in the beginning of a
better diet. You could also try fasting prior to the exercise, to amplify the sensations of eating/tasting.]
12) Mindful melting exercise
This is a simple one you can do anywhere with a little privacy.
Sit, relax and imagine yourself melting into everything around you. With practice, you may begin to feel at one with
your surroundings.
Try this a few times today as it may take a while to master. Make sure you clear your mind while attempting this
exercise, purely relax and melt away.
13) Full sensory awareness exercise
This one you do now, right now.
Wherever you are, just stop and look around (when safe to do so), and become aware of everything that you senses
pick up.
How to you feel? Are you happy? Excited? Over-stimulated? Anxious?
Take a moment and appreciate where you are and what is happening, along with how you are actually feeling in this
very moment.
14) Mindful hand awareness exercise
Grasp your hands really tight and hold for 5 to 10 seconds, then release and pay attention to how your hands feel.
Keep your attention focused on the feeling for as long as you can.
Do this exercise several times throughout the day until you feel you appreciate and understand how it feels and how
your body and mind deal with it.
15) Notice “I” exercise
Today, for the whole day, become aware of every time you use the word “I” in a sentence. This forces us to focus on
how self-centred we all are.
It could be quite a shock to realise just how man times you use “I”. you can also keep count, it may be surprising.
31 Day Mindfulness Challenge
16) Cause and effect exercise
Choose an appropriate amount of time, an hour perhaps. For that time contemplate cause and effect for everything
that you do. It sounds simple, but you will be surprised how many actions you perform in an hour.
e.g., you want to write something. Picking up a pen will cause the ink to flow to the bottom and then in turn
scratching it on paper will leave a coloured trail of ink on the page.
17) The mindful movie exercise
Next time you watch a film or documentary try and observe how you become engrossed in the story. Take mental
notes of emotions throughout the film and how the change.
Observe how your posture changes throughout the film. Do you tense up at exciting moments?
Try not to eat or drink during the film; give it your full attention.
18) Candle staring exercise
Find or buy a nice candle. Wait until dark, and when you have time to yourself.
Switch off the lights and just stare at the candle flame for ten minutes straight while studying everything you can
about it. When your mind wanders, become aware of where it’s going, then bring it back to the candle flame.
[This is similar to meditation, except your main focus is on the flame, rather than your breathing. If you cannot find or
buy a candle, you may be able to find videos of candles or campfires on YouTube, such as this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZr_kMdRSLE ]
19) Mindful love note
The next time you are alone, take out your phone and record a spoken love letter to yourself. Say out loud
everything that you love about yourself: your ambitions, purpose, strengths, kindness, inspiration to others, etc.
Then listen to it! Listen to it several times over the next week.
After a while you will notice something incredible. We mainly seek praise, acceptance and confirmation from
external sources. What if we could hear from ourselves how awesome we are?
It may just help change the way you think about yourself.
20) Challenge your beliefs
Take a belief you’ve held for along time and pretend you believe in the exact opposite for a few minutes. Notice how
you feel when you do this. The belief you choose can be related to religion, politics, gender, medicine, or just life in
general. The stronger your belief, the more effective this exercise will be.
e.g., you believe in God, now pretend you are Atheist. Or, you are pro-vax, now pretend you are anti-vax.
How does it make you feel to fight the other corner? There are no right or wrong answers here, we simply want to
try and understand where the people who’s beliefs oppose your own are coming from. You can learn a lot about
yourself and people around you from this simple exercise.
31 Day Mindfulness Challenge
21) Change your language
Today and ideally from this moment on: take notice of your language. Think of the words you use as though they are
food – you want to feed your subconscious healthy words.
e.g., if you tell a child “Don’t miss the bus”, they think that missing the bus is bad, and their subconscious registers it
as negative. But if you say instead “Hey, let’s be early for the bus today”, it registers as a positive thought.
Try to swap out your negative words (can’t, don’t, shouldn’t, etc) with positive alternatives.
Start feeding your mind positive words, and your emotions, actions and outcomes will follow suit.
22) Mindful olfactory exercise
Smell something strong like coffee beans or perfume, pay close attention to what happens in your nose, and what
feelings these evoke.
Does the smell of coffee in the morning lift your mood, or make you feel more awake? Does the smell of someone’s
perfume or aftershave make you feel safe or loved or excited?
