How To Manage Stress With Meditation And Mindfulness

What Is Stress?

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, stress is the brain and body's response to changes, challenges, or needs. It is the body's natural defense against danger from events or thoughts that make you feel frustrated, angry, or nervous. When a stressful event occurs, the Body is filled with hormones to avoid or cope with danger. This is usually called a fight or flight response. If you do not take appropriate measures to control stress, stress may become a chronic disease. Chronic stress causes chemical changes in the body, which increase blood pressure, heart rate, and blood sugar levels. Long-term stress or high stress can also cause physical and mental health problems.

How do you deal with stress? 

Strategies to ignore or deny stress (what experts call avoidance coping) or distraction may be effective in the short term, but they can also damage our long-term health and well-being. Research published in the Journal of Personality Research shows that the current subconscious mind is a key feature of mindfulness, which can improve stress resistance and effective coping capabilities.

Awareness of the present moment involves monitoring and paying attention to current experience, rather than predicting future events or indulging in the past. Studies have shown that a person’s willingness to live in the present is associated with many health benefits, including lowering perceived stress, anxiety, and depression levels, improving mood, and achieving greater happiness.

In this study, a group of Australian researchers examined the current subconscious influence in a sample of 143 well-educated college students and faculty (76.3% women) who participated in online mindfulness training courses. The researchers surveyed the study participants, focusing on three stress response variables.

Three stress response variables:

You think you are capable of handling stressful situations. Whether people believe that they have the ability to handle a certain situation affects the way they handle stress. This is called coping self-efficacy, and it is an indicator of our ability to motivate ourselves to effectively cope with a stressful environment.

When dealing with stressful situations, your confidence in your core values. Relying on values rather than responding to immediate, short-term situations is described as a "value-aligned response." This describes when your response is consistent with long-term goals and desires, rather than being affected by the current situation. Research shows that being present can make you more aware of your choices and values, which translates into greater happiness, reduced psychological distress, and greater tolerance for pain in a stressful environment.

The degree of avoidance of your feelings of stress. The characteristic of coping avoidance is the tendency to withdraw from stressful life events. This coping style is related to an increase in psychological distress and a decrease in lifelong happiness.

The findings confirm that those who are more aware of the present moment are more likely to cope with stress through strategies that lead to healthier and happier. Specifically, being under pressure is directly related to a stronger perception of stress and greater confidence in core values to manage situations.

4 ways to calm you down during stressful times 

The stress response should be short-lived because it consumes your body, health, and energy. Stress makes us concentrate in limited ways, which prevents us from seeing the big picture. When we calm down, our attention becomes wider.

So the question is, how to relax? Studies have shown that there are several practices that not only make us feel good but also make us in a calmer and more relaxed state. In this state, we can better deal with everything in life.

1.Practice our breathing Practice

Our Breathing is a powerful way to regulate our emotions, and we take it for granted. By breathing, you can activate the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which is your body's calming response.

One of the calmest breathing exercises you can do is to inhale (for example, count to four), hold, and then exhale twice (for example, count to six or eight). You can gently constrict your throat and make a sound similar to the ocean to relax your breathing deeply. When you do this, especially due to those prolonged exhalations, you are activating the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering your heart rate and blood pressure.

2.Take a self-pity attitude

 Self-compassion is the ability to be aware of one's own emotions, to be aware of the emotions within each failure. This does not mean that you agree with them; you can simply observe and pay attention to them without adding fuel to the fire. Self-compassion also means understanding that we all make mistakes, which is part of humanity. This is the ability to speak to yourself, just like you speak to a friend who has just failed, with warmth and kindness.

3.Cultivate genuine connections 

How often do we truly serve others 100%? When was the last time someone was 100% by your side?

In addition to food and shelter, our greatest human need is to connect with others in a positive way. The good news is that by taking care of yourself and your own well-being through exercises such as breathing and self-compassion, you can also focus more outwards and feel more connected.

4.Practice compassion for others

Imagine one-day things are not going well for you: you spill coffee on yourself and it rains. Then a friend calls someone who has a real emergency in their life, and you immediately jump in to help them. What was your mentality at that moment?

Suddenly you have a lot of energy; you serve them completely. This is what practicing altruism, service, and compassion do in your life. It greatly increases your happiness, as many of us experience when doing small acts of kindness.

How does stress affect your body?

