Our minds tend to spin into different emotional states throughout the day. For thousands of years, Eastern traditions have recognized how the mind goes from extreme states of joy to extreme states of sadness and worry.
Monks from Eastern traditions were essentially scientists; they recognized that a wild mind could adversely affect our health. So they used meditation techniques to relieve stress so they could stay in balance throughout the day.
One thing we know for sure is that stress can be extremely detrimental to your health – increasing your breathing and heart rate, raising your blood pressure, throwing your body into it’s “fight or flight mode”.
In fact, according to Dr. Herbert Benson, president of the Mind/Body Institute and author of The Relaxation Response, 60-90 percent of all doctors visits are stress-related.
The goal is not only to monitor your breathing but also to monitor your feelings. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the one thing you are told about health care prevention is to monitor your feelings, because negative feelings can help cause your body to become unbalanced, leading to various health problems.
Right when you feel a stress response, bring your awareness to your breathing. You can use meditation techniques everywhere and anywhere; meditation is not just for sitting down on a cushion.
5 Simple Meditation Techniques To Relieve Your Stress and De-Clutter Your Over Active Mind
1. Go out into nature.
Go out for a walk in nature; this can be very meditative for people. You can do walking meditation with your eyes open by just bringing your attention to your breathing. Meditating in nature can be very grounding and act as a reboot button to calm the cluttered mind.
To learn more about breathing techniques, I’d recommend listening to Andrew Weil’s audiobook, Breathing: The Master Key to Self Healing
2. Help prevent stress by meditating in the morning.
You can help prevent a lot of future stress responses throughout your day by doing meditation right when you wake up. Make a commitment to do five to 10 minutes of meditation every morning. You will have a lot less stress in your life.
3. Be aware of the stress felt in your body.
A lot of our day-to-day activities remove our attention away from our feelings in our body. Learn to recognize when you’re getting stressed out. When you feel you’re getting stressed stop what you are doing and do some meditation.
4. Do meditation during your lunch break.
If you do five to 15 minutes of meditation during your lunch break every day, you may see almost immediate results. Set a reminder on your calendar or in your phone to stop and do meditation right before you eat lunch.
You can read a chapter of Buddha in Blue Jeans: An Extremely Short Zen Guide to Sitting Quietly and Being Buddha
5. Brain entrainment using isochronic mp3 tones
Mood swings can affect both your personal and work life. Brain entrainment using isochronic mp3 tones is one solution that can stop over-arousing your stressed-out brain and help you slither into a tranquil state.
Click here to learn more about how you can you emerge from your listening sessions calm, relaxed and happy!
You might also be interested in…
Meditation for Manifesting Abundance Using Visualization Tools
Using The Ancient Art of Ayurveda With Meditation
Source: Huffington Post, Inc.com
