6 new and easy ways
to calm the mind

74% of Indians reported stress to cope with the new normal, in wake of the pandemic. This shows the urgency to learn how to calm your mind. 

Wake up millennials! Let us not continue with stress as normal, especially when human nature is to be happy. Do you feel happiness is often just out of reach? No more! We can learn to calm our minds to be happy with ourselves and friendly with others. This will wean you from the complex turns and twists of your mind, in these uneasy times.

Good things come to those who wait. Good things take time to happen. For the impatient, here are six useful and easy ways to calm your mind.

1. Breathing correctly

Tell me, isn’t it easy to focus your mind on something you like? You will certainly answer “Yes, of course.” If you enjoy a web series, you will watch all the episodes in one go without being distracted. Isn’t it? But if you have to focus on something you dislike, you might have to make a little effort to overcome those distractions.

You can't directly calm your mind. But believe me, you can win overall distractions with the breath, just like that. Practice techniques of breath control to breathe correctly. Then your mind calms down on its own. 

Now the question is: How does the breath calm the mind? 

“The mind is like a kite, and the breath is like the string of the kite. Just like you control a kite with the string, same way with the breath you can start to have some control over your mind.” - Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Practice of Bhramari pranayama, Nadi shodhan pranayama and Bhastrika pranayama are effective ways to strengthen the mind-body coordination.

“Nadi Shodhan pranayama calms and centers the mind by bringing into harmony the left and right hemispheres of the brain which correlate to the logical and emotional sides of our personality.” - Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

2. Yoga

The time has come when you need to see yoga as a science. Yoga is based on behavioral and mental science, which means yoga works beyond the physical body. With the daily practice of yoga, all struggles in life can be easily handled with a calm mind. Some of the yoga asanas that can calm the mind include:

Hand to foot pose

Child’s pose

Warrior pose 1 

Cobra pose

Bridge pose

Legs up the wall pose

Shavasana 

Those who wish to be a yoga pro should visit Sri Sri School of Yoga for 200H Yoga Teacher Training. Here, multidimensional yoga education deepens your personal practice and you can teach yoga too. Make yoga an inseparable part of your daily life for peace and harmony.

3. Meditation

The five elements of our existence are earth, water, fire, air, and space. The sixth element of our existence is the mind. The mind is subtler than air. So the mind can also spread like air. Mind is the bio-energy, which radiates. When the mind is relaxed, the intellect becomes sharp. A calm mind is not docile; rather it is a source of creativity and dynamism. 

Meditation cleanses your mind of negative emotions which are the seeds of mental illness and depression. Click on Yoga Nidra guided meditation to calm the mind in a few minutes. 

4. Being in the present moment

Have you observed that, while you watch kids playing, time just flies by? The reason is that kids are always in the present moment. And when you watch the kids, you feel connected with them. Have you observed that, while clapping, you are enthusiastic? It is because your mind comes to the present moment. You are no longer regretting the past or worrying about the uncertain future. You also come to the present moment while listening to music, dancing, playing an instrument, taking a cold shower, being one with nature (watching the sunset or sunrise or gazing at the sky), etc. Practicing breathing techniques makes you experience the present moment more often.

Know more about your oscillating mind in this article - Know your mind.

5. Selfless Service

The shift from “What about me?” to “What can I do for you?” will take away all your restlessness. Your mind will get involved in a bigger cause. Helping others in their hour of need will bring peace of mind. Serving others without expectations removes all the ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ of life. When service is the ingrained quality of a society, depression and stress become negligible. Service is one of the key aspects of spirituality.

6. “Just let it be” 

If you resist a disturbing thought, it becomes a monster. Isn’t it? If you allow a thought to be as it is without analyzing much, it will just vanish!

When you are not aware of the tricks and the mumbo-jumbo going on in your mind, then life becomes stressful. The reason is that life revolves around the mind. When your mind takes you for a ride, thoughts like, "It should be like this” or “It should not be like this” come. Wisdom is to latch onto that unchanging energy of the Self. When you latch onto your higher Self, you are no longer under the bondage of your mind.

To experience this higher Self, learn Sudarshan Kriya, the world’s most powerful breathing technique at the Online Meditation and Breath Workshop.    

Finally

Make your mind a friend! A weak body can be carried by a strong mind, but a weak mind cannot carry a strong body. To be able to handle the demands of modern competitiveness, a calm mind is indispensable. That can come from practices that enhance self-awareness. When your mind is calm, it is like a laser beam. It is powerful and heals the body effectively.

You may be interested to know How to overcome Unwanted Thoughts? by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

 

FAQ's on Ways to Calm the Mind