You have not had coffee yet. It is already buzzing in your phone. Before you get your feet on the floor your brain is writing list seventeen of the things you need to do. Sound familiar? Suppose that the medicine to get you out of morning anxiety was already a formula in your bathroom? The ritual recommended by therapists and mindfulness educators that is getting therapists, coaches, and clients all buzzing about involves shower meditation, which is completely free and requires zero equipment. Your best relaxing time of the day is already there.
Shower Meditation?
Yes, that is what it means by its word. Rather than mentally rehearsing your stuttering dialogues of 2019 in an overheated shower, you go to purposefully mind your shower. None of the apps, none of the cushions, none of the incense you need are at all needed because you and real presence itself and warm water and five very intentional minutes are all that is needed.
Anxiety Explained
In a natural morning rise in cortisol, there is a surge in cortisol in the first 30 minutes after waking up – the old fashioned alarm clock of your body taking charge. To nervous spirits, this is complete panic before break of day. The meditation of the naughty shower breaks that loop before its too late, and before the day begins to demand all the stuff it insists on.
Science Says Yes
The warm water stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system or the one that is in charge of rest, calm and digestion. Take that physical reaction and mix it with purposeful breathing and concentration on senses and you have a research-based anxiety treatment right there under your nose each and every morning of the year it is right before your very eyes.
Just Breathe First
Breath in, shut your eyes, and breathe three deep breaths slowly and straight to your belly before picking up the shampoo. Breathe in four, breath out four and six respectively. This is a very simple box-breathing method, which sends signals to your brain to turn off your anxiety engine, before your brain begins to race at an unsafe rate.
Set One Intention
When you are running under the water pick one word that describes your day, calm, focused, kind or brave. Say it aloud three times, as a mantra to oneself. Such a small ceremony switches the psycho-emotional clamor of fear and stunned silence with a mandatory, purposeful emotional anchor that actually wave you all day into the morning.
Skip the Phone
The largest sabotage of shower meditation is the phone lying on the bathroom counter. Reviewing notifications prior to your practice filling your brain with cortisol before even your warm water has the time to aid. Keep it in the face-down outside the bathroom, your emails will not die without you in five more minutes
Two Weeks Promise
As with any other habit of mindfulness, shower meditation develops its strength with time through repetition. Devote two weeks of purposeful morning showers and amongst the majority of practitioners there is a significant reduction in baseline anxiety, increased mental acuity and a less agitated emotional reaction to daily stress even prior to the coffee being added into the pot.
Start Tomorrow Morning
No special equipment, no alarm setting, no costly subscription of any kind. All you need to do is get in your shower five minutes earlier the next day, take a deep breath, experience the water, establish your goal of the day and get out of the shower colder than you went into it. The wellness studio has now become your powerful bathroom.
