meditation for anxiety

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Kimberley Quinlan, MA, OCD Center of Los Angeles

Choosing a Different Route on the Anxiety Highway

Mindfulness” seems to be everywhere these days. In the culture at large, mindfulness is becoming a common practice for many as a means to finding basic peace of mind. And in the field of mental health, mindfulness is quickly coming to be seen as a technique that can help relieve symptoms of OCD, anxiety, and other psychological conditions.

After reading the above paragraph, you may be thinking, “Sign me up!” After all, we live in an era of instant gratification, and most of us usually want…

Your anxiety deserves your love

February 24, 2013

Bodhipaksa

All of us experience anxiety — even meditation teachers. I was nervous the other day driving down to the airport on my way to lead a retreat. I’d left it a bit late, and thoughts like “what if the traffic’s bad in Boston and I end up missing the flight?” kept popping into my head.

We all have to learn strategies for dealing with our fears.

You can think of there being an “anxiety module” in the brain. It’s the amygdala — a rather ancient part of our wiring. It’s always scanning, looking for “threats” — for things that might go wrong. When we’re in an anxious state, the amygdala is working overtime, and it’s interpreting pretty much everything as a threat (and, in my case, inventing things that could go wrong). And the amygdala is well wired into the rest of the brain. When it’s operating, we know about it. An active amygdala in fact can in fact “hijack” the higher centers in the brain (to do with rational thought, etc.) so that in a way the whole brain is being run by the amygdala. And an over-active amygdala actually becomes larger, like a muscle that’s exercised a lot.

But our higher cognitive centers have wiring running back to the amygdala, and they can (in theory) send back reassurance: “It’s OK, we can deal with this.” These inhibitory activities damp down the activity of the amygdala, and can quell our anxiety. Those pathways may be underdeveloped, but they can grow, with practice.

So the key is to keep bathing the amygdala in reassurance. One way to do this is to accept your anxiety. The amygdala actually responds to its own activity. it creates anxiety and then takes the symptoms of anxiety as a sign that something must be wrong. So if we can simply accept our anxiety, and accept that it’s OK to feel anxiety, then we cut out that feedback loop of getting anxious about anxiety. You can say to yourself, in a soothing tone of voice (internal, if you want), “It’s OK. It’s OK to feel this. Let me feel this.”

You can even send thoughts of lovingkindness to your anxiety. Notice where the anxiety is in the body. welcome it; don’t make it feel unwelcome, because that’s just feeding it. Welcome it like a beloved friend who has turned up at your home in a shaky state. You’d sit your friend down and sooth her. So let your anxiety be there, and wish it well: “May you be well; may you be happy.” Over and over. The aim isn’t to try to make the anxiety go away (again that can end up feeding it, through aversion) but to give it our compassionate attention for as long as it’s there. It’ll go away of its own accord once the mind works out that the anxiety is no longer needed.

Over time, you’ll strengthen the regulatory channels that run from your frontal cortex back to the amygdala. The amygdala will shrink. The bits of your brain to do with reassurance will get physically larger. And in time you’ll feel less anxiety, and when you do feel anxious it’ll be more “contained” within a larger context of patience, reassurance, and kindness.

Oh, and I made my flight with plenty of time to spare. The worry was completely needless.

Mindfulness meditation eases stress, anxiety

January 11, 2013

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Jason Ashley Wright, World Scene: Rebeka Radcliff struggled with anxiety for a long time.

She started running marathons to try to manage it. The long distances helped, she said, but it wasn’t enough.

“I would go for a run, feel relaxed for a few hours or even for the rest of the day, but then the anxiety would be back again,” Radcliff said.

Eventually, she realized that running couldn’t be her ultimate anxiety solution. She didn’t feel it was severe enough to warrant medication, and she believed there was a way to use mind over matter to manage it.

