Meditation as a coping mechanism for stress
It’s normal to face challenges and experience stress whenever you take up any new skill professionally. No matter your background, whether you are a scientist, a psychologist, a writer, a healer, or any other professional or student.
There is one powerful tool when it comes to combating stress- meditation.
Many people are unaware of the full benefits of meditation. Some people have the misconception that meditation is in some way “mystical” or that it is inextricably connected to religion. Both of these statements are untrue.
There are many distinct styles of meditation, including transcendental, mindfulness, and religious reflection. Still, they all share the intentional inward focus of attention.
Meditation is making a conscious decision to take control of what you’re thinking and stop your thoughts from racing all over the place, whether you’re reflecting on your thoughts, praying, or just sitting quietly and trying to clear your mind. And when you do this, you’ll discover that it has a profoundly positive impact on your capacity to remain composed under pressure, manage the content of your thoughts, and counteract many of the damaging effects of stress.
According to studies, meditation can strengthen the brain regions that stress damages by boosting the brain’s grey matter and connectivity throughout the entire structure. Additionally, it can benefit brain areas directly connected to drive, focus, and willpower. According to one study, the brain can undergo remarkable beneficial changes in 8 weeks, restoring grey matter.
Frequently, meditation practitioners report feeling more relaxed, content, and joyful throughout the day. As a result, one feels happier, pays more attention, and their cognitive function and productivity are generally improved.
Due to all these factors, meditation is the best stress reliever and may repair much of the harm it has already done. Besides anything else, meditation will assist you in taking a brief respite from the ongoing stress of daily life and the accompanying rushing thoughts. But more importantly, it will educate you to take charge of racing thoughts on command and toss them to the side.
While this happens, giving your brain time to unwind will promote neuron repair and help you remember what you’ve learned over the day.
Finally, it is plausible that self-control-related brain regions would grow during meditation. Specific brain regions are used during meditation, and we now understand that the more a brain area is used, the more it develops. This is a mechanism known as “brain plasticity,” and it functions exactly like utilising a muscle.
And it only makes sense that you would be better able to regulate it and prevent allowing stress or impulse to get the best of you in the future if you practised reflecting on your mental state and becoming more aware of your own emotions.
How to Begin a Meditation Practice
Thus, meditation has several benefits for you and is the best stress reliever.
The second query is, “How do you begin meditation?” Do you have to go to class? Do you have to be a monk of the Buddha?
Meditation is relatively easy, and this is what, in some situations, makes it difficult. Many people who try meditation for the first time think it must be simplified and conclude they must do it incorrectly.
Try guided meditation if you’re a total newbie; it’s the simplest method to get started. Using a pre-recorded script to walk you through each step of your meditation is known as guided meditation. In essence, this helps focus your attention and illuminates what you should consider or focus on at any moment.
“Headspace” is a fantastic one to give a shot. Both a website and an app are available for this. With both, you can discover a variety of guided meditations to help you through. The only drawback is that Headspace requires payment beyond the first ten sessions and is not free.
Thankfully, those initial ten sessions are adequate to introduce you to meditation and teach you the fundamentals. From this point on, you can use what you’ve learned to continue by applying it again.
However, you can always use one of the numerous free YouTube tutorials that will accomplish the same task if you’d prefer to avoid launching a paid system.
Most guided meditations will walk you through the following steps, on average.
You will first choose a comfortable place to sit and close your eyes. Set a timer for 10 minutes, or however long you have left before you must attend to other matters. While you should be at ease, you shouldn’t be overly relaxed or put yourself at risk of dozing off!
Focus on the sounds and environment around you in the following step. This entails simply tuning in to the sounds and noting what you hear. If you stop to listen, you’ll be able to pick up on a lot more information than you probably were previously aware of, making this activity intriguing in and of itself.
Allow the sounds to come to you rather than straining to hear them, whether they be the barking of the dogs next door, the sound of birds, or perhaps the chatting of someone in another building that you can hear through the walls.
The next stage is to focus on yourself and how your body feels after doing this for a short while. This entails paying attention to how your buttocks distribute your weight. Is it distributed equally? Do you have a slight slant to one side? Likewise, make an effort to pay attention to how the air feels against your skin, the temperature, any aches or pains, etc.
The “body scan” can then be tried. Some people base their meditation on this technique, which entails paying close attention to every area of your body, starting with the head and travelling gently down the body from the face to the chest to the legs to the feet. Make a conscious effort to relax and let go of whatever tension you carry each time you reach a specific location on your body.
You can even focus inward by testing to see whether you can feel your heartbeat or the movement of your diaphragm.
In any case, we’ll now pay attention to breathing. Many individuals will once more adopt this as the cornerstone of their meditation. Count your breaths in and out, and begin again when you reach ten. The goal at this point is to keep your total concentration on your breathing and to block out everything else.
