Stress and meditation
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One of the most common reasons that people cite for wanting to learn meditation is to reduce stress.
Stress is of course unavoidable, and the point of stress reduction and stress management programs is not to eliminate stress from our lives entirely. Life is always going to be full of challenges, and a life without some turmoil is not only impossible but is also undesirable.
Many stress therapists, of course, recognize that regular meditation and relaxation can be of significant help in reducing stress to manageable and healthy levels, and relaxation and meditation exercises are now widely taught. Many therapists and psychiatrists are taking up meditation themselves, not only so that they can teach it more effectively to others but in order to deal with the very stressful demands of their own jobs, which can result in burnout.
A considerable amount of research has shown that meditation has benefits on mental health, including a reduction in proneness to depression, an increase in emotional positivity, and an increased ability to deal with life’s inevitable stresses.
People often think of meditation as being nothing more than relaxation, and there is a famous book on meditation and health entitled “The Relaxation Response.” Meditation, however, not only involves relaxation (the cessation of unnecessary effort) but promotes mindfulness, which helps the stress-sufferer to recognize unhelpful patterns of thought that give rise to the stress response, and also involves the active cultivation of positive mental states such as lovingkindness, compassion, patience, and energy.
This section explores how meditation can help you to deal with your stress, and gives information on a program called “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction”, or MBSR, which is a program developed at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, and which uses the principles of mindfulness meditation to help long-term pain sufferers learn to deal with their afflictions.
Comments
Comment from rags
Time: February 15, 2008, 7:01 pm
Which method of meditation is most effective in dealing with low self esteem?
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: February 16, 2008, 4:53 pm
Hi Rags,
Without a doubt lovingkindness and compassion meditations are the ones I’ve found to be best at dealing with self-hatred. I actually want to write a bit more fully about that, and when I do (perhaps tomorrow, although I have some childcare issues that may get in the way) I’ll post a link here.
(Later). OK, I had some free time and wrote about a practice that I found useful in the past. Perhaps you’ll find it useful as well.
Comment from rags
Time: February 26, 2008, 2:05 pm
Thank you for taking the time to address my question. I will attempt your method and hope for the best.
Comment from charlotte
Time: July 30, 2008, 5:48 pm
im a writer and i suffer from a fair amount of stress and tension. this can make my head feel overloaded and prevents me sometimes from connecting with what i want to put down on paper. i think it also makes me procrastinate at times! what would be the best meditation to help me to focus and shut out other distractions?
thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have!
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: July 31, 2008, 11:08 am
The two most common forms of meditation (both taught on this site) are mindfulness and lovingkindness.
Mindfulness of Breathing will help you to let go of unhelpful patterns of thinking that lead to stress and tension.
Lovingkindness meditation will help you feel more positive about yourself and help you to judge yourself less.
You also might want to read the book “Wild Mind” by Natalie Goldberg — it’s about writing, and it deals a lot with the ways in which our inner critic can end up strangling our inner creator. She of course offers exercises that helps us to prevent this from happening.
Comment from charlotte
Time: July 31, 2008, 5:11 pm
thats great, thank you so much for the advice, and for this great website - so handy to find so much information in one place.
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