Then, she became pregnant …

Relaxing is stressful for some

November 19, 2012

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Tia Ghose, LiveScience: Deep breaths, yoga, a lazy day at the beach: While some may find those activities soothing, their mere mention can set other people’s nerves on edge.

Now, a new method may help therapists measure just how much relaxing stresses people out. The new tool, which will be presented Saturday (Nov. 16) at the annual convention of the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, should help therapists know when to say “breathe in…” and when to steer clear of relaxation techniques.

“For a lot of different anxiety disorders, we use relaxation as a treatment,” said Christina Lumberto, a psychology doctoral candidate at the University of Cincinnati. “But for the people who don’t like that, it’s not a helpful treatment.”

In the 1980s, psychologists first noticed that some people doing relaxation exercises would actually get quite anxious.

“At first, you do see decreased heart rate, decreased breathing, things that indicate relaxation,” Lumberto told LiveScience. “After they have achieved a relaxed state, all of a sudden everything just spikes back up.”

Because so many modern anxiety treatments use mind-body relaxation techniques such as meditation, Lumberto and her colleagues wanted to identify patients for whom these techniques might backfire. [7 Reasons You Should Meditate]

They created a 21-point questionnaire and tested it on 300 undergraduate students. The survey asks people to rate, on a scale of 0 to 5, how much they agree with statements like, “It scares me when my breathing becomes deeper;” and, “I hate getting massages because of the feeling it creates when my muscles relax.”

The questionnaire captures the myriad reasons why people might have trouble winding down, from feeling lazy to an intense fear of being out of control.

“Some people don’t like to relax because of the physical changes, the sensations of their muscles relaxing,” she said. “Other people will say they don’t like relaxing because they’re actually worried about whether or not they’re relaxing correctly.”

People who fear calming techniques may be more sensitive to changes in their normal physical state, such as changes in heart rate or blood pressure, regardless of whether they’re due to relaxation or to anxiety, Lumberto said.

The relaxation-phobic tend to be more anxious in general, she said. (Oddly, those who fear relaxation are also more prone to asthma, Lumberto’s past research has found.)

Instead of diving into meditation, the relaxation-averse may need to dip their toes in first, using a technique called exposure therapy, which is more commonly used to conquer fears of wide-open spaces or spider phobia, she said.

Of course, just because you dislike yoga or lounging on the beach doesn’t mean you have a problem.

“The point where it becomes problematic is if it really gets in the way of living your life,” Lumberto said.

The demon in the dark

November 6, 2012

Bodhipaksa

I had a nightmare the other night. That’s unusual for me.

True, there was the one last week where I had a bad dream that the wrong guy won the presidential election, and I awoke in a panic that the economy was about to go down the tubes again. But it’s not hard to see why I had that particular nightmare, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone in it.

The one I had two nights ago — just a little too late for Hallowe’en — was different. Much darker. And even scarier.

In this dream I’d just woken up. It was still night. I was lying in a small, dark room, alone, in a twin bed against the wall. To the left was a window, which admitted just enough light for me to be able to make out a bedside table on which sat a lamp. The corner of the room at the foot of the bed was pitch dark, although I knew that there was a door there. But there was something else in the corner as well.

I knew, the moment I “awoke” that there was some evil entity lurking in the dark shadow by the door. I was terrified of this thing, whatever it was, but I wanted to face it, to see what it was. So I reached out an arm to switch on the light, but the switch must have been faulty, or the bulb dead, and the switch clicked uselessly. I found my iPhone, and opened a flashlight app that works by using the built-in LED flash. The app opened, but the screen became unresponsive to my touch and I was unable to turn on the light.

The evil entity still lurked at the foot of the bed, in the darkness by the door.

My terror mounted, and at that point I woke up. Or I should say that I “woke up,” because I was still dreaming. Now I was in my own bed, still asleep, but thinking I was awake. And I realized that this was not the first time I’d met this entity. It had in fact been a part of my life for decades. I had flashbacks to previous encounters with it. And the really terrifying thing was that I’d forgotten every single one of them. This demonic presence had the power to induce forgetfulness, so that I could face it over and over again, and each time was like the first.

