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Here’s why You Should Learn Meditation for Stress and Anxiety
Stress. Anxiety. Worry.
Simple words that represent emotions that are all too familiar to just about everyone. The quest to find relief from anxiety and worry brought about the stresses of daily life can be, and often is, all-consuming.
But here’s a thought. Have you considered meditation for stress and anxiety as a solution to feeling overwhelmed?
Is it, in fact, possible to use meditation for stress and anxiety to quickly ease your symptoms?
Well, the short answer to these questions is that it’s not only possible to use meditation techniques for stress relief; it’s easy to do.
Even if you’ve never meditated before in your life, you’ll be pleased to discover it’s an easy practice to learn and incorporate into your daily life.
And the benefits of learning how to meditate and relax are worth their weight in gold.
The Amazing Impact of Meditation for Stress and Anxiety
The benefits of meditation for stress and anxiety, in general, are well documented. The positive impact on your mental and physical health derived from the practice of meditation is profound.
Here is just a small sampling of symptoms often worsened by stress and worry that meditation can help relieve:
- Asthma
- Chronic pain
- Depression
- High blood pressure
- Irritable bowel syndrome
- Heart disease
- Tension headaches
- Anxiety and panic attacks
- Insomnia
Incredibly, meditation has been shown to change in positive ways how your brain functions. Learning how to meditate to reduce anxiety is one of best ways to cope with life in these stressful times.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University sifted through over 18,000 mindfulness meditation studies to determine its most effective uses.They concluded that the number one use for meditation was anxiety relief. Other studies support that meditation benefits mental disorders of all kinds including generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, panic disorder, agoraphobia, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, binge eating disorder, bipolar disorder and addictions. (Deane Alban, BeBrainFit.com, Meditation for Anxiety: Proven Way to Calm Your Mind.)
When you learn to use meditation for stress and anxiety, you tap into a powerful tool to help alleviate all of the associated symptoms of stress, improving your overall health and well-being exponentially.
How Meditation Reduces Stress Simply, Yet Powerfully
So just what is it about meditation for stress and anxiety, in particular, that transforms your life from one of daily craziness to greater serenity? And how easy is it to learn relaxation techniques for anxiety?
Can you feel the effects of these stress relief methods quickly, or will it take time?
These questions are well worth exploring in more depth. And as for how quickly you’ll feel results, I’ll just cut to the chase and tell you right now that it doesn’t take very long at all to learn how to cure mental stress.
And that is good news, indeed.
First, it’s important to understand that anxiety and stress are not necessarily bad, in small amounts. They’re normal human emotions, hardwired into our brains since the beginning of time.
Stress is what kicks in to alert us to external threats and to help keep us safe.
But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. And when it comes to stress, too much is decidedly undesirable.
Fruitless Worries About the Future
One of the biggest reasons we feel stress is what I’ll refer to as the what-if syndrome. Who among us hasn’t played that game? What if I fail; I don’t pass that class; they don’t hire me for the job; I catch that bug that’s going around?
What if, what if, what if.
It’s exhausting and ultimately futile. Worrying about what might happen in the future can, indeed, help us avoid pitfalls, but it can also be stifling.
And more often than not, our worst-case scenarios never come to pass. We’d save ourselves a lot of grief if we’d just stop needlessly worrying in the first place.
Easier said than done, I know.
Mindfulness keeps us focused on the present, and helps us meet challenges head on while we appreciate all our senses absorb. On the contrary, focus on the future contributes to anxiety, while perseveration on the past feeds depression. Far too often when we look to the future, we ask ourselves, “What if,” and the answer we give ourselves is often a prediction of a negative result. We will never encounter a future task made avoidable by fixating on it days in advance. On the contrary, not only does he focus of our fear arrive anyway, but we sacrifice countless moments to our worries. (Vincent Fitzgerald, MSW, LCSW, The Huffington Post, 2016, How Mindfulness Fights Anxiety and Depression.)
But there are many reasons we feel stressed that have nothing to do with worries of what’s to come. Or to put an even finer point on it, overblown concerns of what we fear may happen.
Worry For Worry’s Sake
We worry about our families, our children’s health and happiness. We allow stress about whether we’re doing well in our jobs to eat at us. Obsessing about what others think of us often consumes us. Some of us even worry about what to wear to work in the morning.
The point is, stress comes in all shapes and sizes and for a variety of reasons. The fact that it’s pointless has little effect on our ability to stop worrying.
Stress, worry, anxiety, whatever label you place on it, the results are the same. Discomfort, loss of sleep, tension headaches, and other assorted physical ailments are among the undesirable effects.
