Therapy can be great for mental health whether you go to a traditional therapist or use online counseling from BetterHelp. However, you can also benefit from meditation on your own, especially when used in conjunction with therapy.
The great thing about meditation is that it can be done anywhere and anytime. You can also choose to do it for long sessions or short sessions depending on your mood and what works specifically for you. You can do it while riding the bus or the subway, while you are at home, in a waiting room, or at work.
Meditation is often used to relax and promote tranquility and to reduce stress and anxiety. It provides time to focus on your thoughts and body. In fact, it can promote healthy emotions and wellbeing. Meditation can help you avoid burn out and gain a brand-new perspective on your stressors. It can also help you manage your mental overload and increase self-awareness.
How Does Meditation Help Anxiety
Meditation can help create mindfulness about our experiences and thought patterns. We can focus on our anxiety and emotions without suppressing them. When you allow yourself to look at these aspects of the self without analyzation, you can help make them a part of you. Instead of fighting the anxiety, which often makes it worse, we can accept it and find relief.
Meditation may also help some people find the underlying catalyst for the anxiety. This insight can help us move on or address the issue that causes the anxiety in the first place.
How to Relieve Anxiety with Meditation
There are tons of meditation techniques and one that works for someone else may not necessarily be the most beneficial for you. If one does not work, do not give up on meditation entirely. Instead, try other methods out and adapt until you find what works best for your unique thoughts and feelings. Here are a few different meditation techniques to start with.
There are some important things that you should do to ensure a peaceful meditation session no matter what type of meditation you decide to try. First, make sure that you are in a comfortable position. It is a good idea to be in a position that is stable so that you will remain in the same position while thoroughly relaxed. However, you do not want to be so comfortable that you may fall asleep while you are meditating.
You want to focus on the present. Anxiety is often about the future and many people find relief by focusing on their present thoughts. You can focus on the breathing. Think about each breath and whether you are taking short or long breaths. This can help us focus our thoughts. If you feel your thoughts staying towards other things, refocus on your breathing pattern.
Some people find that focusing so much on the present and breathing can even increase their anxiety. This is often because of judgments. However, trying to get rid of these feelings can make things worse. Instead, acknowledge that you have these negative thoughts and wait for them to dissipate. As you continue to do this each day, the negative thoughts will become weaker and weaker.
The amount of time spent meditating depends entirely on the person. It is often hard to do it for long periods, especially at first. Most of us also have busy schedules that it needs to fit into. Even if you only meditate for 5 or so minutes each day, you may experience some benefits to your anxiety levels. When you finish each session, you may find it beneficial to reflect on any inciteful thoughts that you had. Some people even like to keep a meditation diary to write down thoughts or feelings that they experience.
Meditation is not for everyone, but some people benefit greatly and experience a reduction in anxiety and a boost to their mood and wellbeing. There are several techniques that are good for anxiety, but just trying to focus and remove all the everyday stressors that normally invade our thoughts can help us be mindful about ourselves and manage our positive and negative emotions.
Marie Miguel has been a writing and research expert for nearly a decade, covering a variety of health- related topics. Currently, she is contributing to the expansion and growth of a free online mental health resource with BetterHelp.com. With an interest and dedication to addressing stigmas associated with mental health, she continues to specifically target subjects related to anxiety and depression.
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