We often use the word "I am stressed" in our daily conversations without realizing the adverse effects of stress on our lives. But the evidence shows that we should care more about our stress levels than we do.

The Centers for Disease Control found that 66% of American workers said they stayed up late to worry about the physical or emotional impact of stress. Stress is related to many health problems, including obesity and heart disease, especially among low-income Americans... Stress not only affects us. , It will also affect the people around us, especially our children.

Long-term stress will change the brain. The part of our brain that helps deal with threats, the amygdala, appears bigger in people with chronic stress.  The researchers also found that the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex may look smaller.

According to the 2019 US Stress Survey, adult stress is increasing at an alarming rate. This means that more Americans walk with high levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which is associated with most diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and depression.

Chronic stress, inflammation, and mindfulness 

Over time, the effects of chronic stress are latent and reflected in our lifestyle choices: we struggle to fall asleep every night; wake us up with caffeine in the morning; use cookies or soda Deal with the downturn in the afternoon; then doze off and calm down at night with junk food, alcohol, social media, or drugs.

In the body, all types of stress lead to one destination: inflammation, the "fire" in our cells. Inflammation is simply the body's protective immune response to any type of toxin or injury. Think about how your skin recovers from a cut, for example swelling and redness may appear, then scabs and eventually heal. 

When our lives are out of control, we will activate the genes that cause chronic inflammation, which is the root cause of the biggest global health epidemic of our time: chronic diseases related to lifestyle.

In this situation, how can productivity, creativity, and innovation flourish? Although there are many systemic problems that need to be resolved, we can all do something to start taking better care of ourselves. Fortunately, the road to inflammation and chronic disease is not one-way. We can reverse the overwhelming situation and build resilience.

How conscious breathing relieves stress?

Certain types of mindful breathing can activate your parasympathetic nervous system, thereby initiating a relaxation response, lowering your heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing, and engaging your body in recovery and restoration of function. Although not everyone can experience relaxation immediately, most people report that they feel calm and reduce stress after this exercise. Give it a try:

Breathing exercises: relieve stress symptoms

This simple but effective form of deep breathing closes the pressure feedback loop and teaches your brain and body to relax. 

We can touch our breath through a simple but effective form of deep breathing, called intentional breathing. Unlike other breathing techniques, the focus here is to let the breath flow naturally by inhaling from the top down and exhaling from the bottom up.

How to practice conscious breathing?

Sit comfortably and observe you're natural breathing

First find a comfortable position, such as sitting upright on a chair or lying on your back. Start observing your breathing. Pay attention to where the breathing flows: upper chest, lower abdomen, front, back, or both sides. When you do this, try to avoid judging your breathing style or attaching a story. Just like a scientist studying cells under a microscope, see if you can check all the details of your breathing at once and record it in your mind. Pay attention to your breathing pattern. This is an interesting exercise. You may notice that the act of observing breathing slows down your breathing rate.

Place your hands on your chest and abdomen

Place your right hand on the breastbone (sternum) in the center of your chest. Place your left hand under the belly button. Continue to breathe normally and see if you breathe more with your right or left hand. See if you can resist the urge to change your breath or deepen your breath. Breathe as normally as possible and see how your body breathes normally. how are you feeling? What did you notice? Continue for at least 10 breaths.

Breathe into your chest

Try to breathe with only your right hand in the middle of your upper chest. Without forced breathing, see how it feels to breathe into the space below your right hand. What did you notice? Can you slow down the rate of inhalation or feel difficult or uncomfortable? See what happens. Continue to observe 10 to 20 breaths. After 10 to 20 breaths, take a few deep breaths, and then return to normal breathing for about one minute.

Breathe into the lower part of the lungs

Next, try to breathe with only your left hand on your abdomen. Without forced breathing, see how it feels to breathe into space under your left hand. What did you notice? Can you slow down the rate of inhalation or feel difficult or uncomfortable? See what happens. Continue to observe 10 to 20 breaths. After 10 to 20 breaths, take several deeps inhales and exhales, and then return to normal breathing for about one minute.

