Creative Mindfulness Exercises for Groups

This blog presents creative mindfulness exercises for groups. Mindfulness is referred to as the process by which an individual focuses on the present moment rather than living in the past or the future.

Mindfulness has various proven benefits.

This blog aims to provide you with some of the most effective and creative mindfulness exercises for groups but before we move on to these activities, let’s have an overview of the benefits of mindfulness.

Benefits of Mindfulness

There are a number of benefits of practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness benefits individuals in almost every field of their life.

It helps them focus on things that aid in being less stressed out. Mindfulness makes you feel calm and relaxed.

It increases the level of patience and tolerance in you. It increases your ability to handle things properly.

Empirical evidence has shown that mindfulness has a big role in improving mental health too.

Mindfulness is found to reduce the effects of bullying (Zhou, Liu, Niu, Sun, & Fan, 2016), increase the level of attention in children having ADHD (Zhang et al., 2016), cure attention problems (Crescentini, Capurso, Furlan, & Fabbro, 2016), promotes overall well being and enhance social as well as communication skills.

Mindfulness increases self-awareness, self-compassion, and other positive attributes in individuals.

Therefore it is suggested to practice mindfulness on a daily basis.

Creative Mindfulness Exercises for Groups

The following are some of the most effective and creative mindfulness exercises for groups.

These exercises are very interesting, simple, and easy.

Select your favorite one and start practicing it to increase your level of mindfulness, so you could benefit from the positive outcomes of practicing mindfulness.

Rinse and Repeat 

Rinse and repeat is a very creative and effective mindfulness exercise.

Often we forget what the other person talking to us said because we were not involved in active listening and were focusing on something else.

Rinse and repeat exercise is a very good exercise that helps you to stay in the moment and focus on what other person is saying. 

For this activity, all you have to do is to repeat the last name what the other person says to you why you are conversating with.

For example, if somebody says to you, ” I am thirsty, could you please pass that glass of water to me?”, you can say to him back, “You want me to pass you that glass of water?”

This helps you stay in the moment and be aware of what the other person is telling you.

It also confirms that you have understood what the other person has said to you.

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Coloring Book Party!

Colouring is a very interesting and fun activity which is not confined to age.

Everybody from kids to elders can do coloring there is a sense of enjoyment or increasing mindfulness.

Colouring books help individuals focus on one thing and increase mindfulness. Colouring books come in a variety from easy to difficult.

You can select any kind of coloring book you want to fill colors in. 

Note that this game is not an art competition, it is just for increasing mindfulness.

The purpose of playing this game is to focus on a task and let go of the habitable mind that leads to stress and overthinking.

This game does not support judgments or criticism, it’s just a fun game that teaches you how to focus on a thing and helps in increasing mindfulness.

Balloon Play

Balloon play and other fun is a mindfulness exercise for groups.

This exercise is very interesting and you would enjoy playing it in groups with your family members, friends or relatives.

For this activity, you need a couple of balloons and some participants to play this game. 

For play with balloons game, you have to blow all the balloons.

Then you have to throw them in the air and keep hitting them to prevent them from touching the ground.

All the participants have to work together and be mindful of the balloons.

This activity is an effective source of increasing mindfulness as noticing balloons and not letting them touch the ground requires focus and concentration which automatically brings you at the moment.

Listening Exercises in Pairs 

Listening exercise in pairs is another interesting and creative exercise for increasing mindfulness.

This activity is very effective and is better played in pairs.

This activity is very easy because often when we are sitting or wandering something our ears listen to what other people are saying either intentionally or unintentionally. 

For this activity, you have to arrange yourself in the form of pairs.

One partner will be given the task of talking while the other partner will be given the task of listening.

The one who is given the task of talking will keep talking something meaning and true, while the other partner will concentrate on what this person is saying. Do this for some minutes.

This activity is very good for enhancing mindful listening as well as mindful speaking skills. 

It is better to invite unknown people for playing this activity.

This would help promote relations with unknown people and foster connection and community.

This exercise is very effective for increasing mindfulness. Make sure that both the partners get a turn to act as a listener and as a speaker.

Six Sense-doors

The six sense doors activity is derived from the teachings of Buddha. Buddhists emphasized that individuals experience the world through six gateways.

