Tag: mindfulness

Renew Your Mental Energy: Awaken Awareness and Purpose This January

Published on by Nikken

The first month of the year carries a special significance as a new beginning. It also serves as an invitation to pause, reset, and consciously choose how to move forward. While the new year is often associated with goals and resolutions, the most meaningful renewal begins with awareness—of your intentions and ikigai.

Mental energy is crucial to staying balanced, so it is important to replenish it throughout the day. Constant noise, the pressures of familial and financial responsibilities, as well as emotional overload can deplete mental energy. This January, why not consciously choose to reconnect with intention and purpose?

Renewing mental energy starts with awareness. What replenishes vs. drains you? When do you feel the calmest and most restored? Awareness helps you to recognize patterns that don’t work and consistencies do. Do you have a habit of overcommitting? Do you try to accomplish too many things at the same time and thereby get very little done? Are you reacting rather than choosing? Becoming aware of your own behavior allows you to create space and energy. January is an ideal time to ask yourself some basic questions that will serve to renew your mental energy and provide the positive movement you want:

  • What deserves my mental energy this year?
  • What am I ready to let go of from the past so I can move forward this year?
  • What can I do to feel good every day?
  • When do I feel the most empowered and how can I maintain that strength?

Awareness is not just about taking action; it is also about getting enough rest. Mental renewal is not about doing more; it’s about doing what matters and leaving space for rest. Moments of stillness, reflection, movement, gratitude, and meaningful connection all help recharge the mind. Perhaps counterintuitively, slowing down is what helps to regain the focus needed to move forward with purpose.

As 2026 begins, why not try setting an intention rather than a resolution? An intention rooted in awareness evolves, whereas a resolution is static, perhaps the reason so many resolutions fail by February, because they no longer serve their original purposes. Whether your intention is clarity, balance, growth, or peace, let it help make the right choices throughout the year.

Renewing your mental energy is a practice in line with mindfulness and feeling good every day. By awakening awareness now, you practice empowered living. You choose to live with purpose. and remember, take deep breaths and hydrate every single day: two simple acts that help renew mental energy!

Happy new year of 2006! May it be your best year yet!

Creating Mindful Eating Habits

Published on by Nikken

Today’s fast-paced society offers an abundance of food choices. In addition to the food that is grown—vegetables, fruits, grains—seafood from the oceans, farmed livestock and poultry—there is a huge variety of processed food as well as ready-to-eat snacks full of added salt, fat and sugar. Distractions have also shifted our attention away from the actual act of eating and instead toward televisions, computers, and smartphones.1

Mindful eating is a form of meditation. How do you meditate while eating? By slowing down and paying attention to the food you eat and doing so with appreciation and intention. In this way, every meal becomes a practice in awareness of what you’re eating, why you’re eating and how eating it makes you feel—which supports your ability to differentiate between physical and emotional hunger. In other words, mindful eating habits help you eat when you are actually hungry, not when you are bored or want something to do.

Mindful eating isn’t about dieting or restrictions. It’s about being fully conscious of choosing what you’re eating and appreciating it. If you are scrolling on the phone or watching TV, you are not savoring and honoring the food. Honor may seem a lofty term when applied to eating, but mindful eating includes being aware of where your food came from and honoring the long journey it took to get on your plate. By honoring the food, you are practicing gratitude, an emotion that promotes joy and sharing.

How can you practice and develop mindful eating habits? Here are a few tips:2

•          Ponder: Before you eat, ask yourself, “Am I really hungry?” Sometimes we think we want to eat something, not because we’re hungry, but simply to enjoy the pleasure that the food brings. Ask yourself if you need nourishment in the form of food or something else?

•          Appraise: Look at the food that is in front of you. How does it smell? Do you really want it? Is it more or less than what you need? Be aware of how the food affects your body and how you feel.

•          Slow: Slow down. Pause between bites. Do not get distracted. Really chew your food and taste it. Slowing down can help your brain catch up with your stomach.

•          Savor: Really enjoy your food. How does the texture feel in your mouth? Can you discern the different flavors? Savor and appreciate the taste of each bite. Engaging as many senses as you can by noticing colors, smells, sounds, textures, and flavors.

•          Stop: Stop when you’re full. Cleaning your plate isn’t necessary, even if that’s what you were taught by your parents. By noticing when you’re full and stopping may help you avoid unnecessary calories and indigestion. This is known as paying attention to your hunger cues.

By changing the way you think about food, you may be able to replace negative feelings associated with eating with awareness, improved self-control, and positive emotions.3 Mindful eating is part of smart nutrition—a key component of empowered living.

1 https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/mindful-eating-guide

2, 3 https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-lifestyle/mental-health-and-wellbeing/mindful-eating-savor-the-flavor

Smart Mindset

Published on by Nikken

Mindfulness has been trending for years. In 2018, The Courage to Be Disliked became a best seller. By Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, this book presents what can be perceived as a “smart mindset” with basic lessons each reader can choose to learn over time. Based on the teachings of the famous psychotherapist Alfred Adler, the lessons take place in the form of conversations between a young man and a philosopher.

Here are a few lessons from the book:
1. Happiness is a choice, not a result of external factors. We can find happiness within ourselves by taking responsibility for our own lives and decisions.

2. Understanding what our tasks are is crucial. We need to clearly separate our tasks from those that belong to others. Focus on our own tasks and avoid interfering in others. This is how we can decrease stress and conflict.

3. Adlerian psychology suggests that all problems are rooted in interpersonal relationships. Improving the quality of our relationships with others significantly enhances our mindset and mental well-being.

4. Self-acceptance leads to true self-esteem and confidence. Accept the flaws along with the strengths.

5. Rejecting comparisons with others will help us overcome any inferiority complex. Feelings of inferiority can drive us to strive for superiority, creating unhealthy behaviors that impact our relationships. This aligns closely with the self-acceptance mentioned above.

6. Live fully in the present moment. Don’t hold onto the past or worry about the future. A present mindset increases mindfulness and reduces anxiety.

7. Be brave enough to be disliked by others. Be true to yourself and make decisions based on our values, not based on receiving approval from others.

8. Setting clear cut goals can help us take positive action. Recognizing our goals can help us understand and create beneficial habits.

9. Contributing to society and feeling connected to others provide a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

10. Take responsibility. Acknowledge that our current circumstances are the result of our own choices and actions. We can always change and become who we want to be.

The Courage to Be Disliked is really about self-acceptance. As long as we are true to ourselves, we can like ourselves and continue evolving to become better. The lessons align closely to the Nikken Humans Being More philosophy as well as the Five Pillars of Wellness.