Meditation for Stress and Peace of Mind

When it comes to personal growth, meditation is one of the most effective techniques that you can use. Meditation allows you to alleviate your stress and find inner peace with the life that you are living, and everyone has the ability to meditate and center themselves. Meditation is important because there are many things in life that you cannot control, but when you meditate, it allows you to grow as a person in a way where you learn to accept the things that you are unable to change.

What Is Meditation?

The practice of meditation goes back thousands of years and it's original intent was to help people to understand the mystical and sacred aspects of life on a much deeper level. While the techniques are similar today, the purpose has shifted to helping people in the modern mainstream culture to find inner peace so that their stressors are not in control of their lives. Meditation is a form of mind-body medicine allows you to achieve deep states of relaxation, awareness, and focus. Basically, when you are meditating, you are focusing your attention so that you are able to allow all of the jumbled and negative thoughts in your mind to settle down and fall away. This directly works to alleviate stress and negative thinking, and with regular meditation, you are able to achieve a higher level of emotional and physical well-being.

The Benefits

Meditation promotes a sense of calm and inner peace, which will help you to improve your mental and emotional health, but it works to better your physical health too. While the greatest benefits are achieved when you are actually meditating, they do not stop when the session does. The benefits continue and penetrate throughout all areas of your life, and when it comes to your emotional well-being, meditation has the following benefits:

Mental (Mind)

a)      You will be able to look at stressful situations with a new perspective

b)      Increased self-awareness

c)      Reducing negative thoughts and emotions

d)      Creating new skills and tools to better manage your stress

e)      Focusing on the present

Physical (Body)

Your physical health also benefits from meditation. In fact, there are a number of scientific studies that show a link between meditation and better physical health.   Meditation can help with a number of physical conditions, such as:
It is important to note that meditation will not cure any of these conditions and you should continue with the treatment that you are currently using. Meditation is meant as an add-on treatment that may improve the positive effects of your current treatment regimen, and it can also make living with a physical illness less stressful and a little easier to bear.

a)      Anxiety disorders

b)      Cancer

c)      Heart disease

d)      Pain

e)      Asthma

f)       Depression

g)      High blood pressure

h)      Sleep problems

Types of Meditation

There are a number of meditation types that you can choose from. Many people try several and then start to regularly use the one that they find most beneficial.  When you start meditating, you can begin slowly and work your way up. There is a learning curve when it comes to meditation so it is important to have realistic expectations. When you have for your first session, you likely will not have an immense benefit from it and this is normal. However, as you continue to meditate, you will find that your stressors gradually start to seem more and more insignificant with time. This is important and it allows you to relieve your stressors while dealing with them at the same time. The following are common types of meditation:

a)  Guided meditation: This allows you to create and use mental images to relax.

b)  Mindfulness meditation: This type involves increasing your attention and awareness while teaching yourself to live in the present moment.

c)  Tai chi: This is a type of martial arts that requires meditation as you go through the different physical postures so that you are strengthening your body and mind simultaneously.

d)  Mantra meditation: This involves using a mantra to calm and center yourself.

e)  Qi gong: This is a type of meditation that combines relaxation, breathing exercises, meditation and physical movement to maintain and restore balance.

f)  Transcendental meditation: This form of meditation is very simple and easy, even for beginners. It allows you to find a deep state of rest and it requires no concentration.

g)  Yoga: This is a form of exercise that utilizes fluid movements and breathing exercises to calm your mind and center you.

- Rosemary Kitchen

Resources

Corliss, J. (2014). Mindfulness Meditation May Ease Anxiety, Mental Stress. Retrieved on February 6, 2015 from http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/mindfulness-meditation-may-ease-anxiety-mental-stress-201401086967