Half of the breath enters the chest and then into the lower part of the lungs

Now, try to exhale half of your breath into your right hand, pause for a second or two, then exhale the rest into the space below your left hand and pause. Then exhale from bottom to top, first release the air under the left hand, and then let the exhale continue from the bottom of the left hand to the bottom of the right hand, up and out through the nose or mouth. Continue to inhale the next time, first in the area under the right hand, then in the area under the left hand, and then exhale from bottom to top. Will it slow down your inhalation or is it difficult or uncomfortable? how are you feeling? What did you notice? Continue to observe 10 to 20 breaths. After 10 to 20 breaths, take several deeps inhales and exhales, and then return to normal breathing for about one minute.

Breathe deeply

Finally, try to breathe deeply from top to bottom as you inhale, and from bottom to top as you exhale, without pausing. If possible, see if you can slow the rate of exhalation for longer than the inhalation. If you want, you can count 1, 2, 3, etc. See which one is longer: your inhalation or exhalation. After 10 to 20 breaths, take several deeps inhales and exhales, and then return to normal breathing for about one minute.

See how you feel

Is it easy or difficult to practice? Do you think it is normal to breathe slowly and fully? How does your body feel? Emotionally? strong? If you want, write down your experience.

Mindfulness for Stress

Increasing scientific evidence from hundreds of universities, including the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the University of Oxford’s specialized centers, strongly suggests that mindfulness can gently build inner strength, so future stressors will reduce our happiness and The impact of physical health.

How mindfulness reduces stress?

You will understand your thoughts better. Then you can stay away from them instead of taking them literally. In this way, your stress response will not start from the beginning.

You will not react to the situation immediately. Instead, you have time to stop and use your "smart mind" to find the best solution. 

Positive attention will activate your "being" way, which is related to relaxation. Your mind "doing" has to do with actions and responses to stress. 

You are more aware and sensitive to the needs of your body. You may notice the pain sooner before you can take appropriate measures. 

You understand the emotions of others better. As your emotional intelligence increases, your chances of conflict will decrease. 

Your level of care and sympathy for yourself and others will increase. This compassionate mind calms you down and suppresses your response to stress.

Mindfulness exercises reduce the activity of the part of the brain called the amygdala. The amygdala is essential for activating your stress response, thereby effectively reducing your background stress level. 

You can concentrate better. As a result, you can complete your work more efficiently and get a greater sense of happiness, thereby reducing your stress response. You are more likely to enter "area" or "flow", as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi puts it in psychology. 

You can change your attitude towards stress. Mindfulness is not just about seeing the negative consequences of stress but giving you space to think about stress itself in different ways. Observing how the increased stress helps you become full of energy can have a positive effect on your mind and body.

Stress breathing exercises:

Andrés González provides a breathing exercise for anxiety and stress that may occur in any situation.

Stressful breathing is good for any type of stress or anxiety-test anxiety, performance anxiety, any type of anxiety. This is also a good exercise. With this breath, you can extract a lot of energy and store it in your body.

Use everyday objects as a reminder for pressure breathing. I use my key. When I drive to work in the morning and remove the car key from the ignition switch, this is the cue for me to breathe under pressure. I will do it 12 times before going to the office so that I can get out of the house and focus on work. Then when I drove home, I parked the car and removed the key from the ignition switch. This was my signal: I had to do it 12 times before I entered the house. This allows me to let go of work at work so that I can spend 100% with my family when I get home. It's like using your brain to press the reset button.

Some basic elements of hard breathing:

Fogging the mirror 

The most important thing about this kind of breathing is that it is audible. Take her hand in front of your mouth, like a foggy mirror. So, when you exhale, you make a haaaaaaaa sound, just like you are fogging a mirror.

Make it audible 

Now, do the same thing, but just open your mouth for two seconds, then close your mouth, while still pushing out in the same way, but now pushing out through the nose. Practice making the same sound when you inhale, so that the sound comes from the back of your throat (almost like Darth Wada's breathing).

Hold and lock

While inhaling, hold your breath, then lower your chin to your chest. Stay there to count five, then raise your head as you exhale. Let's put them together...

Stressed breathing exercises

Using the "fog mirror" technique, inhale in a beautiful and deep way, making the sound vibrate at the back of the throat. 

Hold your breath and place your chin on your chest. 

Count down from five.

 Exhale (make a sound through the nose). While raising his head. 

That is a cycle. If possible, do it 12 times in a row during the day and do it again at night.

Why pressure breathing is effective?

