Stress is a physiological response to external and internal factors that generate a state of alertness. Thus it can be managed through meditation.
Who cannot be stressed out in the world we live in? We rush between work, family, friends, and the limited leisure time we have, and we always want to get to more things and be better at what we set out to do. And is that society wants us to like this: we have to be more productive, better parents, better athletes, also better children and best friends … And that pressure to be the best (and we already know that not everyone can be the best in everything ) ends up billing us. Here the famous stress comes into play.
What is stress?
Contrary to what many may think, stress is not a disease or pathology; in fact it is not even a symptom that something is wrong in our body. Stress is nothing more than a physiological and biological reaction or response of our body to a dangerous situation: it is not a bad thing in itself, but in certain situations, it can even be very helpful, but if the alert state is maintained in time, then, it becomes a disease. For example: when we detect danger, let’s say that we go to the forest and we find a bear, our body enters this stressful situation that tells us to flee the place. In this case, stress is positive (also known as Reuters) and helps to get out of the situation unscathed.
However, we can also find negative distress or stress: it is what causes us very high levels of fatigue, anxiety, and irritability. Stress in its two forms, but especially negative stress, also causes immunosuppression, which leads to unleashing harmful responses of the body, both physically
What situations can cause us stress and how can we solve them?
The causes or triggers of stress are those stimuli that destroy the equilibrium state of our body. These factors can be of two types and are classified into four categories: within the internal stressors we would find biogenic stressors or chemical and physical mechanisms that trigger our body’s response to stress, such as nicotine. Within the external stressors, we can find the other three remaining categories: single stressors (drastic changes in the environment, such as an earthquake or flood, and are the cause of episodes of post-traumatic stress), multiple stressors (effect of significant way to the life of a single person or a small group, such as the death of a loved one) and daily stressors (alterations in the subject’s routine).
All these factors trigger stress situations that are externalized in different ways in our bodies. One of the most frequent and of which we already talked about previously is bruxism or the gesture of clenching the jaw excessively, which generally occurs when we are asleep (although it can also appear during the day). As we already said, the important thing when solving these problems that stress generates is to go to the source of it: we have to identify the stressor and work from the root to be able to end the physical alterations that it entails.
This means that we have to work a little deeper to solve stress problems. An example: the stress in the workplace is one of the most frequent among adults and it occurs when the person feels that he is unable to respond to the demands of the environment and this becomes a constant that is maintained over time. The body remains in a state of alteration continuously, with the negative implications that it entails, and begins to show symptoms of this wear. For example, if I am very stressed at work because I am assigned many more tasks than I can carry out (external and daily stressor) and because of this I sweat profusely, what will really help me is to modify the assigned tasks or improve my organization, in addition to treating hyperhidrosis directly.
How to manage stress through meditation?
One of the ways in which we can handle daily stress, which is caused by small everyday situations and can be responsible for episodes of anxiety or irritability, is through meditation. Perhaps many people can think of meditation as sitting on the floor in silence, with incense and some candles and repeating “Ohm” many times; but it really is something much closer and more accessible than we think.
Meditation is generally used to relax the mind, to free it from thoughts, and to focus on the present moment (now known as mindfulness). Here are three different ways to de-stress through meditation in three different degrees of depth.