Meditation for Stress Relief
Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years and has many advantages. During meditation, you focus on one thought or thing.
Meditation can help to concentrate, relax, relieve stress and fatigue and learn about your own world.
It can also help reduce anxiety, depression, pain and insomnia.
In combination with traditional medicine, meditation can improve physical health: heart problems, digestion, joint disease.
When it comes to the benefits of meditation, it is most often referred to as one of the methods for managing stress and removing post-stress tension.
What is detrimental to stress?
Stress is a normal psychological and physical response to the ever-increasing demands of life. Studies show that many people in all corners of the world at some point experiencing stress.
Stress affects the normal functioning of our body. It affects all the systems of our body: digestion, immune system, reproductive, which during stress are in a “depressed” state.
As it does not sound strange, but stress is primarily intended to help us get out of physical danger. A little stress in “short doses” is useful for improving memory, increasing productivity and speed of response.
Nevertheless, when stress takes all of our time, it is too much and the body is in a state of constant stress, it is extremely harmful to our physical and mental condition.
That’s why stress management is so important. Without the ability to manage stress, relieve stress, our body is too often in a state of high alertness. Over time, high levels of stress lead to serious health problems.
The use of meditation for the body under stress
The pace of modern life makes stress management an indispensable skill for everyone. The first step to successfully relieve stress is to manage stress and control stress levels.
The next step is to find out what is causing the stress. When and under what circumstances you experience the greatest stress.
Some causes of stress are easy to determine, for example, conflict situations at work, problems in relationships or financial difficulties.
The cause of stress can be not only troubles and difficulties, but also positive situations. For example, you married or got married, moved to a new job, which you have long dreamed of or bought a new home.
After you have determined the reasons for your stress, you can start thinking about strategies to deal with them.
And here the meditation skills can come to the rescue. Many people cope with stress through meditation.
Meditation techniques can reduce the symptoms of stress and help you enjoy a better quality of life, especially if you have some kind of disease. Learn the methods of meditation that you can do yourself.
Meditation techniques are a great way to help in managing stress. Meditation is not just calm or enjoy your hobby.
Relaxation is a process that reduces the impact of stress on your mind and body. Meditation techniques can help you cope with the daily stress and stress associated with various health problems, such as cancer and constant pain.
Regardless of whether your stress is out of control or you have already learned how to deal with it, the knowledge and application of meditation techniques will help manage stress and reduce it. These methods are simple and not complex and can be done at any time and in any place.
The use of meditation under stress
When you encounter numerous duties and tasks, demands or illness, meditation techniques can be the last place in your life. But this means that you can lose time and underestimate the health benefits of this practice.
However, meditation techniques can reduce the symptoms of stress by:
- Slowing heart rate
- Reduced blood pressure
- Slowing of respiratory rate
- Decreased activity of stress hormones
- Increase in blood flow to the main muscles
- Reducing muscle tension and chronic pain
- Increase concentration and mood
- Reducing fatigue
- Reducing anger and frustration
- Confidence in solving problems
In order to get maximum benefit, use meditation techniques along with other positive methods to overcome difficulties, such as positive thinking, humor, problem solving, time management, physical exercises, building relationships with family and friends.
Meditation to relieve stress calms our nervous system. While stress activates a part of the nervous system, causing us to feel “run and fight,” meditation on the contrary forces our nervous system to “stop and rest,” “digest stress,” thereby helping to cope with stress.
During meditation, the heart rate slows down, breathing becomes calmer, blood pressure drops. There comes relaxation of the whole body.
While a constant feeling under the stress of “run and fight” acts extremely destructively on the body, the methods of meditation act to tone up the body, thus bringing invaluable benefits to the body.
People who constantly use meditation are less stressed and more emotionally balanced.
Mastering the methods of meditation is gradual. Gradually over time, the ability to relax will improve. And do not get upset if at first you will not get to relax and concentrate.
If some kind of meditation method is poorly assimilated by you, so as not to experience another additional stress from it, try another one.
In addition, some people, especially those with serious psychological problems, may experience a feeling of emotional discomfort during meditation techniques. In this case, you need to try other methods of relaxation and meditation techniques. There are several of them, as was said above. Perhaps, it is worth consulting in this matter with the appropriate specialist.
Meditation Techniques for Stress Relief
You can master the methods of relaxation yourself or refer to the appropriate specialists. In general, the essence of these methods is to reorient attention to something soothing.
The fact is that during stress, the state of stress in the brain consists of three main phases: momentum, stress and adaptation to a stressful situation. Stress gradually passes and the person calms down.
If there is any failure, then the body is in constant tension, which can subsequently lead to more serious health problems. Therefore, it is very important to turn your attention to something soothing. The methods of meditation best fit this.
There are several basic methods of meditation. To manage and relieve stress, it is not necessary to use everything at once. It will be enough for these three.
Autogenic meditation. Autogenous means what comes from within. In this technique, you can use both visual images and an understanding of your body to reduce stress.
Here you can repeat words or sentences in your mind to relax and relieve muscle tension. For example, you can imagine yourself in a quiet place, and then focus on controlled, relaxing breathing, slowing down the heart rate, or various physical sensations such as alternating relaxation of each arm or leg.
You can meditate both sitting and lying, taking a comfortable pose and relaxing.
Relaxation of muscles. In this meditation technique, you focus on slow tension, and then relaxing each muscle group.
This will help you focus on the difference between muscle tension and relaxation.
One of the methods of muscle relaxation is to start with the tension and relaxation of the muscles of the legs and gradually move up to the neck and head. You can also start with the head and neck and fall down to the toes. Strain the muscles for at least five seconds, and then relax for 30 seconds and repeat.
Visualization. In this relaxation technique, you form mental images, visually representing a quiet, calming place or situation.
During visualization, try to use as many senses as you can, including smell, sight, hearing and touch. If you can imagine yourself in the ocean, then think about the smell of salty water, the sounds of breaking waves and imagine the feeling of the sun’s heat on your body. You can close your eyes, sit in a quiet place and loosen or remove any tight and tight clothes.
Stress will not disappear from life forever. Meditation is not a method of treatment. But the ability to manage and relieve stress through meditation can help cope with stress and make you more resistant to stressful situations.