Meditation for reducing stress. Here’s a guide to reducing stress. Are you feeling stressed? Can you imagine, for a moment, regaining your equilibrium? That’s where meditation comes in. These are stressful times. A world in turmoil. My country (the U.S.) is in chaos. Increasing climate change problems beset us. In addition, many are experiencing personal stress caused by money, job, relationships, traffic, eggs.
Let us look at stress and what we can do about it. I will then offer a handful of ways to lessen stress and feel better.
Meaning of Stress
According to Wikipedia psychological stress is “a feeling of emotional strain and pressure. Stress is a type of psychological pain. Small amounts of stress may be desirable, beneficial, and even healthy. Positive stress helps improve athletic performance. It also plays a role in motivation, adaptation, and reaction to the environment. Excessive amounts of stress, however, may affect our bodies. Stress can increase the risk of strokes, heart disease, ulcers and mental illness such as depression, as well as aggravate a pre-existing condition”.
We all experience stress in this hectic world we live in. Small amounts of stress keep us motivated and sufficiently reactive to the world around us. Too much of it can cause us harm. Unfortunately, the latter is often the case and affects us physically, mentally, and emotionally. The result is the psychological pain that Buddha spoke of when he said, “Life is suffering”.
The Impact of Stress
The impact of stress on our lives penetrates all aspects of our existence, as I chronicle in my book The Amazing Benefits of Meditation. Quoting Charles L. Raison, MD, clinical director of the Mind-Body Program at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, “It’s hard to think of an illness in which stress and mood don’t figure,” Raison said at WebMD. “We know stress is a contributor to all the major modern killers:
- Cancer
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases
- Heart disease
- Dementia
- Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases)
- New (or new strains of) infectious diseases attacking our weak immune systems
- Intentional self-harm (suicide)”
According to author Hanna Braime, in her book, From Coping to Thriving, “Stress and anxiety wreak havoc with our immune system. Leaving us susceptible to all kinds of nasties—particularly during the winter. Developing a regular meditation practice reduces the amount of stress-related chemicals in our body. And also makes us more likely to turn to unhealthy coping strategies to deal with the stress.”
The Problem We Face
Unfortunately, most of us do not know how to deal with stress very well. Humans have always had to deal with stress going back to when we lived in caves. We didn’t have many defense mechanisms other than our problem-solving skills. Stress was constant and became “hard wired” into our primitive brains. We became very good at staying save to survive.
Even now, as the dominant species on the planet, we still frequently act out of fear of some real or imagined circumstance. Often caused by our fellow humans. Few of us ever received training when we are growing up to manage stress. Certainly not by our parents, teachers, friends, acquaintances or workplaces. (although a few forward-looking companies like Google now train employees to help their performance and well-being).
This is where meditation comes in. Meditation has been practiced for many centuries as prayer in the West and sit-down or mindfulness exercises in the East. Meditation is increasingly being taught in schools, yoga and meditation centers, online at at few businesses.
Tool Number 1—Sit Down Meditation
Dr. Raison, mentioned above, led a study that showed that meditation improves both physical and emotional responses to stress. In the study, people who meditated regularly for six weeks showed less activation of their immune systems. And less emotional distress when they were subjected to stressful situations. Physiologically, meditation “.reduces cortisol (the body’s natural stress hormone) levels in the body”. Which leads to lower levels of stress and higher levels of a sense of well-being.
We only have to examine the substantial increase in people using anti-anxiety medication in recent years. This proves the impact of stress on the U.S. population. As well as the use of potentially harmful drugs to cope with this “epidemic” caused by modern lifestyles. However, according to Stanford University researcher Emma Seppälä, “Meditation allows people to take charge of their own nervous system and emotions…. Studies have shown improved ability to [permanently] regulate emotions in the brain.”
