Life can become stressful very quickly. Routine activities, such as driving to work or making a meal, suddenly can turn into tension-filled events. The results of physical and mental stress take an enormous toll on you. By learning simple meditation techniques, you can ease tensions in your body and mind and learn to accept the challenges that life brings.
Benefits
According to MayoClinic.com, meditation is a great way to reduce anxiety and many other mental and physical disorders, including depression and sleep problems. Depression and sleep disorders can be symptoms of anxiety, so learning how to meditate may alleviate several anxiety symptoms. Benefits of meditation can include increasing self-awareness, the release of negative feelings and emotions, and seeing problems in different ways.
Calming Effects
A report published in "Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine" in March 2011 showed a strong inverse correlation between cognitive stress and meditation. In the experiment, 32 adult men who had never meditated were asked to do so for 20 minutes, either before or after playing a stressful computer game. In both scenarios, meditation had a calming effect. The participants were found to have less anxiety, higher memory quotients and lower cortisol levels. The study showed meditation's positive effect of reducing anxiety, even in people who have never meditated.
Mindfulness
Anxiety wreaks havoc on your body. From pre-performance jitters to nail biting to eating disorders, stress can compile self-doubts into full-blown physical disorders. When you feel butterflies in your stomach before walking on a stage or your shoulders begin to tighten before a big meeting with your boss, you are experiencing somatic anxiety. Prolonged somatic anxiety can cause lingering pain.
A study published in 2009 in the "Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences" showed that mindfulness meditation not only calms your body but helps to keep you in better health. The authors stated that they found the benefits of mindfulness meditation are twofold: meditation decreases stress and anxiety in your body and increases your body's defenses against future stress. The authors further said that mindful meditation positively improves both physical and mental health.
Practice
Practicing meditation for somatic or cognitive stress can be as simple as finding a quiet place in your house where you can sit comfortably. Turn off all the lights, close your eyes and listen to the inhalation and exhalation of your breath. Some visualization styles of meditation suggest that, after a few minutes of completely relaxing, you should imagine yourself in a stressful situation and observe how your body reacts when it is in a relaxed frame of mind. By imagining yourself treating a specific stressful situation in a calm manner, you can begin to prepare yourself for other stressful situations. Practice the cycle of relaxation and visualization.
Other styles of meditation ask you to zone in on a particular area of your body that is in pain and, with every breath, imagine the pain becoming less and less.
Allow yourself a few minutes daily to practice some meditation techniques, and you can begin to experience profound changes in your health.
References
- MayoClinic.com; Meditation: A Simple, Fast Way to Reduce Stress; April 2011
- "Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine"; Effect of Meditation on Stress-Induced Changes in Cognitive Functions; A. Mohan, et al.; March 2011
- "Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences"; Can Meditation Slow Rate of Cellular Aging?; Elissa Epel, et al.; August 2009
