The stress cycle may be broken with the use of mindfulness meditation, giving you the opportunity to respond rather than react. Learn our best practices and advice to give you the skills you need to deal with stress. Read more about Guided Meditation for Stress Relief by visiting our website and if you have any questions related to this topic, connect with us.
First, what is stress?
The National Institute of Mental Health defines stress as the body’s and brain’s reaction to a demand, challenge, or change. It is your body’s natural reaction against danger caused by an experience or concept that causes you to feel anxious, irate, or annoyed. The body is overloaded with hormones to either face or flee danger when a stressful event takes place. This is often known as the fight-or-flight reaction.
If appropriate measures are not taken to control stress, it might develop into a chronic illness. Long-term stress can alter the body’s chemistry, increasing blood pressure, heart rate, and blood sugar. Mental and physical health issues can also result from prolonged or excessive stress.
What Is Your Stress Reaction?
While certain short-term coping mechanisms, such as rejecting or dismissing stress (a practice known by experts as avoidance coping) or diverting our attention, can have long-term negative effects on our happiness and health. Present-moment awareness, a fundamental component of mindfulness, has been shown to improve stress resistance and effective coping, according to research published in the Journal of Research in Personality.
Monitoring and focusing on the experience at hand, as opposed to making predictions about the future or wallowing in the past, is the essence of present-moment awareness. Numerous health advantages, such as reduced levels of perceived stress, anxiety, and sadness, enhanced mood, and a sense of greater well-being, are associated with an individual’s inclination to stay in the present moment, according to studies.
Researchers from Australia looked into the impact of present-moment awareness on a sample of 143 well-educated university employees and students (76.3% of whom were female) who participated in an online mindfulness training program. Three stress response variables were the main focus of the survey that the researchers conducted with the study participants.
Three factors that affect the stress response:
Your apparent ability to handle a difficult circumstance. How people respond to stress depends in part on whether or not they think they can manage a problem. This is known as coping self-efficacy, and it shows how well we can push ourselves to deal with stressful situations.
Your response to difficult events is based on your underlying principles. “Values-consistent responding” refers to relying on values instead than responding to short-term, current conditions. This characterizes situations in which your answers are not impacted by the circumstances at hand, but rather align with your long-term objectives and desires. According to studies, being present makes it possible to be more conscious of your beliefs and alternatives, which in turn leads to a higher feeling of wellbeing, less psychological discomfort, and a stronger ability to tolerate pain when faced with difficult situations.
To what extent do you prevent feeling stressed? One characteristic of avoidance coping is a propensity to withdraw from upsetting situations in life. Throughout life, this coping mechanism is linked to lower wellbeing and more psychological suffering.
The study’s findings supported the idea that people who were more aware of the present moment were more likely to react to stress in ways that improved their health and well-being. In particular, a higher perceived capacity to manage stress and a stronger reliance on one’s basic beliefs to guide one through the crisis were both strongly correlated with being present when under stress.
Four Techniques to Relax Your Mind During Tense Situations
Because it depletes your body, health, and vitality, the stress reaction is meant to be brief. Stress causes us to become narrowly focused, which hinders our ability to perceive the wider picture. Our focus expands when we are more at ease.
Then, the question is, how do you wind down? According to research, there are a number of activities that not only make us feel good but also help us become more relaxed and tranquil, which improves our ability to handle life’s challenges.
1. Engage in breathing techniques
We sometimes take our breathing for granted, yet it is a really effective tool for controlling our emotions. Your body’s relaxing reaction, the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), can be triggered by your breath.
Breathing in (for example, to a count of four), holding it, and then exhaling for up to twice as long (for example, to a count of six or eight) is one of the most relaxing breathing techniques you can perform. For deep relaxation breathing, you can slightly tighten your neck to create an ocean-like sound. Your heart rate and blood pressure will drop as a result of the parasympathetic nervous system being activated by your prolonged exhalations.
2. Develop a Self-Compassionate Attitude
The capacity to be conscious of your feelings—aware of the feelings that are present inside you whenever you fail at something—is known as self-compassion. You may just see and watch them without adding fuel to the fire; it doesn’t mean you agree with them. Recognizing that everyone makes errors and that this is a natural element of being human is another aspect of self-compassion. And it’s the capacity to talk to oneself in the same kind and compassionate manner that you would a buddy who has just failed.
3. Encourage Sincere Communication
How often do we truly give someone our whole attention? When was the last time you were completely present with someone?
After food and shelter, the most basic human need is to positively interact with others. The good news is that you may focus more on the outside world and feel more connected by practicing self-compassion and breathing techniques to take care of your own health and well-being.
4. Work on Being Compassionate to Others
Imagine having a bad day—you spilled your coffee over yourself, and it’s pouring outside. Then you receive a call from a friend who is experiencing a real emergency in their life, and you instantly go to assist them. How does the moment affect your mental state?
You suddenly have a lot of energy and are fully available to them. That’s what your life is like when you practice compassion, service, and altruism. As many of us have seen, doing small acts of kindness has a huge positive impact on your wellbeing.
2 Techniques for Stress Reduction Before Sleep
About 30% of US people suffer from insomnia at any given moment, and stress is one of the main causes of this condition. It’s easy to see why if you’ve ever had a nervous night: Stress makes it difficult to physically and psychologically relax before and during sleep.
Additionally, there is a reciprocal association between stress and sleep. Lack of sleep increases stress and has long-term effects on both physical and mental health, which may lead to a vicious cycle that makes both issues worse. According to a research in the journal Sleep, a person’s reaction to stress may have an effect on the onset of insomnia. When tension flares up and keeps you up, having a few relaxation methods in your mental toolbox can assist. Before going to bed, try these four techniques to reduce stress.
1. Meditation with mindfulness
The fundamental human capacity to be totally present, conscious of our location and actions, and not unduly affected or overwhelmed by the events occurring around us is known as mindfulness. Improved sleep is one of the many health advantages linked to mindfulness practices. According to a 2015 study, participants in a mindfulness training program outperformed those in a sleep hygiene education program over a six-week period in terms of sleep, depression, and tiredness metrics.
You may practice mindfulness meditation on your own. The steps are straightforward: sit down, focus on your breathing, and then bring your focus back when it veers. Beginners may find it beneficial to follow a guided meditation as well.
2. Inhaling deeply
It is easy to ignore the importance that breathing plays in relaxing because it is usually an autonomic activity. Nonetheless, there is ample evidence that breathing depth and rate can impact blood pressure and heart rate. It is possible to induce calm by practicing specific breathing methods that involve slower, deeper breaths.