5 reasons you should practise mindfulness

Ahead of her IMAGE How To: Avoid Burnout session, health and wellbeing coach Elizabeth Whelan reveals the five reasons we should all be practicing mindfulness. 

After decades working in the beauty industry, Elizabeth Whelan was running on empty.

The founder of Zestivo, a wellness space for life and business coaching through mindfulness, meditation and manifestation, previously worked as a make-up artist and salon trainer across pharmacies in Ireland and the UK.

After working herself to a place where she was constantly stressed out, Elizabeth decided it was time to reset her goals.

Owner of health and wellbeing company Zestivo, Elizabeth Whelan will share her mindfulness tips at a live IMAGE How To event on January 22. Photo: Supplied

“I was very stressed out with my job, travelling around the world looking after pharmacies and stores, hosting retail and salon training, product launches, events, and with no PR company behind me. I was really woking on burnout,” she tells image.ie.

“I wasn’t mindful. My life choices brought me to a stage in my life where I said I have to become more mindful of myself, my needs, my mind, my body, how I am within myself, and how I react to the world outside of myself.”

Having studied holistic therapy since she was in her teens, Elizabeth slowly began to pull away from the corporate word over the last few years, and make the transition into coaching full-time.

After setting up Zestivo in 2014, she says mindfulness allowed her to take the plunge, and gave her life a new sense of calm. “Before, I could be reactive if something happened, like any other person. And I’m not saying that still doesn’t happen – but I have less of those occasions,” says Elizabeth.

Click here for tickets to IMAGE How To: Avoid Burnout with Elizabeth Whelan 

Ahead of her IMAGE How To: Avoid Burnout at The Westbury Hotel on Wednesday, January 22, Elizabeth shares the top five reasons we should all be practicing mindfulness in order to achieve our goals.

1. Live in the moment

Mindfulness is bringing you into this moment, and it’s allowing you to really tune in to who you are as an individual. We have our outside influencers – our stressors – and we have our thoughts, emotions and actions inside ourselves. Most people are living outside of their own personal awareness, so when we become mindful, we tune into ourselves, our own energies, our thoughts and our emotions.

2. Dealing with stress

If you are feeling stressed out and you start becoming mindful of yourself, aware of your body, aware of your breath, breathing now in this moment, you are dealing with stress in the moment.

3. Makes you calmer

Mindfulness makes you a calmer person because you become proactive, rather than reactive. Outside stressors will always be there, but when you become mindful of your reaction to something that’s happening, you have a choice. You ask yourself ‘do I accept what’s happening in a calm manner, or do I react?’

4. A better night’s sleep

Our bodies are like computers, they need to go into hibernation mode, or have some alone time. I start with health and fitness, because that drives everything in your life. If you are not healthy in your mind and body you cannot function in any other areas in your life. It’s up to us to make choices to move forward in our life. Ask yourself what are your needs in this moment?

5. Reset your goals

We can focus on goals any time of the year – not just in January. When you become more mindful you set better goals for yourself. You are mindful of the food you’re eating, the water you’re drinking, and you ask yourself  ‘why am I feeling tired, why am I feeling lethargic, am I hydrated, am I fuelling my body with the right foods?’ I take a holistic approach with mindfulness through life contouring. This brings that fulfilment that we all want from life.

Elizabeth Whelan says taking a holistic approach to mindfulness will fulfil your goals. Photo: Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

What you can expect from IMAGE How To: Avoid Burnout with Elizabeth Whelan

When: Wednesday January 22 at 6.30pm

Where: The Westbury Hotel in Dublin

Key topics on the night:

• Learn how to enhance your productivity while decreasing stress.
• Identify tools and techniques to help you achieve your personal and career goals.
• Gain a better understanding of your relationship with stress and learn how to deal with it in your daily life.
• Level up your brain function by integrating mindfulness, meditation and manifestation.

In conversation with IMAGE group contributing editor Melanie Morris, Elizabeth will provide you with the tools and techniques to reset your goals, and accomplish them. Through Elizabeth’s three-phase process of mindfulness, meditation and manifestation, she’ll provide an in-depth session on mindfulness, goal setting, life coaching and career coaching.

Guests will have the opportunity to ask Elizabeth questions, after they’ve enjoyed bubbles and canapés on arrival. For more information on this IMAGE How To event and to buy tickets click here.

For more tips on how to decrease stress and enhance your productivity, as well as identify tools and techniques to help you achieve your personal and career goals, join health and wellbeing expert Elizabeth Whelan for IMAGE’s How To: Avoid Burnout event on January 22 where she’ll outline how to deal with stress in your daily life and share tips and advice on mindfulness, meditation and manifestation. 

Main photo: Getty Images