Unfortunately, we all experience a lot of stress, uncertainty, and fear; these can all trigger anxiety and make us feel worried, sick, and exhausted. Luckily, there is help, and it comes in the form of meditation. Mindfulness meditation is an excellent tool for dealing with and relieving anxiety.
Mindfulness meditation is a stress-reducing meditative practice that helps you calm both your body and mind. You do this by learning to let go of negative thinking, slow down racing and repetitive thoughts, and clear your mind of the past and future to help you focus on the now.
This technique has been used and loved by many and is beneficial to just about everyone interested in kicking negative thinking and keeping their mind and body in the present. This article will provide you with a few great resources great for anyone ready to be anxiety and stress-free.
Table of Contents
What Is Mindfulness Meditation for Anxiety?
Anxiety is a natural feeling and reaction your mind and body have when feeling fear or uncertainty (stress). Everyone deals with anxiety at some point in their lives, whether it is a teen starting their first job or a husband waiting for his wife to deliver their first baby.
Overwhelming circumstances trigger a natural response and make easy everyday tasks seem nearly impossible to get through. However, these tasks are not as impossible as one may think, and sometimes overcoming them is simply mind over matter thinking, and that is where mindfulness meditation comes into play.
There are a few main focal points when practicing mindfulness meditation.
- Comfort
- Breath
- Focus
- Awareness
Each of these factors is just as important as the others, and together will help you understand how to let go of fear and stress, reduce anxiety, and live a happier, healthier life. Here are some of the best meditations for stress.
Comfort
Before you start, make sure you are positioned in a comfortable space, sitting up straight, with no distractions around. Sit on a couch, the floor, or legs folded in your office chair. If you like, take off your shoes, let your hair down, unbutton your blazer. It’s essential to remove all distractions before you start.
Breath
Once you are ready to go, start to focus on your breath. This is going to help you become aware of your body and your thoughts. Feel your lungs inhale air as it fills your stomach, and notice your body’s physical reaction when you push that air out.
Focus
Keep yourself determined throughout the process. It is very common, especially for those who are new to the practice, to find their minds wandering. That’s okay; just bring yourself back into focusing on your breath and your body.
Awareness
Allow yourself to feel and be aware of everything going on with your thoughts and feelings. Are you happy, sad, depressed, angry, scared? Is your body heating up, cooling down, or do you feel pain or tension anywhere? Mindfulness meditation is a good way to pinpoint what is causing your biggest problems if you allow yourself to be aware of everything going on.
Is Mindfulness Meditation Good for Anxiety?
Anxiety itself is not dangerous; the symptoms associated with it are.
There are many common symptoms that most people with anxiety that can be dangerous or uncomfortable and can keep the feeling present long after the situation that triggered the stress is gone:
- An increase in heart rate
- Trouble falling and staying asleep
- Restlessness
- Rapid breathing
- Trouble concentrating
Mindful meditation is a great way to relieve these symptoms letting go of the stress and negative thinking that is causing them, allowing you to feel better, sleep better, and live better.
There are studies that show people who suffer from anxiety have a hard time telling the difference between a “problem-solving thought and a nagging worry that has no benefit”. Says Dr. Elizabeth Hoge, a psychiatrist at the Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders. In a Harvard Health article.
How Can Mindful Meditation Help Anxiety?
Meditation helps you see your situation in another light, allowing you to feel calmer and less out of control. Breath control is also a big factor in helping you deal with stress and anxiety because the way you breathe affects your body in a huge way.
For example, when you start to panic and your breathing becomes rapid and shallow, your body’s natural response is to go into “fight or flight” mode. This causes physical responses making you feel more concerned and like you are in danger.
Actually, studies have found that long-term mindfulness meditation can shrink the amygdala (the area of our brain that causes us to react to fear and become stressed)
When you learn to breathe properly and focus on your breath in scary or stressful situations, you can keep your body from reacting, and you will start to feel a whole lot better.
What's an Example Guided Script for Mindfulness Meditation for Anxiety
You can easily find tons of guided scripts for mindfulness meditation online, in books, or on social media. Or, once you get the hang of it, you can write your own script. This is a set of steps to practice that will help you clear your mind and relax your body to soothe away stress and anxiety.
