How does meditation help with anxiety ?
If you are asking youurself the queston “how does meditation help anxiety?” you are on the right blog post. We will take dive into the subject so I hope you are read?
Great, leat’s go!
Stress and anxiety have different dimensions but the one that usually determines their impact on our well-being and daily life is the cognitive dimension. Theories like the cognitive-behavioral approach believe, with good evidence, that the reason that we experience harm from these emotional experiences is because of the thinking process that is associated with them.
When we are anxious, we can begin to feel this emotion after our thinking turns to situations that make us worry. If we indulge in these thoughts and ruminate on them, then our anxiety is likely to grow…
…thinking is often what cause the experiences of stress and anxiety.
What we make of our surroundings is powerful
If you think about your own experiences with these negative emotions, you will likely identify thoughts that trigger these emotions or amplify them. For example, a person sees that their friend has not answered their text yet. If they shrug it off, it is unlikely that the experience will affect them in any way…
…however, the person might start thinking and wondering about why the person hasn’t answered. They might wonder if the person has had a terrible accident or if they are ignoring the message because they are angry or perhasp…
…we start thinking that they are disrespectful for not getting back to us. Like we don’t matter enough to them.
If the person goes on with this train of thought, their anxiety will likely become more pronounced and make them feel more worried and more afraid. However, if they are able to halt it or change it constructively, then the anxiety they experience will be less intense.
The power of our thoughts
This shows how our thoughts impact our anxiety and stress. What makes us stressed is often not the situation we are in but what we think about that situation. When our mind wanders into the past and is filled with regrets or into the future and is filled with catastrophic scenarios, we also create a sense of anxiety within ourselves.
Understanding this is essential to see why meditation is a viable strategy for reducing stress and anxiety. The goal of meditation is to quiet the mind and learn how to focus one’s attention on something without allowing the mind to wander….
…when we do this, we quiet all the racing thoughts in our head, including those that induce anxiety and stress. The practice of meditation allows us to prevent our mind from wandering and creates a sense of stillness that allows us to reduce the stress that we feel.
How does meditation help anxiety
Take a look at this video for a simple explanation on why meditation helps with anxiety. It will only take about 5 minutes of your life but you’ll discover valuable stuff for your health.
Why does meditation help anxiety
The secret is in the constant losing focus and then SHIFTING BACK to what we were supposed to be focusing on. Again and again…and again
When you sit down to do your meditation you will for sure notice that, at some point, a distractive thought enters your brain. Many people think this is bad and it is ruining their meditation session. But no, it is NOT bad in fact it IS the whole secret behind why meditation works for anxiety…
…here’s the deal!
Say you are meditating by focusing on our breath. How the air feel in your nose when you breathe in. When that distractive thought pops up you simply notice it and then you shift your focus back to your breath again…
…read that again because that was the key.
The magic is in the shifting back
This constant shifting BACK to what you are supposed to focus on (in this case your breath) is what builds your brain to be better at ignoring distractions.
Just like people in the gym do reps for their muscles, every time you shift your focus back to your breath you are doing a rep for your brain and…
…you will lose focus many times during a meditation session so you will get many reps done. The key is to quickly be aware of when you lose your focus because, sometimes, we don’t notice when it happens. This will get easier with time so keep going.
Meditation might be seen as a type of exercise for our mind and our attention that allows us to maintain a better control over our thoughts even when we are not meditating.
How long does it take for meditation to help anxiety?
I got an email with the question “how long does it take for meditation to help anxiety” yesterday and I know many are wondering about that so I though I write a few lines about that as well.
When you meditate you might feel a slight stress and anxiety reduction instantly but the real power of using meditation for anxiety lies in the cumulative effects, meaning it builds up over time. Getting those reps for your brain, every day for months on end, is what will make you see very powerful effects. This is different for everybody but…
…I’d say you have to give it at least two months before evaluating if meditation is for you or not.
There are of course additional anxiety tools that works
I know that two months can seem a little long if you are suffering from high levels of anxiety and truth be told, I don’t always meditate myself because…
…well, honestly I’m a bit lazy when it comes to meditating. I have done it enough in my life to see that it really works though and once I did it every day for 10 months. The effects really became noticeable for me after about 10 weeks of meditating. That said…
…there are faster solutions that works from the very first day you use it, should you bee in a hurry. It is a natural anxiety supplement that I use myself from time to time and, after trying almost everything that is out there, I have found it to be the anxiety supplement that is the most potent.
So many of them don’t do anything and hardly work at all but 3-4 hours after taking this my anxiety is at least 80% gone. Anyway…
…I have made a review about this supplement, here on my website, and if you are interested in learning more about how it works and where to get it you can
click here to go read that review now
With meditation you are also training your body and mind to be able to relaxed
Whenever we meditate, we stop worrying for a while. This is relaxing by itself but meditation also reduces the physiological manifestations of stress. It induces a state of deep relaxation that is beneficial for our health.
With a constant practice of meditation, we gain the ability to better control our state of mind. We are better able to stop ourselves from spiraling into anxious thoughts and also to focus on something specific rather than let our mind wandering.
In addition to this, meditation as a practice promotes a lot of attitudes that are contrary to excessive stress and anxiety. It encourages a mindset of introspection and calm that is contrary to the feelings of anxiety we may experience. It encourages a different way of thinking.
The positive habit spreads to other areas of your life
Another thing to consider is that meditation requires commitment to a healthier lifestyle. Any steps that we take in this direction are likely to be associated with positive results for ourselves and help reduce the anxiety that we feel in our daily life. Taking the time to meditate means devoting more time to ourselves and to our self-care habits.
Also, meditation can be used as a tool to relax in situations where this may be difficult. Meditation does not require special equipment or preparation, so it can be used as a relaxation technique before a big day at work, a presentation, an exam, or any other situation that is associated with worry.
When we make meditation a habit it can make a significant difference in our stress levels and promote a healthier lifestyle overall.
Thank you for reading the blog post “Why does meditation help with anxiety”
-Bob Castle-