The reason breathing must be heard is because sound vibrations send signals to the vagus nerve, which is the connection between the body and mind. It triggers changes in the autonomic nervous system from the sympathetic (stress response) to the parasympathetic nerve. (Restoring response). So if you just walk around and hear breathing sounds, you are basically doing pressure breathing.

Fighting pressure doesn’t make much sense, does it? This is the most reliable way to increase pressure. Mindfulness allows us to interrupt the cycle of pressure and allow some space and air to enter. Here are 11 simple ways to spend time on important things and put the pressure in the right place.

Take a walk

Modern life seems to be designed to allow us to sit in one place for a long time, sitting, standing or lying down. Many people don’t even remember when you had to get up and walk around the room, change the TV channel, or go to the bookshelf to look up the dictionary. The movement is obsolete, and the balance of the consumed physical and mental energy may get out of control. Make excuses to use muscles that feel lonely and neglected. Increase your heart rate a little bit. Your body and mind will thank you.

Eating lunch in a pleasant place 

Eating lunch at your desk ensures that your mind stays in the same frame of reference as you eat, especially when you are checking email or working at the same time. Go to other places for lunch, hang out with colleagues, let go and enjoy. Then he went back to work refreshed.

Relax your muscles through a body scan

Progressive muscle relaxation can help you notice where you are under stress. It doesn't take long, and it's easy-lie comfortably on your back with your legs straight. Close your eyes. First, tighten the foot muscles, then relax. Do the same movement from foot to head upwards in turn. Many times, only by experiencing muscle tension and releasing it can we realize how much tension our body maintains.

Minimize multitasking

Sometimes you need to multitask at the same time (or at least in rapid succession). But doing too much at the same time, jumping from one thing to another, will make people exhausted, inefficient, and stressed in a sustained state of partial attention. Instead of checking emails, planning dinner, writing reports, and texting your sister, try to concentrate on one thing at a time.

Remove your face from the phone

The phone is a universal device for distraction. It's like someone pushing you and cursing you all day long. It constantly attracts your attention. Set some restrictions on when, where, and how to use it. Be careful to let it dominate in social situations. Try to keep it completely during meals and gatherings. Choose a few places (doors, elevators, store lines), where you can make a mental record to avoid it, and follow your breath during those moments when you dive into the online world.

Look at the green things

Is your sight often scattered by bricks, concrete, glass, and carpets? How about spending more time for things to grow, breathe, scent, sway in the wind, and sparkle in the sun? Nothing can slow you down and show you the big picture like little nature.

Play

Just work and not play...Yes, it means you. Play is not limited to children. Playing just means doing something that has no purpose, plan, or goal. Walk the streets, play cards, bowl, and read for entertainment. The surprises of letting go can be uplifting and refreshing.

 Go for a swim

Going for a few laps to swim in the right boring way to help you reduce stress. Rhythmic splashes, splashes, splashes, and weightlessness, just like shaking in a cradle. It uses many muscle groups and is very useful if you have an old injury that makes running and other activities difficult. In addition, you cannot use your mobile phone or watch TV while immersed in water. You can hear your own thoughts. Or don't consider it, it depends on the situation.

Loudly read something

Reading good works or poems aloud can produce a very relaxing effect. This is why children like to be read. If you don’t like your own voice, try listening to audiobooks.

 listen, to a piece of music really

Sit back or sit down to listen to the whole album, symphony, opera or any music that suits your taste. You may feel wiggling or holding your phone at first, but you will soon be immersed in the sound.

Take a vacation

According to data from the American Travel Association, Americans took less vacation time in 2014 than in the past 40 years. Only 57% of workers across the country have used up all their paid vacation time, and those with higher annual incomes have the least number of days off. This is definitely not a good way to avoid stress and its adverse effects. Taking a vacation will actually make you a more efficient employee. In addition, your family will appreciate you, and you will have time and space to really take care of yourself.

Strategies for stress management before bedtime

Stress is the main cause of insomnia, affecting approximately 30% of American adults at any given time. If you have experienced a stressful night, it is not difficult to understand why: Stress makes it difficult to relax mentally and physically before and during sleep.

The relationship between stress and sleep is also two-way. Over time, lack of rest can increase stress and affect physical and mental health, which may form a cycle that exacerbates these two problems. A study published in the journal Sleep found that the way a person responds to stress affects the development of insomnia. Using some relaxation techniques in your mental toolkit may be helpful when stress arises and keeps you awake. You can explore the following four methods to relieve stress before going to bed.