The knowledge that I had been manipulated in this way by an evil force for basically my entire adult life was unbearable, and unspeakably frightening. How can we be so unaware? Are we really just the playthings of demons? Are our minds not our own?

Then I woke up again, but for real this time. I was still terrified, and it was hard to untangle myself from the idea that I’d been manipulated my entire life by a demonic entity. And in fact I remembered (for real) that in my early 30s I had a number of nightmares involving demons, not so different from the dream of two nights ago.

It’s hard to know what to do with a dream like this. It’s still with me, and I’m troubled by it. I’m writing about it as a way of helping me deal with it.

I think it’s good that my first instinct was to turn to face the demon. That, I expect, is the result of my practice. But although I wanted to see into the darkness, I couldn’t. Perhaps I should have taken a different approach. Instead of trying to shine a light into the darkness I should have simply looked into it, or talked to whatever was in there. Perhaps shining a light on it was too invasive. Perhaps we need to treat that which we fear with respect. These are questions that I’ll be working with in my meditation practice.

One thing I’m pretty sure of is that whatever was in the darkness wasn’t evil at all. It was simply something I’m afraid of. What we’re most afraid of we often paint as evil, because that justifies our fear. I suspect that what was in the darkness was a spiritual experience — possibly terrifying, but also beautiful and good. And on the other side of that experience was a door. And on the other side of the door was … what? That’s something I hope to find out.

Breathe easy to combat anxiety: The mind tricks that can alleviate symptoms

October 22, 2012

Bodhipaksa

The Mindful Manifesto, by Dr Jonty Heaversedge and Ed Halliwell: available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

More than 870,000 Britons suffer from anxiety, a condition that triggers unnecessary feelings of uneasiness and worry.
Increasingly, mindfulness – a psychological therapy with roots in Buddhist meditation – is being used by the NHS to help alleviate the symptoms.

Here, in the final extract from his book The Mindful Manifesto, co-written with Ed Halliwell, Dr Jonty Heaversedge explains how it can help.

Before directing your mind towards the anxiety you are experiencing, focus on your breathing – the sensation of air slowly flowing into your nostrils, streaming down the back of your throat and into your lungs. Feel the beating of your heart and imagine how it pumps oxygenated blood around your body. Continue until you’re ready to meditate.
Now, shift your attention to your anxious thoughts. What thoughts are present in your mind right now? Are there many moving quickly or does each one remain for a while? Consider the thoughts objectively rather than reacting to them emotionally.
There’s a myth that when you meditate, you should have a blank mind. But thoughts are not the enemy and trying to stop them will only lead to more struggle. Treat the thoughts during meditation like having a radio on in the background – you can hear it, but your main focus is elsewhere. In mindfulness, you’re paying attention to the fact that you have a thought but you are not buying into what it is saying. Try not to judge the thought as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Cultivate an attitude of equanimity to whatever goes through your mind. Watch your thoughts with curiosity and kindness and they will become easier to bear.
Whenever you notice your mind is wandering, acknowledge that it has meandered and gently bring your attention back to observing your thoughts.
Continue working with your worries in this way for the period of time you have chosen. Working mindfully can be challenging, so it’s good to practise for short periods at first.
You may feel dizzy when you start but that’s because you’ve suddenly stopped spinning around in circles. In the stillness of meditation, it can also seem as if you have more thoughts than usual but this is not so: it is just that you are becoming more aware of them. The more you practise, the more your mind can deal with worries in a less panicked way.

Entrusting yourself to the waves

September 6, 2012

Tara Brach

I was drawn to my first Buddhist mindfulness retreat during a time when my son, Narayan, was four, and I was on the verge of divorce. During a slow, icy drive through a winter snowstorm on the way to the retreat center, I had plenty of time to reflect on what most mattered to me. I didn’t want a breakup that would bury the love I still shared with my husband; I didn’t want us to turn into uncaring, even hostile, strangers. And I didn’t want a breakup that would deprive Narayan of feeling secure and loved. My deep prayer was that through all that was happening, I’d find a way to stay connected with my heart.

