5 Non-Traditional Mindfulness Exercises

Kat Schultz
Nov 5
3 min read

Dialectical Behavior Therapy incorporates Zen Buddhism into Cognitive Behavior Therapy - that means we do a lot of mindfulness exercises both in groups and in individual sessions. Traditionally, mindfulness practice includes guided meditations or breathing exercises. However these types of mindfulness don't feel good for all individuals.

Some folks are uncomfortable focusing on their breathing for a variety of physical and emotional reasons. Others may be unable to sit still or be quiet with themselves in order to do a guided meditation, perhaps due to neurodivergence or trauma. Luckily, mindfulness practice is more diverse than just those two types of exercises. There are plenty of others to choose from!

Mindfulness practice can involve music, art, and movement. This may be better for folks that struggle with the traditional exercises. Here are 5 non-traditional mindfulness exercises:

Drawing with your non-dominant hand

Find an everyday object that you can see or place in front of you. On a piece of paper, draw this object with your non-dominant hand. That means the hand you don't usually write with. So if you're right-handed, draw with your left hand and vice versa. As you draw, be unmindful of judgments that may arise about how your drawing looks or how it feels to use your non-dominant hand. Let these judgments pass like clouds in the sky and return your focus to observing and drawing the object. It will likely feel unnatural and take a great deal of focus to perform. That's why it's a mindfulness exercises - it requires you to focus on the process.

Draw your breath

Take a moment and turn your attention to your breathing. You don't need to try to change it, just observe. As you settle your attention on your breath, take pen to paper and draw what it feels like to you. This could look like drawing a line upwards on your inhale and downwards on your exhale, for example. It could be waves or circles, or anything that feels right to you. It's not about what it looks like; it's about the process of syncing your drawing with your breathing. You can experiment with slowing your breathing, square breathing, and other changes to your breath and see how they affect your drawing.

This exercise comes from art therapist Carolyn Mehlomakulu. You can read further instructions on her website.

Hum, sing, or whistle

Choose a song you're somewhat familiar with and hum, whistle, or sing along to it for the entire length of the song. Your thoughts may stray from the song and that's okay. Just like any other mindfulness exercise, gently bring your attention back to the present moment. This exercise is a step more involved than Mindful Listening as it brings your body into the process which can aid focus.

Dance party

Choose a song you enjoy and dance along to it for its entire duration. This is a lot like the previous exercise on the list. Using your body helps you focus on the present moment. If you get distracted, guide your focus back. This exercise can also help ground you in your body, as you focus on the sensations of your dance.

Heartbeat exercise

This body-based mindfulness exercises comes from The Partnership in Education. This video instructs you to raise your arms above your head for 30 second intervals in order to slow your heart rate. This is especially beneficial if you are feeling strong emotions, as they often speed up your heart. If focusing on your heartbeat causes anxiety, this may not be the exercise for you.

We teach these exercises as part of our DBT trainings for mental health providers, especially when we focus on working with neurodivergent clients.