Really try and appreciate how the object smells and how that makes you feel. Breathe it in deep, without thinking of
anything else but that object and the feelings the accompany it.
Try this a couple of times until you fully understand and appreciate every aspect and emotion of that smell.
23) Mindful gratitude
Today, get in contact with someone who has made a positive impact on your life and thank them.
This message of appreciation can be sent in any form: email, text, phone call, or in person. It can be seen to an old
friend, teacher, family member, anyone you think deserves a little bit of gratitude.
It doesn’t have to be a long or emotional message. Just a simple thank you and the reasons behind your gratitude.
You’d be surprised how much this small message can mean to the person receiving it.
“Feeling gratitude and not expression it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward.
24) Secret virtue
Today, do something nice for someone else, but do it anonymously. This act can be very simple, like washing
someone else’s dishes that were left in the sink, leaking a chocolate bar on a co-worker’s desk, or paying for a future
customer’s coffee before walking out of a coffee shop.
Although this exercise is designed to bring joy to other’s days, you might notice that your day becomes much more
peaceful and at the same time, invigorating.
Pay close attention to the little voice in your head that pushes you to tell others about your good deed. These
thoughts are normal and natural but make a conscious effort to let it go.
31 Day Mindfulness Challenge
25) The M&M game
Today buy a pack of M&Ms or similarly coloured sweets.
Then tonight when you have a chance to be lone, start to enjoy them whilst doing the following:
For every red one say 1 thing that makes you happy.
For every blue, 1 thing that makes you sad.
For every green, 1 thing that makes you angry.
For every yellow, 1 that makes you excited.
For every brown, 1 poor choice you made today and what you could do differently.
For every orange, 1 good choice you made today.
26) Mindful brushing
Some things we do so often that we almost don’t notice them anymore.
Brushing your teeth for example is usually performed automatically, while the mind skips off to other plans, worries
or regrets.
Instead, try to focus and really experience it. Notice how the brush moves over your teeth and the taste of your
toothpaste. Slow the process down and really try and notice every sensation that occurs.
Today, brush your teeth mindfully, you might be surprised by what you notice.
27) Mindful shadowboxing
For hundreds of years martial artists and boxers have used shadowboxing to home their technique and prepare for
combat. However, you don’t have to be a fighter to box your own shadow.
Take 10 minutes out of your day to fight your shadow, make sure to keep your breathing steady and focus purely on
fighting your shadow. Feel the movement in your arms and legs when you punch or kick. Feel the power and
pressure within your body.
Paired with simple footwork and steady breathing, shadowboxing becomes an excellent vehicle for mindful exercise.
28) Just one breath
At any time today, take a moment to focus on one breath, breathe in, then breathe out.
Focus your attention on how this feels, where you notice the air moving, how your chest and abdomen move. Try it
now.
You’re not looking for a revelation from this experience; think of it more like a little mental push-up for the mind.
That’s it, but if you want to, do it a few times during the day.
31 Day Mindfulness Challenge
29) Experience nature
Find a park or green space of some kind. As you stank, sit or walk, try to become more aware of the nature around
you.
See the different type of leaves, hear the bird calls, the wind and the distant rumble of traffic, sense the air moving
over your skin and the sun heating your face.
After a few moments, your mind may try to wander where it will. Gently nudge your attention back to nature and
your surroundings.
Make sure your mind stays focussed on the present moment.
30) Create a touch point
Brainstorm a touch point, something you touch pretty frequently. E.g., your watch, glasses, shoes, etc.
Every time you touch that object, stop what you are doing and notice your surroundings.
We use this object to force ourselves to pause and live in that particular moment, even just for a few seconds each
time.
Choose your object and do this throughout the day.
31) The good posture challenge
All day today, try to bring your awareness to your posture. Whether you are sitting, laid down or standing, bring all
your attention to your body.
This technique has an immediate grounding effect and restores our mindfulness. The goal is to be aware of the
sensations that the body is feeling right at that moment.
Whether your body feels the pressure of the chair you sit on, the ground under your feet, or a slight breeze on your
arms. Simple scan your body up and down and notice whatever sensations are present.
You only have to do this for a minute or two, then return your attention to whatever task you were doing. The aim is
to try and remember to observe your posture and its sensations as often as you can throughout the day.
[And that brings us to the end of the month, I hope this 31-day challenge added value to your life in some way. Thank
you for taking the time to read this document. – Connor]