Over the next five days, through hours of silent meditation, I cycled many times through periods of clarity and attentiveness, followed by stretches when I was swamped in sleepiness, plagued by physical discomfort, or lost in a wandering mind. Early one evening I became inundated by thoughts about the upcoming months: Should my husband and I hire lawyers or a mediator to handle the process of divorce? When should we move to separate residences? And, most importantly, how should I be there for our son during this painful transition?

As each anxious thought surfaced, I wanted to really dig in and work everything out in my mind. Yet something in me knew I needed to stay with the unpleasant feelings in my body. A verse from Ryokan, an eighteenth-century Zen poet, came to mind: “To find the Buddhist law, drift east and west, come and go, entrusting yourself to the waves.” The “Buddhist law” refers to the truth of how things really are. We can’t understand the nature of reality until we let go of controlling our experience. There’s no way to see clearly what’s going on if on some level we’re attempting to ignore or bypass the stormy weather.

During the last few days of the retreat I tried to let go, over and over, but felt repeatedly stymied by my well-worn strategy for feeling better—figuring things out. Now Ryokan’s verse was rife with possibility: Perhaps I could entrust myself to the waves. Perhaps the only way to real peace was by opening to life just as it was. Otherwise, behind my efforts to manage things, I’d always sense a lurking threat, something right around the corner that was going to cause trouble.

My old habits didn’t give up easily, though. As soon as I’d contact some tightness in my chest, I’d flip right back into worrying about my son’s new preschool, carpooling, or about how to find a baby-sitter with more flexible hours. Then I’d become hypercritical, harshly judging myself for “wasting” my retreat time. Gradually, I recognized that my heart was clenched tight, afraid to let the intensity of life wash through me. I needed help “entrusting.”

Each afternoon, the teachers had been leading us in a lovingkindness meditation. I decided to try weaving this into my sitting. The classical form of the meditation consists of sending loving prayers to ourselves and widening circles of other beings. I began to offer kind wishes to myself: “May I be happy and at ease; may I be happy and at ease.” At first, repeating the words felt like a superficial mental exercise, but soon something shifted. My heart meant it: I cared about my own life, and becoming conscious of that caring softened some of the tightness around my heart.

Now I could more easily give myself to the waves of fear and sorrow, and simply notice the drifting thoughts and physical sensations—squeezing and soreness—that were coming and going. Whenever the worries that had been snagging me appeared, I sensed that they too were waves, tenacious ones that pressed uncomfortably on my chest. By not resisting, by letting the waves wash through me, I began to relax. Rather than fighting the stormy surges, I rested in an ocean of awareness that embraced all the moving waves. I’d arrived in a sanctuary that felt large enough to hold whatever was going on in my life.

After my retreat, I returned home with the intention of taking refuge in presence whenever I was irritated, anxious, and tight. I was alert when the first flare-up occurred, a week later. My ex-husband called to say he couldn’t take care of Narayan that evening, leaving me scrambling to find a baby-sitter. “I’m the breadwinner, and I can’t even count on him for this!” my mind sputtered. “Once again he’s not doing his share, once again he’s letting me down!”

But when I was done for the day, I took some time to pause and touch into the judgment and blame lingering in my body, and my righteous stance softened. I sat still as the blaming thoughts and swells of irritation came and went. Underneath the resentment was an anxious question: “How will I manage?” As I let the subterranean waves of anxiety move through me, I found a quiet inner space that had more breathing room—and more perspective.