Dr. Elizabeth Hoge, a psychiatrist at the Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, says that mindfulness meditation makes perfect sense for treating anxiety. “People with anxiety have a problem dealing with distracting thoughts that have too much power,” she explains. “They can’t distinguish between a problem-solving thought and a nagging worry that has no benefit.” (Julie Corliss, Harvard Health Publishing, 2017, Mindfulness Meditation May Ease Anxiety, Mental Stress.) There are many ways to practice mindfulness for anxiety and stress relief. Some involve a form of physical movement or exercise. Yoga, for example, with its focus on the breath, qualifies as a form of meditation. Tai Chi, a gentle form of martial arts, does as well. Other, more traditional stress relief methods, involve little to no physical movement. Transcendental meditation, which is the repetition of a sound or word, falls into this category. But perhaps one of the easiest ways to discover how meditation for stress and anxiety can help you is just to sit quietly, focus on your breathing and bring your attention to the present moment. Often, the use of guided meditation for anxiety relief is the easiest way to tap into this powerful tool. Regardless of the method you choose to practice meditation for stress and anxiety, the impact on your life and your overall happiness is vastly improved once you learn how to do it. Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance that can benefit both your emotional well-being and your overall health. And these benefits don’t end when your meditation session ends. Meditation can help carry you more calmly through your day and may help you manage symptoms of certain medical conditions. (Mayo Clinic Staff, Mayo Clinic, 2017, Meditation: A Simple, Fast Way to Reduce Stress.) As we’ve already touched on briefly, meditation for stress and anxiety techniques come in a variety of forms. It’s just a matter of finding the one, or ones, which work best for you. Here are a few stress reduction techniques to get you started. One of them is sure to be a good fit for you. Breathing meditation for stress and anxiety is one of the simplest methods to learn for beginners. This technique involves getting into a comfortable position. You might choose to sit or maybe even lie down. Once you’ve gotten into a comfortable meditative posture, close your eyes and focus on your breathing. If your mind wanders, that’s okay. Don’t judge or admonish yourself. Just sit quietly and experience the sensations of your breath in and out, and gently bring your mind back to the present moment. It’s not necessary to spend hours meditating. Even a short session of 5 to 10 minutes will provide enormous benefits. As you become more comfortable with these meditation techniques for stress relief, you can extend your meditative time accordingly. When you practice relaxation techniques for anxiety, you’re focusing on being fully present in the moment. Pay attention to the sensations in your body, the feel of the chair or floor you’re sitting on, the sounds you hear. Become a neutral observer, nothing more or less. With mindfulness meditation, the addition of guided meditation audio or calm music can enhance the experience. Experiment with different sounds to see what you enjoy most. Meditation music for anxiety can be particularly helpful to finding a sense of peace and tranquility. You’re probably already familiar with mantra meditation. This method uses a word or short phrase to aid in your practice. The sound ohm is commonly used in mantra meditation. Or you might use the mantra So Hum, repeating So on the in breath and Hum on the out breath. Repeating your mantra in your mind or out loud brings you into a state of focused tranquility. Whatever phrase or word you chose, just repeat it over and over again as you sit or lie quietly, finding a sense of peace and calm. For many people, the thought of sitting quietly in one place for even a few minutes is hard to imagine. If that’s you, try a walking meditation. Remember, you’re attempting to learn how to reduce worry and stress, not increase it, so it’s important that your chosen form of meditation be enjoyable. Walking meditation can occur just about anywhere, but the more serene the environment, the better. A quiet garden, a tree-filled park, or near a river or lake is ideal. But don’t worry if those spaces aren’t readily available. Just focus on your stride, the swing of your arms, and the ground under your feet. Listen to any sounds you hear as you walk. As your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the moment at hand. As with any other meditation technique, don’t judge or criticize yourself in any way. Just relax and experience the sensations of the moment. This method, you’ll soon discover, doesn’t mean that your mind is empty. Instead, think of it as almost a free-form thought meditation technique, where your thoughts are allowed to roam wherever they want to go, floating in and out of your awareness unhindered. With this technique, in particular, you might be surprised at the thoughts that will enter your head and where they may take you. Creativity is often born of this empty mind form of meditation. Whichever method of meditation you chose, you’ll soon discover how quick and easy it is to reduce worry and stress. Anytime life becomes a bit too much and you need to refresh and recharge, take a mindfulness break and lower your stress and anxiety in just a few short minutes. Do you already practice meditation to relieve stress and anxiety? Or because it helps you find a sense of tranquility in your busy life? If you need some guidance to help you get started or would like to download a guided meditation audio file, visit lightofmind.com to find the perfect one to get you started today.
Intriguing Ways To Use Meditation for Stress and Anxiety
Some Simple Meditation Techniques For Stress Relief
1. Breathing meditation:
2. Mindfulness meditation:
3. Mantra meditation:
4. Walking meditation:
5. Empty mind meditation:
Mindfulness and Stress Reduction For Life-Changing Results
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