This type of meditation, usually practiced sitting in a chair, or on a meditation cushion, can be done almost anywhere, at any time. In its simplest form, sit-down meditation is done by observing the breath as it comes in and goes out for and short or extended periods of time. While this sounds easy, it is not. Why? Because the human mind is a chatterbox. Constantly in motion and commenting on everything we experience. It buzzes loudest when things get quiet. As a result, most meditation trainings concentrate on mind training as a central focus of their meditation process.
An alternative is my meditation process called Higher Consciousness Meditation. It’s a simple, easy, quick, and effective method (see my book Higher Consciousness Meditation), that is suitable for beginners and experts.. It focuses, instead, on a technique that focuses on direct Soul Contact, bypassing and transcending the mind. Meditation 2.0.
Tool 2–Mindfulness Techniques
A companion practice to sit-down meditation is the practice of mindfulness meditation. Which can be done in as little as 6 seconds, as I describe in The Mindfulness Book. Mindfulness can be done as easily as taking a deep breath, saying “Peace, Be Still” or “I am at peace in this moment” or even “I let spirit flow through me”. Then pausing to feel the effects of the exercise. Often the result is a lifting of your spirits and a relaxation into the moment. I use both, a sit-down session in the morning and in the evening, and mindfulness techniques throughout the day. I have dozens of mindfulness exercises to offer to address almost any situation you encounter.
John Cabot Zin, former researcher at the University of Massachusetts, is an expert on mindfulness meditation’s impact. He is a leader in using the scientific method to understand understand and mindfulness meditation techniques. For years, he and his colleagues, pushed out the boundaries of the field into new discoveries and validations of the efficacy of mindfulness.
While their steps seem slow and incremental, they have laid the foundation for a transformation in the way we humans experience our lives. A transformation that is revolutionary and will allow us to grow into our new selves as people and as a species.
A segment on CBS Evening News confirmed what we have all heard. Religious services continue to be attended less and less by the U.S. population. More and more people say “I’m Spiritual, not religious”.
The most interesting thing that was said in this piece was that 60% of adults in this country said that they experienced peace and well-being at least once per month through meditation. I was amazed. I would have thought the percentage to be closer to 20 than 60. Lots of folks are having at least a glimpse into what I like to call Five- Dimensional Reality, that Place that we all know, where peace and well-being live. Where the experience of peace and well-being is common.
Why Meditation Works
The beauty of meditation is that it can decrease the severity and the frequency of stress. And the resulting feeling of internal discord that accompanies stressful situations, large and small. Why is this? Here are some of my non-scientific thoughts:
- For some period, however brief a time of meditation we might undertake, the body/mind/personality disconnects from the three-dimensional reality that is our human lives.
- This pause allows us to return to our natural state of peace and well-being before returning to the stress inducing world in which each of us lives.
- A mere 6 minutes, twice a day, as outlined in my Higher Consciousness Meditation process, is sufficient to successfully disconnect and to cultivate the experience of peace and well-being. The HCM process is a fabulous way to begin your day in the right frame of mind. Before the anxiety of getting out of the door and off to work or before traffic madness takes over.
- Meditation is a coping mechanism, pure and simple. It is a great way to combat the incidence of stress and its effects.
Conclusion
The number of people meditating shows that we are evolving as a species, and perhaps faster than any of us are aware. Developing into a new species increasingly comfortable with the higher vibrational experiences of love, peace, joy, happiness and the like that meditation fosters. More and more people are learning and using meditation techniques. Through meditation there may be hope for us as a species after all. Enabling us to relax and learning to live with a degree of inner richness and mastery.
When you are ready:
- Learn to use the “Higher Consciousness Meditation” process in The Meditation Book to get quiet enough to allow Spirit to flow
- Check out “using your Sacred Senses” in The Mindfulness Book.
Blair is an author, poet, YouTubist, and ordinary mystic. His 5 award-winning book series are available at Amazon Books, and his YouTube videos at Blair Abee Higher Consciousness Channel.