After trying several things for stress management, people are coming back to the old ways. They are giving preference to yoga to deal with stress in their daily life. Yoga can be performed anytime and anywhere, therefore can be a quick stress reliever and help you restore calmness. If you make it a part of your daily routine, one might experience low levels of stress gradually. Meditation would help you to regain focus when you feel yourself in the middle of emotional stress.
The process of meditation:
The process of meditation involves sitting down with crossed legs and eyes closed and concentrating on one thought or no thought at all. People prefer to chant mantras the whole time so that their thoughts do not creep it but it is not necessary at all, necessary is trying to concentrate. Slowly with time, every new thought that appears would stop. It would be great if you could spare at least twenty minutes daily to do meditation. If you can do it for a longer time period, it is awesome. Twenty is an ideal time for those who feel that it is too daunting to perform meditation for half an hour or more. Starting slowly would not take time a troll on you and help meditation techniques to enter into your life easily.
For beginners, it is advisable to do mediation in quiet surroundings whereas the more experienced once can perform it anywhere. Sometimes a spiritual aspect is also associated with meditation.
Response to stress:
How do you react in situations of stress? or How to do your mind react in situations of stress?
The mind would tell you to either fight it or run away from it. It would never give you a situation to it. The option of fight or run can be helpful once or twice. But when the stress level increases and such situations occur on a regular basis, then it makes also result in physical pain to your body. Meditation does exactly the opposite of stress. It would help you relax and calm down in situations that take a troll up you. Mediation helps to add rationality to your life. Even in the most stressful situations, you can manage your thoughts and control them. Research has shown that people who regularly meditate have less chance to be prone to stress. As meditation helps you with a positive mood, your mind remains calm and so does your physical body. Also, mediation itself has a physical aspect of its own. Thus, benefiting your body with double immunity.
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Benefits of mediation:
As meditation would help you against stress, therefore it would keep you away from chronic stress as well. Other benefits of meditation are: heartbeat and breathing slow down, blood pressure would stay normal, oxygen would be utilized with efficiency, the immune system becomes better, the mind would age at a slower rate and the mind becomes free of all thoughts, ultimately increasing the level of your creativity. People who regularly practice meditation can easily give up on bad habits such as smoking and drinking.
Why meditation is more beneficial as compared to other forms of reducing stress?
- When people go for medications or herbal remedies, they are usually associated with side effects, while with meditation there is no such negative effect.
- People who might not be physically fit to do exercises to relax can go for meditation, as it just requires concentration and no other physical exercise.
- Going to professional and taking assistance would cost you, while meditation is absolutely free of cost.
- Meditation does require discipline and concentration. If you are among those people who feel digress by outside motivation can take part in a meditation group.
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Things to be kept in mind about meditation
1. Go for consistent practice rather than long practice:
It is important for everyone who practices yoga that if you are a beginner try to perform meditation in small intervals every day. If you meditate for an hour on a certain day in a week and do not go for it the rest of the week, then it would not benefit you at all. Whereas if you do for small intervals but on a daily basis, you will be able to feel the change yourself.
2. Nothing is perfect:
If you are willing to start your meditation routine with perfectness then you might never be able to start it. Rather than thinking about things like you are sitting in the right position or not, what time would be good? or how long you should sit? forget all these questions and just start. Doing meditation in any position or situation is better than not doing it at all.
3. Wandering away with your thoughts:
While meditating people often feel that if their thoughts are wandering than they have failed. This is especially the case with perfectionists. But you need to remember that the whole concept of meditation is this itself. Whenever a thought occurs, we try to bring ourselves back by concentrating on our breaths. You can never leave your thoughts behind but control them.
4. Long term meditation:
People who are doing meditation for years, even find it hard to control their thoughts. So, don’t be disheartened, it is all the part of meditation and requires consistent practice.
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Beginning with meditation
There are various techniques to perform meditation for your lifestyle. Some might benefit you more than others. It depends from person to person. So, the best way is sampling them one by one and choose the most appropriate one for yourself. It is advisable to start meditation at the time when you do not have any stress, it would make you more relaxed. While meditating particularly at the time of stress is not at all bad but if you are performing it for the first time and in the middle of a stressful situation, it might not give you the most desired results. If you don’t understand how to start? Simply concentrate on your breathing.