You’ll now find that occasionally your mind starts to stray, and you find yourself thinking about unrelated topics. This is an excellent illustration of how challenging it is for humans to maintain attention on any one object for an extended period. It’s a perfect illustration of why you require this meditation.
But when it does, don’t worry. The worst thing you can do is this! Instead, merely “notice” that your thoughts have wandered before returning them to your breathing. Refocus whenever it starts to stray, and don’t worry about it.
But focusing on our breathing allows us to centre our thoughts and block out the interruptions that typically occur. This could be accomplished by concentrating on anything else. For instance, some people choose to focus on a mantra, which is a single word. Transcendental meditation, for example, frequently uses mantras, which can be as simple as repeating the phrase “Om” to divert your thoughts.
The final step of our guided meditation will be to let the ideas go and let them go in whatever direction they choose.
Essentially, this final step is mindfulness meditation. Instead of allowing such thoughts to affect you emotionally, the goal is to separate yourself from them and merely “see” them.
It’s a terrific way to end because this final section lets you unwind and stop “fighting” your thoughts. Refocus on your breathing, then go on to your body, the environment, and finally, open your eyes.
That was your first meditation session; congratulations!
Tips
Learning to meditate and incorporating it into your life are two very different things, and many individuals reading this will now struggle to embrace this new behaviour meaningfully.
The first problem is that many people stop meditation because they become discouraged. After all, it isn’t “working.” This is an entirely incorrect perspective on meditation; instead, it should be seen as a tranquil space you can access anytime you need it or as a beautiful pause before your day begins.
This also applies to your beginning. Many individuals want everything to be flawless right now. They’ll question why they haven’t attained enlightenment when they close their eyes. They grow agitated that they aren’t doing it correctly when their hair gets in their face, and they eventually get up. They must then scratch, and they aren’t comfortable as a result.
Don’t stress over it. Moving is okay, and it’s okay to open your eyes briefly. The only thing that matters is that you do it by turning back your focus. You’ll gradually notice that you are less distracted. But initially, you won’t be prepared for that, and you should maintain patience if distractions occur.
The following advice is carefully considering how to continue meditation and integrate it into your daily routine. You can find much information about how simple it should be to set aside 10 minutes daily. Everyone has five minutes, they’ll say.
But in practice, it’s complex. If it were, everyone would be doing it by now! We must be honest about what we can and cannot accomplish because we are so busy that we struggle to find five minutes of free time.
Consider this: it is far preferable to practise for two minutes twice a week and stick with it than to attempt an hour of practice each day and give up after the first two days.
When you have time to kill in the morning or evening, it is advisable to look for an opportunity. This could happen when you get home or your spouse takes a morning shower. Whatever it is, most of us only have a few brief moments to spare during our daily activities. The great thing about meditation is that you can practise it anywhere without any equipment. Even if it happens when you arrive at work 10 minutes early or while you’re on the train to work. It will be much simpler to fit meditation into your schedule and maintain it if you can find an existing “slot.”
How to Breathe Properly to Reduce Stress
It’s crucial to make an effort to remember to breathe correctly while meditating. Even better, attempt to establish this as a habit to improve your breathing throughout the rest of your awakened day.
The problem is that most people unknowingly breathe inappropriately and need proper breathing techniques. According to theory, this cause is directly related to how we sit at work.
This is important if you’re attempting to calm down because breathing patterns and stress levels are strongly associated. We’ve previously shown that physiology, feelings, and psychology are closely related. Stress causes us to breathe less deeply and more quickly; however, we also experience increased tension when we live more rapidly and less intensely.
Put one hand on your tummy and the other on your chest right now with both hands. Now take a deep breath. The first hand to move is which? Which hand is it—the one on your tummy or the one on your chest?
The chest is the most common response. But it should be the stomach for the best wellness. This is how infants breathe, and it’s how animals breathe as well. But years of sitting at a desk or on a couch mean that we’ve grown accustomed to living differently and have spent too much time with our stomachs constricted.
Relaxing your abdominal muscles can widen your abdominal cavity and enable your diaphragm to descend. This is what stomach breathing entails. As a result, the lungs will have more significant space and inevitably grow as they expand. Then, you draw in your chest and widen it to let in even more oxygen, which leads to much deeper breathing. This increases the oxygen in your body, lowers your heart rate, and makes you feel less anxious.
Starting to take deep, controlled breaths is one of the finest strategies to make yourself feel instantaneously less anxious. You enter a condition of rest and digestion, which halts the fight-or-flight response in its tracks. Therefore, practising controlled breathing is the ideal remedy for the stress you’re undoubtedly feeling before an interview or presentation.
Reference:
Gupta, S. (2022) How to feel less paranoid in a relationship, Verywell Mind. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/relationship-paranoia-causes-impact-and-prevention-5216202
Marturano, J. (2021) Five ways to find time to pause, Mindful.
Available at: https://www.mindful.org/five-ways-jumpstart-your-day/