Practising Mindfulness While Baking Flatbread

Practising Mindfulness While Baking Flatbread

Baking bread is a wonderful, fulfilling way to practice mindfulness, something most of us need to do at the moment due to the world’s affairs. Mindfulness helps you to organise your thoughts, be calm and thankful for what you have while offering you clarity to deal with any problems as they arise.

While baking flatbread there is a time when you knead the dough, this allows you to practice some mindfulness techniques, to go into your own mind and to give your brain a little self-love. It’s even more enjoyable as the whole process is also productive as at the end you can indulge in warm, nutritious flatbread while still taking some time for yourself.

Here are a few ways you can practice mindfulness while baking the Taboon flatbread.

Remove Other Distractions

Listening to the radio or watching a screen can be entertaining while baking in the kitchen but for mindfulness complete peace is desired. This is your time. Turn off the radio, remove other distractions and see this as quiet meditation time for you alone.

Start with Seven Eleven

There’s a breathing technique called seven eleven that ensures you receive optimum amounts of oxygen into your lungs while expelling the carbon dioxide effectively. This calms the senses and clears the mind, leaving you feeling serene and in control. Breathe in for seven seconds through the nose, then breathe out for eleven seconds through the mouth. Repeat this process five times. 

Continue with Five Solid Objects

As you knead the bread, look to your left and name five objects. These could be anything, a child’s artwork, a cup, a chopping board, a rolling pin, a salt pig. Think of each object in turn, consider its purpose, visualise it in use or being created. This is mindful observation and helps you to plant yourself firmly in the here and now. 

Follow on with a Keen Ear

Now use your ears to listen to your surroundings. See if you can pick out three things you can hear. Although we’ve turned off the radio and distractions, you’ll be amazed at what you can hear. It could be the low buzz of a refrigerator, a bird tweeting outside, a car speeding past or the washing machine swooshing through its cycle. Pinpoint each sound and consider their origin, their purpose and what they mean to you right now.

Finish with Five Positive Things

Following this, list five positive things you are grateful for in your life right now. These could be material, physical, emotional, or spiritual. They could be people or objects, your health, your children’s health, your home, your comfortable slippers. There is no right or wrong. 

Then, when washing your hands following the five positive things, see if you can spot a bird or an insect out of the window, watch it for a few minutes as it carries out its daily tasks and contemplate the joy in your life right now, in this moment. 

Your flatbread should now be ready for the oven or barbecue, and you should feel calm, serene and in control.