Waiting Room Mindfulness Practices

By Adriane Dellorco

1 min read

Instead of automatically reaching for your phone when you're in the waiting room at your next doctor's appointment, take advantage of the wait to practice mindfulness.

These mindful moments can help decrease your anxiety and allow you to acclimate to new surroundings with less sensory overload. Plus, you can do them anywhere without anyone else even noticing!

What will mindfulness practices do?

In this video, you'll enjoy three simple mindful practices:

Connect to your senses with a meditation on your five senses
Count your breaths
Tense and relax your muscles

Let me know how it goes the next time you're sitting in the waiting room!

This article represents the opinions, thoughts, and experiences of the author; none of this content has been paid for by any advertiser. The Migraine.com team does not recommend or endorse any products or treatments discussed herein. Learn more about how we maintain editorial integrity here.

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April.Sluder Moderator
 This is such a great idea. A stressful waiting room is a perfect place to do this. April - Migraine. com Team 
1. Adriane Dellorco Contributor
 <inline-mention username="April.Sluder" user-id="3673371"/> Thank you for your kind comments! I hope it eases the anxiety that so many people feel sitting in a bare waiting room.
Melissa Arnold Community Admin
Hi, Adriane! So excited for the perspective you bring to the table here. I need these exercises all day long, not just in the waiting room! Haha. Looking forward to seeing you around. -Melissa, <a href='http://migraine.com' target='_blank'>migraine.com</a> team
1. Adriane Dellorco Contributor
 <inline-mention username="Melissa Arnold" user-id="3827796"/> Thank you so much for your kind words! Absolutely, the more often you take just 30 seconds throughout the day to do these practices, the calmer you can feel over all, and the more your pain can lessen as a result. Best wishes!
janelitwin-taylor Member
“C’mon, where is the acknowledgment that health care facilities are often highly fragranced and have very polluted air? Fragrance is a major trigger for a lot of us and though this practice is nice in theory, for those of us with severe sensitivity to fragrance and/or MCS, waiting rooms are a total nightmare. With the proliferation of scents and stronger scents hitting the market daily, so many of us, a rapidly growing population, can barely survive the exposure to fragrances in health care settings, let alone attempt to “feel a sense of curiosity”. We can hardly breathe and are experiencing severe flares in migraine, pain and other symptoms due to that exposure. Our only thought is to get out of there and be free from those toxic fragrances. I am continually astonished at the lack of discussion about fragrance toxicity in the migraine community overall, especially when so many of us are being made sick by them. Even if most people with Migraine aren’t severely sensitive to fragrance, some solidarity with those who are is badly needed.”
1. Melissa Arnold Community Admin
 <inline-mention username="janelitwin-taylor" user-id="3764119"/> Hi there! I know what you mean about waiting rooms and medical facilities being harsh places for people with migraine, and it can be hard to relax there, especially while triggered and in pain. I think that's exactly the point of this video -- something to try to distract even the slightest bit. Adriane has migraine too; she knows what it's like! That said, we are all different in what works for us, and you are free to take whatever tips are useful here and forget the rest. As for fragrances, it's a HUGE topic of conversation here on the site. We talk about it constantly, and our archives are full of articles and personal stories, Here are two links to searches I did if you want to read some of them: <a href='https://migraine.com/search?s=scent' target='_blank'>https://migraine.com/search?s=scent</a> <a href='https://migraine.com/search?s=fragrance' target='_blank'>https://migraine.com/search?s=fragrance</a> Rest assured that we are in solidarity with those who have scent triggers -- many of our team members do as well. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and being here with us. -Melissa, <a href='http://migraine.com' target='_blank'>migraine.com</a> team

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