Of course I couldn’t figure out how the future would play out. The only time I had was right now, and this moment was okay. From this space I could sense my ex-husband’s stress about finding a new place to live, working out our schedules, and, more deeply, adapting to a different future than he had imagined. This helped me feel more tolerant and kind. It also revealed the power of entrusting myself to the waves. My husband and I continue to be dear friends. With him and in countless instances with others, this gateway to presence has reawakened me to a space of loving that feels like home.

Adapted from Tara’s upcoming book, True Refuge – Finding Peace and Freedom in your Own Awakened Heart (Bantam, Feb, 2013)

Five ways to slow down and stop rushing

April 20, 2012

Rick Hanson PhD

As I was meditating this morning, our cat hopped up in my lap. It felt sweet to sit there with him. And yet – even though I was feeling fine and had plenty of time, there was this internal pressure to start zipping along with emails and calls and all the other clamoring minutiae of the day.

You see the irony. We rush about as a means to an end: as a method for getting results in the form of good experiences, such as relaxation and happiness. Hanging out with our cat, I was afloat in good experiences. But the autopilot inside the coconut still kept trying to suck me back into methods for getting relaxation and happiness – as if I weren’t already feeling that way! And of course, by jumping up and diving into doingness, I’d break the mood and lose the relaxation and happiness . . . that is the point of doingness.

Sometimes we do need to rush. Maybe you’ve got to get your kid to school on time, or your boss really has to have that report by end of day. OK.

But much of the time, we rev up and race about because of unnecessary internal pressures (like unrealistic standards for ourselves) or because external forces are trying to hurry us along for their own purposes (not because of our own needs).

How do you feel when you’re rushing? Perhaps there’s a bit of positive excitement, but if you’re like me, there’s mostly if not entirely a sense of tension, discomfort, and anxiety. This kind of stress isn’t pleasant for the mind, and over time it’s really bad for the body. Plus there’s a loss of autonomy: the rush is pushing you one way or another rather than you yourself deciding where you want to go and at what pace.

Instead, how about stepping aside from the rush as much as you can? And into your own well-being, health, and autonomy?

How?

For starters, be mindful of rushing – your own and others. See how other people assume deadlines that aren’t actually real, or get time pressured and intense about things that aren’t that important. (And yep, you get to decide for yourself what you think is real or important.) Notice the internal shoulds or musts or simply habits that speed you up.
Then, when the demands of others bear down upon you, buy yourself time – what the psychologist and Buddhist teacher Tara Brach calls “the sacred pause” – in order to create a space in which you are free to choose how you will respond. Are you letting the rushing of others become your own? Slow down the conversation, ask questions, and find out what’s really true. Consider the sign I once saw in a car repair shop: “Your lack of planning is not my emergency.”
On your own side of the street, try not to create “emergencies” for yourself. You can get a lot done at your own pace without rushing; plan ahead and don’t procrastinate until you’re forced into hurrying. More fundamentally, be realistic about your own resources. It’s a kind of modesty, a healthy humility, to finally admit to yourself and maybe others that you can’t carry five quarts in a one gallon bucket. There are 168 hours in a week, not 169. It’s also a kind of healthy renunciation, relinquishment, to set down the ego, drivenness, appetite, or ambition that overcommits and sets you up for rushing. And it’s a matter of seeing clearly what is, a matter of being in reality rather than being confused or in a sense deluded. Nkosi Johnson was the South African boy born with HIV who became a national advocate for children with AIDS before dying at about age 12, and not one of us can do more than what he said here: Do all you can, with what you have, in the time you have, in the place where you are.
Also watch how the mind routinely gets caught up in becoming: in making plans that draw us into desires that draw us into rushing. The trick is to see this happening before it captures you.
Most deeply, try to rest in and enjoy the richness of this moment. Even an ordinary moment – with its sounds, sights, tastes, smells, sensations, feelings, and thoughts – is amazingly interesting and rewarding. Afloat in the present, there’s no need to rush along to anything else.

Even when you don’t have a cat in your lap.

Yoga shows psychological benefits for high-school students

April 9, 2012