A simple mindfulness meditation script example to try:
- Find a comfortable space with no distractions
- Close your eyes and sit up straight
- Now, take a deep breath in counting to 5 while slowly
- Allow yourself to feel, hear, and visualize the breath moving into your nose, filling your lungs.
- Feel your stomach fill and your chest tighten.
- Next, hold that breath for 5 seconds, all the while assessing your body from head to toe. How does your head feel at this moment? Your chest? Your feet?
- Now release that same breath for a count of 5, allowing your body to relax as the breath is being pushed from your lungs and back out your nose.
If you are doing this in the middle of a stressful phone call with a customer on hold, stop here. If you are taking some time to yourself and have a few spare minutes, repeat these steps multiple times.
Mantras to Try in Mindfulness Meditation Practice
Do you know what a mantra is? It is a sound, word, or phrase to help you relax and get into a peaceful state during meditation. During mindfulness meditations, many people enjoy using uplifting phrases to keep themselves focused and to improve their mood.
Here are a few great mantras you may want to try out the next time you are trying to relieve stress:
- My mind is my best attribute
- I create my own path in life and am so proud
- I can do this
- Happy thoughts make for better days
- I will conquer my fears to become a stronger person
- I am the only one who can choose how I am feeling
- It is okay to be wrong, and there is no shame in learning
- My body is a temple, and it is my duty to keep it healthy and strong
- I am smiling because I am beautiful
- I am worth it
These can be used for a few minutes alone in your room in front of a mirror, in the car on your way to work, or during a long meditation session to keep your mind focused on the task of doing…well…nothing.
Now take some time and make up your own mantras and give them a try. It is amazing what a little bit of self-motivation can do for your attitude.
3 Great Mindfulness Meditation for Anxiety YouTube Videos
You can find great mindfulness meditation videos on Youtube that are used by hundreds or even thousands of people to learn to let go of negativity and anxiety.
Here is a list of three amazing videos that can truly help anyone interested in taking a few minutes to better their mental state and relieve nagging stress that has lasting disastrous health effects.
This is a great choice for those who have a little extra time to sit down for 15 minutes and allow themselves to relax and focus on the meditation.
In this practice, you practice meditation with your eyes open at first and then closed. You are guided by a man’s soft voice that instructs you through the steps with no music or sounds in the background. When he stops instructing, there is nothing but silence in the room.
The main focus in this meditation is allowing yourself to focus on your breath while also making yourself aware of how your body feels, from your feet touching the floor to the way your back feels touching the chair.
It is perfect for centering yourself and allowing yourself to focus on the moment and not the rest of your worries.
In this anxiety-relieving mindfulness meditation practice, you are once again starting in a comfortable sitting position. You are being instructed by the calm voice of a man who is taking you smoothly from one step to the next. There is soft relaxing music playing barely above a whisper in the background.
He starts you off by focusing on your breath and how the air feels as it enters your nostril and into your lungs.
From there,.”Some studies show you are giving self-motivating and confidence-boosting mantras you will repeat out loud or in your mind, helping to release the stress from overthinking and fear.
Calm offers daily mindfulness meditation videos that are great for quick pick-me-ups and natural ways to melt stress away. This 10-minute video utilizes a soft-spoken female voice and the sounds of flowing water to bring you to a calm and peaceful mind-space while encouraging you to focus on your breath and let everything else from your mind slip away.
Much of this video goes without words and allows each person to allow thoughts to come into your mind, noticing them and feeling the emotion associated with them, and then letting both go with each breath.
This is a great way to teach yourself to experience your emotions and daily negative thoughts, but then not allowing them to take over your mood, physical well-being, and mind.
(One thing you could do is go on a meditation retreat, and now you can do it all from home with an online meditation retreat. This may be a huge help for those looking for help with their anxiety.)
Outro
Being plagued by anxiety can leave you feeling depressed, overwhelmed, and exhausted. The symptoms of stress can turn lives upside down and prevent you from doing the things you enjoy or spending time with those you love.
Taking some time to care for yourself, mentally and physically, is the best thing you can do to help relieve anxiety and get yourself back to the fabulous person you are. And there is no better way to take care of well-being than by practicing mindfulness meditations daily.