Every moment of an individual’s life gives an experience that comes from awareness through his six senses including the sense of hearing, the sense of seeing, the sense of smell, the sense of taste, the sense of touch, and the mind.

We are already familiar with the five senses but what is the sense of mind?

The sense of mind relates to all the thoughts emotions and mental imagery of an individual. 

The six sense doors activity it’s a very interesting and effective activity in which participants are asked to arrange themselves in the form of a circle.

Then, turn by turn, every participant has to speak out loud what he is thinking, feeling, hearing, and seeing in the current situation.

For example: ” right now I can hear the sound of the clock ticking”. 

After each participant has noted what is happening in the present moment, for the next round of this activity, the participants have to name one of the six senses doors: seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, feeling, or thinking. This can be started by saying, “I can hear my stomach growling… Smelling”.

Then, the next person has to observe something he is smelling, and at the end of a sentence, he has to mention another sense door for the next participant to observe.

This will ensure that the participants do not pre-plan what they have to say on their turn. 

This activity is a very interesting and fun activity for practicing mindfulness.

It is possible that the participants get distracted during this activity, but as soon as they find they have distracted, they need to focus on the present moment and concentrate on the activity.

You should also try the DBT mindfulness exercises.

Recommended Amazon Tools and Books

The following is a list of some recommended Amazon tools and books which can help you increase your knowledge about mindfulness and explore activities that would help you in enhancing your mindfulness.

Click your favorite book and you will be redirected to the page from where you can access it.

• The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, and … (A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook) Part of: New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook (73 Books)  | by Matthew McKay, Jeffrey C. Wood, et al.
• The Mindfulness Toolbox: 50 Practical Tips, Tools & Handouts for Anxiety, Depression, Stress & Pain by Donald Altman Ma LPC
• Practicing Mindfulness: 75 Essential Meditations for Finding Peace in the Everyday by Matthew Sokolov, Daniel Henning, et al.
• Mindfulness for Teens in 10 Minutes a Day: Exercises to Feel Calm, Stay Focused & Be Your Best Self by Jennie Marie Battistin MA LMFT | Sep 24, 2019
• Self-Regulation and Mindfulness: Over 82 Exercises & Worksheets for Sensory Processing Disorder, ADHD, & Autism Spectrum Disorder by Varleisha Gibbs, Camille Thurmond, et al.

What are some examples of mindfulness?

Some examples of mindfulness include paying attention to a thing, living in the moment intentionally, accepting oneself, and focusing on one’s own breathing patterns.

Does mindful eating work?

According to a study, published in the journal Nutrition Research Reviews, mindful eating interventions were the most effective in treating binge eating, emotional eating, and eating in response to external cues. 

How quickly does mindfulness work?

The effectiveness of mindfulness depends upon an individual’s expectations with mindfulness exercises.

If an individual expects mindfulness to give instant results, he might get restricted earlier.

Empirical evidence has proved that consistent mindfulness practice produces positive outcomes in just 8 weeks.

Note that experiencing positive outcomes does not mean that the illness has disappeared.

What are some mindfulness activities?

Some of the most effective mindfulness activities include yawning and stretching for ten seconds after every hour, taking three big breaths, stroking hands, eating mindfully, clenching fists to breathe in fingers, breathing mindfully for a minute and practicing loving-kindness meditation.

What are the three components of mindfulness?

The three components of mindfulness include attention, intention, and attitude. 

What are the benefits of mindful eating?

These are a number of benefits for eating mindfully.

Mindful eating reduces stress, increases enjoyment, makes the process of digestion easier, reduces calories, reduces weight, prevents and treats binge eating, controls food without letting food control you, and enables you to enjoy the moment.

This blog aimed to provide you various creative mindfulness exercises for groups.

These activities are very effective in enhancing mindfulness. Other than increasing mindfulness these exercises help Foster community and connection, it helps develop active listening and speaking skills.

If you have any queries or questions regarding this blog, let us know through your comments.

We will be glad to assist you in this regard.

References 

25 Mindfulness Activities for children and Teens by Courtney E. Ackerman (2020)

7 Creative Mindfulness Exercises: Play your Way Sane

9 Mindfulness Group Activities for Adults – Happier Human

Fun Mindfulness exercises for groups by Janette (2017)

Amazon.com 

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