It’s nowhere close to the weekend, and you are just not able to take the piled up work on your office desk! Do you also feel the same? Do you anxiously wait for the weekend but when it’s nearing, you have achieved nothing as planned. Does this add up more to your anxiety levels? Well, you are not alone as approximately 18% of the American population which makes for around 40 million people also feel the same. Many people practice zillions of solutions, but only a few succeed. One such solution is practicing meditation for anxiety which we would like you to consider.
Well, you shouldn’t be undermining the effect of meditation as people who believe in it say that even two minutes of meditation practiced for just seven days can show significant results. Yes! This is the power of meditation. So, stop standing in the crowd of 36.9% of people who suffer from anxiety, and do nothing about it. Instead, embrace the magical techniques and benefits of meditation for curing anxiety.
[Also Read: Natural Remedies to Get Rid of Anxiety]
Does meditation work for anxiety? if yes, then how?
For thousands of years, it’s been known that meditation can help you relax. Meditation for anxiety can change the function and structure of your brain productively and healthily. Regular meditation can reverse the damage caused by stress and eventually reduce its symptoms too. According to a study conducted by JAMA International Medicine(1), meditation does help manage depression, anxiety, and pain. If you’re living with generalized anxiety, then practicing different meditation techniques for anxiety can help you overcome anxiety and reduce tension in your body.
How does meditation work in relieving anxiety and enhancing your thoughts?
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By breaking the pattern of anxious thoughts
Meditation primarily helps anxiety by breaking negative thought patterns. Your racing thoughts can create a vicious cycle of fear and worry. Meditation helps break the vicious cycle of negative thinking of the obsessed. Eventually, meditation can reduce rumination for people having lifelong disorders. Meditation for treating anxiety decreases the tendency to worry and improves your control over random unwanted thoughts. Fortunately, meditation for curing anxiety trains you to view ideas differently.
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By balancing the brain chemicals
No one knows what causes anxiety. But there is specific evidence claiming that anxiety is due to an imbalance of brain chemicals as a result of prolonged stress. So, meditation can help restore the most excellent balance of neurotransmitters.
Meditation for anxiety increases the level of gamma-aminobutyric acid(2) (GABA) that is responsible for making you feel relaxed and happy. The low levels of GABA lead to common signs including anxiety, being easily overwhelmed, and overstimulated. Meditation also reduces a stress hormone called Cortisol and eliminates depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and memory loss in you.
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Meditation helps in building a healthy brain
Meditation practice for anxiety treatment is a primary way to make a bigger and healthier brain. The minds of people who regularly meditate show quantifiable enhancement in the volume of the hippocampus, amount of gray matter, and the thickness of the cortex. Meditation enhances the blood flow to the brain and improves neural connections between various areas of the brain, and increases the neuroplasticity.
[Also Read: Home Remedies to Calm Your Anxiety]
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By reducing the inflammation in the brain
The cytokines are the chemical messengers in your body that regulate the immune response. The elevated levels of cytokine are the primary reason for chronic inflammation and inflammation of the brain associated with depression and anxiety. Meditation for anxiety attacks and inflammation can treat and reduce inflammation, and measurable changes are noticed after a few hours of meditation (approx eight hours).
What is a guided meditation for anxiety and how does it work?
Meditation for few hours can make you healthier, well balanced and more-happier person, then why isn’t everyone following it? The first fact is, many of us give up on meditation because we are unsure if we’re “doing it right”, and it seems impossible to quit our thoughts. Meditation isn’t all that complicated to do, and luckily, with guided meditations, ‘you don’t have to do it alone.
How does it work?
It’s a simple way, and for guided meditations, you don’t need to necessarily know how to meditate at. Guided meditation for anxiety is too easy and you can meditate with guidance provided by an experienced meditation instructor with spoken instructions or music. When you listen to a guided meditation recording, you approach your subconscious brain that is responsible for creativity, self-empowerment, self-improvement, and better healing. You can also discover a vast variety of practical, enjoyable, and useful guided meditation sources on your mobile or online to practice anytime and anywhere.
Now let ’s see the top guided meditation for anxiety.
