Meditation and stress

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.

  • How Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction works
  • Meditation and stress quotes
  • Understanding stress
  • How meditation can help with stress
  • Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and health
  • Taking responsibility for our responses
  • MBSR and chronic pain (1)
  • Other stress management tools
  • MBSR and chronic pain (2)
  • Meditation for the very, very busy
  • MBSR and chronic pain (3)
  • MBSR and anxiety disorders (1)
  • MBSR and psoriasis
  • MBSR and anxiety disorders (2)
  • MBSR and fibromyalgia
  • MBSR and depression

    • View Comments

    • Hi Bodhipaksa,

      You are right - practicing lovingkindness helps me cultivate compassion for myself, my circumstances and others. My anxiety is the kind of anxious attachment…the fear of loss, abandonment and betrayal. That feeling has been with me since childhood and has never left. As Rick Hanson points out anxiety is the fear the bad things will happen in the future. The fear of the future.

      Yes a portable or walking meditation practicing lovingkindness with deep belly breathing (my anxiety is located in the belly) is a good suggestion. Thank you for that. I will breath in the lovingkindness in to my belly.

      I must confess that my anxiety seems more like a spiritual problem. Learning to let go of the persons and things I love most. Learning to hold them more loosely.

      And yet the key to life is not to be more spiritual, but rather of human…more kind, more compassionate, more gentle, more loving.

    • Hi, Neil.

      I think that to be more spiritual is to be more human and more compassionate. Otherwise what's the point of spirituality?

      Reflecting on impermanence full-on can be a very valuable thing to do. Research shows that when people reflect very directly on the death of those they love, they experience more love, kindness, and patience. When we only acknowledge death "out of the corner of our eye," so to speak, we experience fear.

    • Thank you for this great article. I try to meditate on a daily basis and it sure gives me a feeling of calmness and control and being balanced. It sure reduces stress and tension and things that used to irritate me just does not seem that important anymore.

      Jessica T

    • Hi - To outsiders, it may seem that I lead an accomplished and exciting life. I almost always get the jobs that I want, am in a marriage of 20 years with 2 gorgeous children, travel a lot... In being honest with myself, I know that I am not the person that I want to be, not the mother or wife that I am capable of being, not the always colleague or partner that brings peace. I am dreadfully fearful of feeling regret in my life (I already do) for not getting to the bottom of my underlying anxieties and fears, often related to money issues. I've seen therapists before but I never feel that I am capable of really getting to the core of the issues that I need to tackle. I attack the surface, but not the core and so these feelings return upsetting not only the truth that I seek in myself but my marriage as well. Could meditation help me, finally, to put certain anxieties behind me and become the person that I really want to be?

    • I am 27 yrs old.
      I am suffering from excessive anxiety ,OCD and Phobias.
      I get tensed if i read any newz regarding ,robbery,murder,rape, etc . and starts thinking about this issues and get tensed about thinking that what i will do when such things will happen to me or my dear ones because i am very fearful person and afraid of qurraling with other thinking that they will kill me...Please kindly suggest me some mediation on this issues, i am becoming very sensitive and all this thing are ruining my life.I feel like commiting suicide...Thank you very much

    • Respected sir,
      Thank you very much sir for your reply.
      sir i also want to know that is it possible to change fearful nature of a person like me to brave person.
      In other words can we make a feary, very poor confidence person to brave and confident person.Is it possible through mediatation??
      Thank you

      • Moving from being a fearful person to a confident person is very common. Apparently Gandhi himself was so fearful in his early life as a lawyer that he was almost unable to speak in court. I'd suggest looking at Amy Cuddy's TED video, which shows how we can change our hormones and emotions by changing our posture, and in that way increase our confidence.

    • I havew been strugling with PTSD. Most of the current thoughs on PTSD do not connect meditation with symptom relief for PTSD. I have been trying to meditate, but seem to get caught in thoughts. Any advice would be helpful.
      T

      • Have you tried using the search function on this site, Ray? We've covered at least ten news stories about the use of meditation to help with the symptoms of PTSD, and those might give you some encouragement, and possibly some leads to resources.

        I'm hesitant to give advice, because PTSD isn't something I'm familiar with. In general, though, meditation offers us an opportunity to reassure the more emotionally reactive parts of the brain. Lovingkindness practice can, in particular, be a powerful way of taking care of the parts of us that are suffering. More specifically, though, I'd suggest the practice of self-compassion. I recently participated in a webinar on that topic, and you might find that useful.

    • Hello, Bodhipaka
      I have a bit of an unusual problem regarding anxiety that has proven to be a challenge in my meditation. I am fairly easily startled and very self-conscious about it, so many guided meditations that use a not-so-gentle noise to signify the end, that that's what my mind locks into. My chest tightens, heart rate rises as I anticipate the noise. I know that I should sit with this feeling and examine it, but so many times the anxiety pulls me down under the current with a flood of negative thoughts that I'm not able to be mindful of it like I should. This isn't something that just comes up in meditation. During the day, the fear or anticipation of a loud, sudden noise can sometimes take me out of the moment I'm in. Should I meditate on the anticipation of such things? Sometimes I fear that doing so would fuel the fire that is already burning. I wish I didn't have this pride that makes me so afraid of showing weakness around others.

      Best wishes,
      A.R.

      • Hi, Antonio.

        Given that you've used an obviously fake email address, you'll probably not receive any notification that I've replied, and so I'm probably wasting my time because you'll never see this. What's that about anyway? "I trust you to help me with my meditation practice, but I think you might be a spammer"?

        Anyway, on the off-chance that you do see this, I'm sorry to hear that you experience such anxiety over noises. I'd be curious to know if this is something you've always experienced, or whether it's something that's grown over time. Some people have a strong startle response from childhood, and I suspect that although that can be toned down, it's a more entrenched habit than a startle response that's been learned in adulthood.

        Generally, though, yes: do try noticing your anxiety as you anticipate the bell. See if you can notice the first signs of discomfort, notice as best you can where they are in the body, and send that part of yourself love and reassurance. You can say things like: May you be well and happy. Or: Let me feel this. It's OK to feel this. Or: It's OK. We've been through this before. We can handle this.

        Any emotional reassurance is likely to be helpful, and using your thinking in this way will make it less likely that your mind will be hijacked by thoughts that create worry.

    • It's nothing personal, I don't give out my email unless absolutely necessary. Thank you very much for your thoughtful response, Bodhipaksa. The startle response has always been there to some degree, but I think it has become a negative habit/obsession in adulthood. I know that everyone's experience is unique, but I am overcome with feelings of isolation and guilt when these anxious feelings arise because of how absurd they seem.

      Thanks again,
      A.R.

      • I'm glad you got the response. Sorry if I sounded snippy!

        It's wise to consider that although these anxious responses may be maladaptive and unhelpful, there are reasons for them taking place, even if we're not sure what those reasons are. And it's certainly not that you've decided to have them, so there's really no need for shame.

        Have you tried putting the advice I gave into practice? I find that self-compassion is a very powerful practice.

    • Thanks for this website and the efforts to manage stress! Working as a counselor I see chronic stress cases every day in my practice. There are so many stress-related disorders these days it's like an epidemic. Major life changes in our outer environment are said to be the most powerful stressors and I agree to a certain extent (loss of a marriage or loved one is very stressful!)

      But the inner environment of self-talk and emotional "triggers" are just as powerful for some, including those who have lots of unfinished business re: childhood.

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