I’ve heard from many of my friends and colleagues lately, and it has been my own experience too, that being present, and staying focused through the day has been a challenge. ‘Attention span of a gnat’, from the words of one friend. Like a going-around-in-circles feeling, or butting my head into the wall, not making any progress through the day. Maybe this is a response to anxiety and intense emotion - it is challenging to sit with intense emotion, and we are currently living through an intense time.

My belief is that we needn’t feel like we ‘should’ be productive, or indeed ‘should’ be any way at the moment, rather to allow as much as possible for a range of feelings and experiences to surface over this extraordinary time (anyone having strange, vivid dreams at the moment?), and seek help where it’s needed (please see below for resources). 

And some days, our best is to have gotten out of bed, gotten dressed, keeping our self and those we care for going, and that’s ok.

There are a few things that we can do at the beginning of the day, if we have the time, and desire, which I feel make the difference. The difference between feeling like I'm floating away like a helium balloon in the vast open sky vs feeling the solidity of my feet on the ground, and awareness enough throughout my day to breathe, and allow my breath to soften my body. The resulting feeling might also be like i’m ‘plugged in’, in-flow; connected to source. These practices feel to me like the best start to my day.


Silence 

As soon as possible to waking, preferably before checking phone and before making any plans, taking some time to sit in quietness. This could be a meditation practice, but it could also be sitting with a cup of tea or sitting or lying on the ground in a comfortable way, just to be. I like to feel it as attuning to quietness at the start of the day, like tuning in to a radio station : your body, mind, whole being can soak up the relative quietness at the beginning of the day, and bathe in it for a few moments before the busyness of the day catches up. Many scientific studies show that, amongst other benefits, short periods of silence help us to: create new brain cells, improve our empathy, feel lower stress and as such boost the body’s immune system See this article for details of research into benefits of silence.

Practice - a few minutes of meditation, guided, for example this meditation by Tara Brach, or sitting down with a cup of tea, without the distraction of your phone or planning, at the start of the day, to bathe in silence.


Movement

Whatever it is - allow any movement that takes your fancy to ease you into your day- anything that gets you moving and grooving and connecting with your own rhythm is so helpful. For example, on a walk…. this might be another opportunity also to connect with silence. It might be dancing to tunes you love, or rolling around on the floor, yoga or a workout.

It might feel like, gently, easing into it, not feeling like it at all. Perhaps you have arrived frozen into your day, with a sense of numbness and not feeling inspired. If this is the feeling, how would it be just to move a bit, to follow an instinct to reach long, or gather in, and notice how your breath moves through you, as you move?

Maybe this little bit of movement takes you further and further, until you are feeling an impulse to move more, and a desire to roll on the floor or even to follow your body into a gentle dance. Then maybe to a more vigorous dance, until then you are really feeling the flow from within and it’s taken you over. 

This is how it often feels to me. The motivation comes after the movement, rather than the other way around. So I start to move just a little bit, and see where that takes me.

My experience of movement is that it opens up a sense of space, like going from a feeling, sometimes, of inertia or being frozen or caged-in, and ruminating in my mind to the point of rigidity, to after some movement or exercise, feeling expansive, more fluid and adaptable in my experience, like solutions to problems present themselves and things feel lighter and I can see the humour in things. Regular exercise has been shown to boost memory, improve concentration, improve mental health, enhance creativity, slow cognitive decline. More detail here.

Practice - whatever floats your boat on a particular day, experiment : what is your experience of doing x activity at the start of the day, for your day ahead? You might even like to schedule it in the week before, in advance (where possible), to make a commitment to yourself. Here is a standing movement practice you might like to try.

Journalling / Writing

I have been working with the practice of ‘morning pages’ from Julia Cameron’s book ‘The Artist’s Way’ for a few years now. In it, Julia describes the practice, which is, basically, writing out three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing at the beginning of the day, before we have become distracted by too many things. In doing this, and committing to it daily, we may experience some resistance, or in other words, find every excuse to not do it. However, if we meet that resistance, and do it anyway, we are learning to tune in to an ‘inner flow’ of creativity - and trust that. Julia writes ‘do not call procrastination laziness. Call it fear’. In other words, we have become afraid at revealing our inner expression or creativity - did something happen, at some point earlier in life, where we learned we were ‘not good enough’? I feel this practice is amazing for learning to allow the inner flow of creativity, and feel less fear and resistance to that. A really fascinating and for me, grounding practice, that I highly recommend. 

Practice: Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages 

Feel free to pick and choose and experiment with any of the above, and see which work for you, in any order! Or to add your own! Maybe you do one, or all of them. Maybe one morning you do one, another you do all three.  

I feel there’s a benefit in deciding what time you would like to commit to each morning : what feels like a reasonable and kind time to wake up? Aim to get up at that time. Go to bed early enough to allow for this. And as soon as you start your day, get up, drink a glass of water, wash your face, brush your teeth (by this point, you won’t want to go back to bed!) and then roll on your practices! minimise the time between waking and starting with them.

With any practices that we take regularly, flexibility and kindness to ourselves is key, I feel. We might ask ourselves : how am I becoming through this practice? Ideally we would like the practices to support us and not become just another burden or thing to feel anxious about.

Keen to hear from you, what is your experience if you tried any of these? And do you already have any practices that you take at the start of your day, if so, what do they do for you?

Support and Resources 

Dr Scott Lyons (Clinical Pyschologist, Osteopath, Dance Movement therapist) 

Is sharing many useful tools and practices to support anxiety and intense emotions on his instagram and facebook pages:

 https://www.instagram.com/drscottlyons/

https://www.facebook.com/DrScottLyons/

Samaritans, UK - call free 116 123

NHS - Mental Wellbeing while staying at home

https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/coronavirus-covid-19-staying-at-home-tips/