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness is a basic human ability that can be fully present, aware of where we are and what we are doing, rather than overreacting or being overwhelmed by what is happening around us. Mindfulness has many health benefits, one of which is improving sleep. A 2015 study found that compared with those who participated in the sleep hygiene education program, those who participated in the mindfulness training program improved indicators of sleep, depression, and fatigue within six weeks. 

Mindfulness meditation can be practiced independently. The steps are simple: Sit down, pay attention to your breathing, and come back when your attention is distracted. Following guided meditation is also helpful for beginners.

Deep Breathing

Since breathing is usually an autonomous function, it is easy to overlook its role in relaxation. However, there is a lot of evidence that the depth and frequency of breathing affect factors such as heart rate and blood pressure. Some breathing techniques that involve slower, deeper breathing can be practiced to induce relaxation.

Diaphragm breathing: This technique is easy to try: sit or lie down, inhale through the nose, count to ten, and focus on breathing from the abdomen instead of the chest. Exhale slowly through your nose at the same speed, counting to ten. Complete this cycle five to ten times, repeat as many times as necessary. Studies have found that even a deep, slow breath can lower blood pressure and heart rate.

Diaphragm breathing: This technique is easy to try: sit or lie down, inhale through the nose, count to ten, and focus on breathing from the abdomen instead of the chest. Exhale slowly through your nose at the same speed, counting to ten. Complete this cycle five to ten times, repeat as many times as necessary. Studies have found that even a deep, slow breath can lower blood pressure and heart rate.

Listen to Music

Have you noticed how certain songs relax you? Music is not only in your mind, it can really help you calm down and fight stress. Music-based therapy is a professional clinical practice that involves well-trained therapists and is supported by important research.

Musical relaxation techniques have been shown to reduce stress and pain, as well as symptoms of insomnia. Listening to relaxing music (Canon de Pachabel in D in a study) may have a preventive effect on stress, and according to research, music may be more effective than progressive muscle relaxation in relieving anxiety and insomnia. A study of college students found that listening to classical music at night can improve sleep and reduce depression compared to audiobooks or nothing.

When choosing music to relax at home, it is best to choose instruments with a calm rhythm, including classical music, light jazz and strings, and natural soundtracks, depending on what you personally think is the most attractive. Sit down, turn off the lights, and focus on the melody and rhythm of the music.

Mindful Movement

Meditation exercises like those found in yoga can be a useful way to reduce stress. Yoga has been studied as an intervention for insomnia, cancer survivors, the elderly, and pregnant women, showing positive results. Usually, these studies involve routine exercises during the day, although yoga can also be used for relaxation at night, such as forward bends, children's poses, and legs against the wall for gentle stretching and stress relief.

Since relaxation can be a personal matter, trying different procedures or even different coaches can help. But keep in mind that, like most strategies, seeing results can take time, and most studies will find benefits within a few weeks to months.

When life gets you into trouble, finding a healthy method of stress reduction that suits you and practicing it regularly can have a major impact. Coping strategies that help you deal with stress and relaxation provide a positive way to manage problems and work to prevent their negative effects, including insomnia.

Guided stress meditation 

In a recent study, researchers assigned 47 healthy young people to a body scan group or an audiobook control group. People in the body scan group received an Android phone equipped with a 20-minute guided body scan adapted from the Mindfulness Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. Body scanning involves paying attention to the momentary physical sensations from the beginning of the feet to the end of the head. Although MBSR also includes meditation and yoga, the researchers wanted to see if a separate body scan can help reduce stress. The members of the book group received the audiobook "The Story of a Madman" by John Katzenbach. Both groups were asked to listen to 20 minutes of recordings every day for eight weeks.

At the end of the eight weeks, the cortisol level of the body scan group decreased, but the cortisol level of the book group increased. Both groups showed an increase in DHEA; their hormone levels were about the same. Compared with the control group, the ratio of cortisol to DHEA in the body scan group also showed a greater decrease. This means that the entire body scan group showed lower biological stress at the end of the study than the control group.

20-minute body scan pressure meditation When we start the body scan

Under the guidance of Dr. Mark Bertin, we will slowly and systematically shift our attention to various areas of the body, from the feet to the top of the head. , Pay attention to the sensations of the body as we move forward. Remember, as always, you don’t have to work hard to make anything happen.