Do you feel overwhelmed by stress and cannot relax? Are those around you suffering from your aggressiveness and mood swings? Stop! Update on techniques and meditation exercises to help you overcome your anxiety.
Meditation is more than just closing your eyes and breathing. It is also to look back on oneself and to engage in personal development. Finally, it is learning to know ourselves better and accessing a deep and lasting inner peace, far from the tumult of our hectic and worry-filled lives.
Meditation is a great tool for reflection, whether it is to mature a project, rise in spirituality, find solutions to a given problem, reduce stress, relax or simply relieve an overly tormented mind. Meditation is not just a relaxation technique. It is also an Art of Living Reviews, a philosophy…
Meditation can be done anytime and anywhere. It all depends on our availability or the urgency to which the meditation must respond. You can meditate in the metro, at the office, in the shower or while walking, at lunchtime or at bedtime… The main thing is to take a break every day just for yourself and not to deviate from it.
The benefits of meditation against stress
Meditation has a positive impact on the physical and psychic aspect of any individual who devotes himself to it:
- It helps to overcome anxiety and limits the symptoms of depression. It is also recommended to manage post-traumatic stress, some hospital services use it to calm the chronic pain of their patients.
- It strengthens the immune system and stimulates brain functions (attention, concentration, memory).
- It also helps lower blood pressure and improves the respiratory system.
- The list is long and far from exhaustive.
There are many ways to meditate and it would be pointless to want to name them all. However, some techniques are more popular than others and are worth looking into such as these 4 methods of meditation and relaxation. Know more about the Art of Living Foundation.
Vipassana meditation to fight against stress
“Vipassana enables the transformation of oneself through self-observation”.
An ancestral Indian practice, Vipassana meditation is somewhat the leader of the principles of meditation that followed. It is practiced with closed eyes and focuses on the sensations felt in our body through vision, sound, touch, taste, smells, and mental processes (emotions, thoughts…). It is based on “here and now” and focuses on the sensations of body and mind throughout the duration of the meditation.
Vipassana meditation exercise for anxiety
In a seated position, with your back and head straight, place both hands on your abdomen and breathe normally. With each inhalation, your abdomen swells and with each inhalation, it widens. Stay focused only on the belly movement. If you hear a noise or smell, pay attention to it and let go of your concentration on moving your abdomen. If nothing around you is disturbing your attention, stay focused on moving your abdomen for 5 minutes.
Transcendental Meditation for Anxiety
Transcendental meditation would be more accessible than any other form of meditation. The reason? It is simple, natural, and requires no effort. Nevertheless, it relies on mantras, formulas repeated silently at a steady pace. It is said that these mantras would remove any dispersion of thought and allow access to appeasement close to bliss. Transcendental Meditation is taught by Master Yogi. Art of Living Reviews The ritual is always the same: the sessions last 20 minutes and are performed twice a day, preferably in the morning upon rising and in the evening before bedtime.
If you want to get started in transcendental meditation, this exercise can prepare you for it: Sit in a peaceful place, out of sight and out of the surrounding buzz.