Stress Less by Meditating on a Raisin

This has since become one of my ‘Less Stress in an Instant’ techniques ever since.

Then, recently, I found this article on a study by Professor Mark Williams from the University of Oxford. The technique he is describing is called MINDFULLNESS MEDITATION.

This is what he had to say on the ABC’s Health Report about focusing one’s attention on a raisin: 

 “Indeed, the first meditation we do is eating a single raisin and the purpose of that is partly to dispel any myths about meditation, meditation isn’t an esoteric thing it’s simply doing things but knowing you’re doing them as you’re doing them. And it turns out that if you eat one single raisin but do it mindfully, taking five minutes to do it, you look at it and you smell it, people suddenly get the realisation ‘oh my gosh, I don’t usually taste raisins, I just shove them into my mouth without really noticing what they taste like’. And that discovery that they are on automatic pilot much of the time is, for many people, a big turning point.”

Try it yourself today. Take a 5 minute break and get involved with a grape or a raisin. …don’t be shy. By practicing techniques like this one you steadily start to increase your ability to focus and to widen your awareness. You start to relax by becoming a 100% present in that moment. For a while you loose all sense of time and place and self. Those moments are Mini Breaks for your brain. The more Mini Breaks you can take the more rejuvenated you will feel, the more creative and productive you will be.

With my best wishes for your success,

Christiane Pohl