Being stressed and anxious is quite natural for us. However, being continuously stressed out and tense harms your health and needs to be addressed.
Like other health problems, anxiety also needs proper treatment. Several anti-anxiety pills, such as Alprazolam,are available at medambien for quick relief. However, natural methods like meditation can be used to manage anxiety.
Meditation is a form of psychotherapy practised to reach a peaceful and calm state of being. When you meditate, you concentrate on a single thought repeatedly. It helps you to clear and detangle your thoughts. This causes you to have enhanced mental and emotional stability.
Does meditation help with anxiety?
The answer is yes, it does. Several studies show that meditation is beneficial for an anxious mind. One of the studies conducted in 2020 showed that meditation changes the activity in the brain. People who meditated daily had a very active prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, two parts of the brain that regulate stress and anxiety. It also showed decreased activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for the flight-or-fight response. These results collectively indicate that meditation helps your brain to develop physically and emotionally.
Another 2018 study showed that meditative practices like mindfulness, Buddist meditation, progressive relaxation, and various breathing techniques are helpful against anxiety and stress.
How does meditation help with anxiety?
Meditation has many positive effects on your brain. It’s a method that can help with stress, anxiety, and depression. Some prominent benefits of meditation include:
? Meditation helps you to calm your thoughts and body. It creates a sense of tranquillity and peace. This way, your mind feels relaxed and peaceful.
? Meditation is quite effective in relieving stress. During meditation, your mind is focused on one thing (counting seconds or repeating a mantra). This helps to manage stress due to an overstimulated mind, which is one of the common symptoms of anxiety.
? Meditation also helps in improving focus. When you meditate, you concentrate on something that calms your mind. This increases your ability to direct your thoughts by your will and get better control of your mind.
? Doing meditation regularly promotes self-reflection and inner peace. It helps your mind to look inward. This enables you to identify and face the sources of your anxiety, a fundamental approach used during Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT).
? Anxiety makes you restless and impatient. Such feelings can trigger impulsive behaviour, adversely affecting your decision-making skills. Finding inner peace is one way to prevent these negative behavioural changes due to anxiety. This can be achieved by practising meditation.
? Meditation is also beneficial for sleep. Anxiety causes sleeping issues, which in turn affects you both physically and mentally. Doing meditation destresses your muscles, which helps you calm down and sleep better at night.
? Stress and anxiety take away your creative and adventurous side because you’re almost always uncertain and overthink unnecessarily. Meditation helps reset your mind by bringing back its creative and imaginative side.
? Furthermore, meditation promotes positive behavioural and spiritual changes, including tolerance, patience, contentment, self-awareness, and self-control. Such qualities strengthen your mind and allow you to see things differently.
? Meditation brings enlightenment. You feel more open and accepting about many things, which helps you worry less when things don’t go your way.
? Meditation helps you to be aware of the present and everything good in it. It allows you to become more appreciative and grateful towards life. Such a mindset is essential to have a healthy and productive lifestyle.
? Everyone can do meditation. It’s easy to learn, doesn’t require too much time and practice. Moreover, meditation can be done anywhere and at any time.You don’t need any special equipment or a place for it. It’s a simple and affordable method of therapy.
Other prominent benefits of regular meditation include physical fitness, improved breathing and heart rate, and increased pain tolerance.
Though many scientific studies agree and support the benefits of doing meditation, some scientists propose that the data on anxiety relief through meditation is not enough and needs to be studied further, to be specific. Additionally, meditation is not a cure for anxiety. Any kind of meditation can never rival with traditional medicine. However, it can definitely help in relieving some symptoms of anxiety.
What type of meditative methods can be practised for anxiety relief?
There are several different forms of meditation that you can practice in your daily life. In reality, meditation is an umbrella term for methods through which we achieve a calm and relaxed mind. Some of the common meditative practices include:
? Mindfulness meditation
? Mantra meditation
? Guided meditation
? Qi gong
? Tai chi
? Yoga
? Breathing techniques
? Progressive relaxation
? Buddhist meditation
Some tips to help you with meditation
To get more out of your daily meditation sessions, here are some tips to help you make meditation more effective.
? Designate an area with cool tones for meditation. Meditating in a space painted with cool colours has a soothing effect on your mind.
? Start your day early with meditation. Waking up early in the morning is beneficial in itself, but doing meditation during that time doubles the benefits.
? Reduce your expectations. If you can’t sit still and quietly while meditating for the first time, it’s fine. Everything seems hard at first. What matters is that you tried.
? Don’t eat too much or too less prior to meditation. It can cause distraction and poor health. Eat in a balanced way, so you get enough energy throughout the day without gut problems.
? Start with shorter meditation sessions. This is because you need to develop consistency in your meditation. Daily meditation done for a short time is more effective than long meditation done occasionally.
Though meditation is not a cure for anxiety, it can help relieve some of its symptoms naturally. There are many kinds of meditative exercises that you can practice to stay calm and grounded. Meditation done early in the morning in a quiet and peaceful environment has many positive effects on your mental, physical, and emotional health.
Click here to read our more blogs…
Last Updated on 10 months by Lavania Oluban