Meditation On Anxiety Disclaimer: Although meditation is a powerful tool to manage anxiety using researched mindfulness-based therapy it is not aimed to replace therapy. Please seek professional help if you feel it is needed. The following practices are a great way to help you alongside medical help.
Anxiety is a very common disorder linked to chronic stress that many people experience in our day and age. As we experience more stress in our everyday fast-paced lives anxiety levels and overwhelm also rise which affects our overall quality of life.
There are a lot of other conditions that are related to anxiety and panic disorder.
Other anxiety conditions include:
- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Panic disorder
- Selective mutism in children
- Separation anxiety disorder
- Social anxiety disorder (social phobia)
- Specific phobias (agoraphobia or claustrophobia)
- Substance-induced anxiety disorder
- Other specified anxiety disorder and unspecified anxiety disorder
- Other psychiatric disorders
Symptoms of Anxiety include:
Common anxiety symptoms
- Tension, restlessness, nervousness or physical sensations that pertain to this
- A constant sense of panic, irrational fear or doom
- increase in heart rate
- Increase in breathing (hyperventilating)
- Sweating or other body sensations
- Shaking or trembling or other physical sensations of nervousness
- Tiredness and weakness
- Low concentration
- Struggle to focus on anything else other than present or future worry (can’t seem to control the worry and the worry is out of proportion to the nature of the event)
- Insomnia
- Symptoms of depression
- Gastrointestinal and digestive issues (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)
- Avoiding anxiety triggers
Can meditation help for anxiety – How to deal with anxiety through meditation
Anxiety is a normal part of life. It can be caused by many things, such as stress or fear about the future. But when it becomes excessive and causes problems in your daily life, you may need professional help from an experienced therapist. If this sounds like you, read more below for some tips on how meditation can help reduce your symptoms of anxiety and improve your mental health, and in turn improve your physical health too.
How does meditation On anxiety help?
Meditation helps calm your mind and body. It also allows you to relax and enjoy the present moment without worrying about what might happen next or how something will turn out. In other words, meditation makes you happy. If you’re stressed out all the time, meditating may seem like too much work at first. However, if you stick with it, you’ll soon notice positive changes in your moods, relationships, and overall well-being.
How Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy Helps with Anxiety
Meditation effects on anxiety
Can Mindfulness Really Help Reduce Anxiety? The effects of meditation are vast. Moderate evidence exists that states it is possible to reduce feelings of anxiety or fear by meditating or implementing meditation practices, as it reinforces positive thinking and calms the nervous system down which controls our fight or flight mode (sympathetic nervous system).
These changes in the nervous system help to manage the symptoms of anxiety as it diffuses the worry and fears you might be experiencing by drawing your attention to your breath and allowing you to let go of these intrusive thoughts.
Furthermore, mindfulness can help us become aware of how anxious we feel and what causes this feeling so we can learn ways to cope better with situations that make us anxious.
Mindful awareness allows us to notice when we start to get stressed about something and then take steps to calm ourselves back down again. This process takes practice but over time becomes easier and less stressful.
How Meditation Can Help Generalized Anxiety Disorder – How Mindfulness Calms Anxious Feelings
Meditative practices allow us to see thoughts differently and make them less overwhelming.
It takes the focus and attention away from thinking into the past or the future which is where these anxious thoughts or experience of anxiety originates. Meditation draws attention to the present moment.
What’s more, the stress response in the body is reduced when meditation is practiced. Meditation has been shown to improve brain function and increase gray matter volume in areas associated with emotional regulation such as the prefrontal cortex.
In addition, research shows that people who regularly engage in a form of meditation called focused attention mediation experience greater improvements in their moods compared to those who do not.
This may explain why many studies show that regular meditation practitioners report fewer depressive episodes and overall lower levels of depression.
How Does Meditation Reduce Anxiety at a Neural Level?
There are two main theories regarding how meditation reduces anxiety: The first theory suggests that meditation helps regulate emotions through its effect on the brain region of the amygdala.
According to this view, meditation increases activity in regions of the frontal lobe responsible for executive functions like planning, decision making, self-monitoring, impulse control, and working memory. These higher-order cognitive processes allow us to think rationally about difficult problems and act accordingly.
Discover the nature of your anxiety & stress through meditation.
Learn how to use mindfulness and awareness techniques to manage it, so you can live a more peaceful life!
When we learn about our own mind and body e can cope with everyday stresses better. Meditation will help you question and analyze where these anxious thoughts might be coming from and what is the root cause that stresses you out. You’ll also discover ways to relax and reduce stress levels naturally. Many different courses include guided meditations that are easy-to-follow and suitable for beginners as well as advanced students.
How to Use Meditation for Anxiety Tips?
1) Start small.- it is helpful to start with only a few minutes every day and then build it from there. Jumping straight into a 30 minutes session will be overwhelming and won’t build a habit that you can sustain
2) Pick one that suits you – there are so many different options when it comes to practicing mindfulness. Body scans meditations, yoga, or even washing the dishes can bring you into a calm state. It is about finding the one that works for you.
3) Allow yourself to be guided – It will be difficult to start if you are not sure how or where to start. There are many apps that you can download or meditation anxiety-guided YouTube videos to follow along with. You can do it in the comfort of your own home in your own time if you feel going to a meditation class is too intimidating.
4) Make it a habit that forms part of your daily routine – try pairing mindfulness with an action you do every day. eg. taking a few mindful moments, taking a few deep breaths, or doing a guided session before you make coffee in the morning – this, however, can be done any time of the day and anywhere
5) Breath through the anxiety – learn how to regulate your breath through mindfulness. Through regulating your breath you can regulate your anxious thoughts or feelings of angst and panic.
The reason diaphragmatic or abdominal breathing is an “anti-panic/anxiety” breath is it helps regulate irregular breathing patterns fairly quickly. Often when you feel panicked, your breathing will become rapid, irregular, and shallow. You’ll tend to breathe mostly in your chest and neck. When you shift to diaphragmatic breathing , this will help regulate the breath so you can begin to feel more balanced and relaxed. Source: mindful.org
Best guided meditation for anxiety
There is no such thing as ‘the best way to meditate’ doing any sort of mindfulness practice is beneficial. It is less about the type of meditation but more about the frequency and the habit you create around living mindfully by incorporating it into your everyday life. At the end of the day, it is about the intention that you set and your ability to expand your attention control.
Beginner Meditation Anxiety Guided
Try this short meditation for anxiety:
Breathing exercises – Box breathe
Find a quiet space and sit in a comfortable seat. Close your eyes and seal off your lips. Inhale for the count of 4 through your nose. Hold for a count of 4. Exhale for a count of 8. Hold for a count of 4 at the bottom. Repeat 5 * 10 times. With every inhale imagine your breath filling your lungs and with every exhale imagine all the air pouring out, imagine the thoughts that might be worrying you to simply pass through your mind with a gentle breeze blowing them past – let go.
Meditation Anxiety YouTube
Try these guided meditation videos to ease your anxiety
In summary, these tips will help you ease anxiety by using mindfulness and awareness techniques. They include learning how to control your breathing, which will allow you to slow down your heart rate and lower blood pressure. By calming your nervous system, you’ll find it easier to deal with stressful situations and emotions. The best way to practice them is to set aside some quiet time each day. If this is new to you – be patient and kind with your mind, mindfulness is a journey and there is no end destination the aim is not to empty your mind of these anxious thoughts but rather approach them from a different perspective to regulate and cope with them.