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10-Minute Anxiety Reduction Guided Meditation
This guided meditation takes only fewer minutes to alleviate uneasiness and stress and brings you to a state of peace, calm, and security. You can practice this simple anxiety reduction guided meditation at any time of the day. Find a pleasant place and get into a comfortable and calm position. You’ll be amazed how just a few minutes of this best-guided meditation for anxiety can cure depression and anxiety anytime throughout the day.
[ Read: How to Relieve Stress and Anxiety]
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Stress Relief Meditation for Anxiety
This guided meditation is slightly a longer one and helps alleviate stress and anxiety problems. This 20-minute best meditation for anxiety uses mindfulness and awareness meditation techniques for anxiety to help you let go of all depression and tension. You can meditate with calm background music or without music also.
Follow these Meditation Techniques for Anxiety to Attain a Calm Mind and Body
how to meditate for anxiety? If this is the next question running on your mind, read on the below list to find out how to use them too.
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Do Focus on Inhaling and Exhaling of your Breath
Keep your hands on your stomach and concentrate on your breathing as you inhale and exhale. Now you should count your breaths, “1” on the rise and “2” on the fall. As you pay attention to the movement of your body, stress and depression can get healed. Eventually, it will bring you back to the present moment. Do this regularly for 10-15 seconds.
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Keep Your Mind Free from everything and Let it think what it wants to Think About
Keeping your mind full of negatives can also cause stress and fear. When you sit with your thoughts without any expectations, with a sense of purpose or focus for several minutes, your mind gets some extra space needed to help it unwind.
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Deep Belly Breaths
You should never underestimate the power of taking controlled, slow and long belly breaths. Deep belly breaths have been so dominant on challenging days when you are more stressed. Long breaths can calm you and help to get back to feel present and in touch with the body. Repeat with simple long and deep breathing by filling your lungs and belly with air, then slowly release.
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Grounding
grounding for anxiety is an effective way to get more relief from daily depression and anxiety while you are meditating. A study suggests that there is a relationship between the electromagnetic fields in our body during the meditation process for anxiety treatment. So, just laying outside on a flat surface – on the beach or at the park can immediately make you feel safe and fresh.
What are the best type of meditation for anxiety and its do’s and don’ts?
Mindfulness meditation is the best meditation for anxiety. Read on to discover the extensive benefits of mindfulness meditation for anxiety.
Mindfulness meditation has Buddhist roots; the mental practice involves focusing your mind on your experiences including your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations in the present moment. Mindfulness meditation can involve mental imagery, breathing practice, awareness of mind and body, and body and muscle relaxation. Mindfulness meditation applies to stress and anxiety relief. Though there are numerous methods and techniques for doing mindfulness, an essential factor is focusing on awareness without creating judgment.
A study states that mindfulness showed extended beneficial effects(3) on stress and anxiety as participants generalized with panic and anxiety disorders were able to reduce indications with a mindfulness program and steadily maintain those reductions. During mindfulness meditation, the deep and slow intake of breath balances the body’s parasympathetic and sympathetic responses to anxiety and stress.
The primary aim of mindfulness meditation to cure anxiety is to avoid reactions and emotions and to observe happenings with disengaged perspective. It teaches you to follow without assigning emotion to the situation and essentially seeing with no expectations.
Mindful meditation increases our cognitive function through mood and mental training that can relieve stress and decrease anxiety levels. It can even help students with learning disabilities. Mindfulness meditation decreases the anxiety connected with the college or school-related fear and stress. Eventually, it improves academic performances and social skills.
DO’s for Mindfulness Meditation
- Take a seat in a silent and calm place
- Observe your leg movements
- Straighten your upper body
- Feel your deep breath
- Pause before making any physical adjustments
DON’Ts for Mindfulness Meditation
- Don’t always strive for perfection
- Don’t easily allow your mind to wander
- Don’t judge yourself for thinking and don’t overthink while performing meditation
- Don’t assume to be a master in meditation before being one
- Don’t strive for perfection
- Don’t forget to repeat the process
Meditation for anxiety plays a crucial role in getting nervousness, stress and fear out of the consciousness and mind. When you safely perform the meditation techniques for anxiety as mentioned above, and at regular periods of the meditation program, then it will help cure the most common disorder of today’s generation. You can figure out the meditation for anxiety at home to get instant relaxation from stress and depression. To come out of discomfort caused due to anxiety, get out of the comfort zone to deal with the meditation program
