How Meditation Can Help You Reduce Stress

Introduction

Meditation is a simple technique that is practiced all over the world. It is widespread among people who want to improve their mental and physical health and lead a better life. There exist many ways to practice meditation. The idea of meditation originated from the traditional culture of ancient India, but it has rapidly become a practice worldwide. In this article, we have mentioned some basic information about meditation.

What is Meditation?

In simple words, meditation is a technique to concentrate on one particular thing. It helps to increase our concentration and awareness at the same time. Thus, one can reach a state of mindfulness. 

How do we practice Meditation? 

Here are some critical points about meditation:

1. There are different techniques to practice meditation.
2. It has been practised for more than a thousand years worldwide.
3. Religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism practice meditation as a part of their spiritual process.
4. Though meditation is a part of the spiritual process, many religions practice it independently of religious belief.
5. Meditation can have certain benefits, such as reducing stress, increasing concentration, and achieving inner peace. It can improve focus and helps to connect with the outer world.

How does meditation help reduce stress?

Meditation is a very simple and effective way to reduce stress. Meditation can give you satisfaction and release tension; after meditation, one can feel peace in mind. You feel more peaceful. It improves your mental health. We described below the ways by which meditation reduces stress.

1. Deep breaths and focusing on those breaths keep our mind focused on the present and stop us from overthinking.
2. Calm minds usually find solutions or the courage to deal with the problem.
3. It helps to increase self–awareness and teaches us to concentrate on the present. It will help withdraw all the energies wasted while thinking about the past and future and give more time to the present.
4. Reduces the negative emotions and makes you cheerful.
5. It helps to visualise things and brings clarity to life.
6. Increases two essential qualities known as tolerance and patience.

The benefits of meditation to reduce stress: 

Apart from stress relief, meditation has many other benefits. It’s a gift that just keeps giving. People should practice meditation as a daily ritual to achieve the following benefits:

1. Provides relief from back pain from sitting a long time in one place
2. Improves memory
3. Helps with sleep
4. Triggers active breathing, which can make our skin glow
5. Helps deal with addiction
6. Lowers cortisol levels which in turn decreases anxiety and depression
7. It increases serotonin which stabilises our mood
8. Boosts our immune system

Suppose all these reasons are not enough, then there is no need to worry as there are much more. Meditation is not pseudoscience. It is backed and researched by science. Scientists have seen a significant change in the monks’ brains who meditate for years. It is not like we don’t need medical treatment under doctors’ consultation, but mediation can also help lower stress related to the body and mind.

Tips for starting a meditation practice:

There are simple techniques and complex techniques to meditate. Here we can give some simple steps to follow this –

1. First, one needs to find a proper place and a comfortable posture to sit for 10-15 minutes. For beginners, it is a reasonable time limit.
2. A place with less noise and a calm atmosphere is preferable to practice efficiently.
3. Try to feel your breath and concentrate on it after each inhalation and exhalation.
4. Initially, unnecessary thoughts may arise. Try to fetch your focus again upon breath.
5. For beginners, it will need some practice to control our wandering thoughts. But slowly, it will happen.
6. At last, we need to open our eyes and gently feel the environment. Then notice the change in your body as well as mind.

We need to practice regularly. 10-15 minutes is a perfect duration to start.
Wondering how much should you be meditating? People find that spending a minimum of 12 minutes daily for five days in one week can help you build a meditation habit. It will help you to feel positive.

Resources Of meditation to reduce stress

If you want to start meditating, you want to do thorough research before that. Here are a few resources that can help you:

1. The Omega Institute’s youtube channel is the best place to start. It also has the basic beginner-friendly Buddhist Meditation by Noah Levine.
2. You can also check this video for proper guided meditation — How To Meditate In Twelve Minutes Guided Meditation & Mindfulness Meditation for Beginners by Michael Sealey.
3. A few free apps can help you get started, such as Insight Timer, Smiling Mind, MyLife Meditation, and U.C.L.A. Mindful. All these are available on both iOS and Android.
4. There are youtube channels that can assist you. The best handpicked for you would be – Sadhguru, BKShivani, and Art of Living.
5. You can look into Untangle, Tara Brach, Mindful Meditation Podcast, and Meditation At The Hammer.

Conclusion

Science strongly recommends practising meditation to remove stress from our daily life. Studies have proven that those who practice meditation regularly can lead a more peaceful life than the group of people who don’t. They can stop unnecessary thoughts and chattering of minds. It can highly absorb new information and recall the old ones. As the English say, “Don’t knock till you try it.” One month into meditation, the practitioner will start to feel the difference. We highly recommend it for students and young adults.
United We Care is a mental health professional organisation that provides online counselling throughout India. We try to help people identify their problems and improve their emotional health, cognitive issues, and several disorders. We have Psychologists and Life Coaches who are specialised in this particular field. Our services help them overcome every obstacle and enable a better and more successful life.