Help Clients Slow Down and Practice Mindfulness

As the year winds down and the days get shorter, it is the perfect time to slow down and practice mindfulness. Despite the natural energy to turn inward in December, many clients become even more busy with holiday shopping and festive meals.

Although 2020 may be a different sort of holiday season, there can still be a sense of busyness that takes clients away from the true energy of the season.

Meditation and mindfulness practices have been found to reduce stress and support immune function. Practicing mindfulness can also help improve sleep quality, which can in turn improve overall physical and mental wellbeing.

You can help your clients counteract the busyness of the holidays by helping them slow down and practice mindfulness.

Assign a mindful eating plan

If your clients feel like a restrictive diet plan won’t work for them during the holiday season, you can assign them a plan that will simply help them be conscious of their food choices.

Clean Eating Challenge – this plan focuses on whole and fresh fruits and vegetables, lean protein, and healthy fat. It has recipes but doesn’t prescribe a strict menu plan so that clients can make their own choices within the plan.

Food Diary – typically, this option can be used to evaluate how clients are eating before you assign them a nutrition plan. Clients can use this option to simply keep track of what they’re eating so they are more aware of their choices.

Have clients use the meditation timer

Your clients can use the meditation timer built right into the MBODY360 app to track their mindfulness sessions.

If your clients are new to meditation, or haven’t practiced in a while, you can have them start with a 5-minute per day practice. For the more experienced meditators, you can recommend that they sit for 20 minutes or more each day.

Have them tell you how they are feeling

When your clients learn how to become aware of how they feel – in their bodies and in their minds – they gain a powerful tool for relaxation and insight, not to mention addressing real physical symptoms.

Have clients use the Conditions tracking to tell you how they are feeling. Conditions is a combination of physical, mental and mood-related states that we all feel sometimes.

Create meditation reminders

When you assign plans, you can also customize the automated reminders within each plan —- or add new ones.

If you are assigning a particular plan to your clients as part of their mindfulness program, you can add in short, automated reminders that will pop up each day to nudge them to be mindful.

For example, you might remind them to meditate; breathe deeply for one minute; pause before eating their meal; walk mindfully; or wash the dishes without distractions.

Add a meditation video

Your MBODY360 practitioner portal will allow you to upload a YouTube or Vimeo link to your video content so that your clients can see them within their app.

Your video does not need to be elaborate. You can simply record a short guided meditation using your smartphone, upload it to your platform of choice, and add a link to it inside the plan.

Have clients journal in MBODY360

You can encourage your clients to journal using the notes feature in the MBODY360 app. Or maybe pose a question for them to meditate on and journal about. You will get better insights about how your clients are progressing when they write more notes about their progress. You can also offer them more support if specific issues show up in their journal entries.

Prep for a healthier new year

With a few simple mindfulness practices during the holiday season, your clients can start working on their 2021 health goals before the new year starts.

When they find that they have more peace and joy going through your program, they will be likely to stick with their new habits — and work with you in your New Year’s offerings.