Getting started with Meditation for Stress Relief and Anxiety Management

Meditation - an anxiety management tool to get hooked on

Meditation is something humans have been doing for thousands of years and it’s not just a fabulous tool for stress relief and anxiety management, regular practice also has ongoing beneficial impacts on physical and mental health.

An added bonus is that there's a bunch of ways to meditate, so there’s bound to be at least one way that works for you. We’ll have a quick look at some of those a bit later.

If you’re anything like I used to be, you might be thinking, “Oh, but I can’t meditate”, or “meditation’s not for me”. I used to think that the only way to meditate was just to sit still and think of nothing, which seemed to me an impossible task. Sure, that might be something to work up to but there are plenty of other places to begin this very beneficial practice.

When I made the choice to do something to relieve my anxiety, meditation was the first tool I picked up. In the beginning I had to force myself to do it because I knew it was good for me but I chose a simple method to begin with and it wasn’t long before I began to look forward to my daily sessions.

Not only did I soon look forward to mediating, it was only a matter of days before I began to appreciate the positive impact my (minimum twice daily) meditation sessions were having on my anxiety experience.

After a week or so of engaging in my chosen easy and enjoyable meditation practice – listening to guided relaxation meditations – I began to experiment with and practice other forms of meditation. And, as we know, the more you practise something, the better you get at it.

Studies have shown that the type of meditation we practise isn’t what makes the difference to health and well-being but that we practise any form, regularly.

How Meditation Works to Relieve Anxiety

Before we have a look at a few simple starter meditation methods, let’s have a quick look at how and why meditation works so well to combat not only anxiety but also depression, cardiovascular disease, immune system dysfunction, inflammation and pain, amongst other benefits.

It’s not really any wonder that meditation benefits both physical and mental well-being because, as we pretty much all know by now, our minds and bodies are not separate entities but two magnificent aspects of our human beingness that are intimately interrelated.

If you’re interested in anxiety relief, no doubt by now you are familiar with the sympathetic nervous system, which when activated puts us into fight or flight mode. This part of the autonomic nervous system is wonderfully helpful when we actually need it in times of real threat or danger to our well-being, or our lives. Unfortunately, due to a range of circumstances, we can become stuck in this mode. For those with chronic anxiety, this is very often the case.

Meditation is such a wonderful antidote to anxiety because it involves us resting in the parasympathetic nervous system, the system responsible for the rest and digest state, in which all of our restorative and regenerative natural healing takes place.

Often, as we come to our meditation practice, we begin by becoming aware of our breathing. Generally, this awareness itself encourages slower, deeper breathing. When we breathe more slowly and deeply, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Breathwork is the simplest shortcut to bring us to the rest and digest state. Not only does it have that wonderful physiological affect, it is always available to us.

While we can engage in simple and brief breathwork that is always immediately accessible, when we accompany slower, deeper breathing with an extended meditation practice, we extend the benefits as well.

Another aspect of meditation common to most forms is to focus the mind on something. This focus provides a distraction for the mind’s attention away from all the busy thinking. This is not to say that the thoughts necessarily stop but they are left to come and go without attachment or judgement. While keeping our minds focused elsewhere, we are not engaged in actively thinking our thoughts, which enables a slowing down of the mind that produces a calming effect.

Those familiar with the troublesome thoughts that can plague an anxious mind, and of the physiological sensations that so often accompany these thoughts, can imagine the relief of taking a time-out from this usually spontaneous and rarely helpful activity.

It is important to note that the body responds to our imaginings as it does to actual events, so to take time out from thinking, or imagining, negative scenarios, gives both our minds and bodies an opportunity for rest and regeneration. I find this a fascinating subject and will talk more about it another time.

So, initially this encouraging the body to the rest and digest mode, and the relieving and refocusing of a busy, anxious mind, bring us relief from stress and anxiety for the duration of our meditation session and hopefully for some time after.

Regular meditation practise can serve to move us beyond our experience of chronic anxiety in a couple of major ways.

First, the more we bring ourselves deliberately out of fight or flight mode and into the rest and digest mode, and the more and the longer we support ourselves to remain in rest and digest, the more we are training our bodies to be in this state, rather than being perpetually in fight or flight.

Second, we are giving ourselves an opportunity to develop mastery of our thoughts. As mentioned above, our thoughts contribute to the physical sensations of anxiety and can create a vicious circle affect.

As we practise allowing ourselves to focus on something other than our thoughts, even as we remain aware that thoughts are continuing to happen, we have an opportunity to detach from them, to become aware that they are actually just thoughts. This awareness helps us to see that we are more than and greater than our thoughts.

This is a great gift and an opening to a better life. The more we practise meditation, the more this awareness develops and opens the way to another important part of the anxiety management journey. We can observe our thoughts and develop an awareness of the patterns, nature and origin of them from a perspective of curiosity, rather than being at their mercy. And we can begin to deliberately supplant the unsupportive thoughts with much more supportive ones.

That’s a big part of what we do in the Anxiety Busting Course and might all be a bit down the track for now but hopefully it’s an enticing motivation to develop a regular meditation practice. To be clear, this is not what meditation is, it’s simply a positive opportunity that develops through the practice of meditation.

Simple ways to get started with meditation

Guided Meditations

There are thousands (at least) of guided meditations to be found on various internet platforms. YouTube is one where you can find so many guided meditations and access them free of charge. There’s also a bunch of mindfulness/meditation apps, with free features and additional features, such as downloading meditations for listening offline, that can be purchased, usually via subscription.

These guided meditations cover a whole range of subjects but my recommendation is that you begin with those specific to relaxation. The idea behind this is that if you suffer from anxiety, there’s a good chance that relaxation is not something you’re experiencing much. To support and encourage yourself into a relaxed state at least once a day is going to help with retraining the body to keep coming back to the rest and digest mode, as mentioned above.

I found YouTube a great place to get started. I tried out a few different relaxation meditations until I settled on a couple that really worked for me. I think this is important to note because relaxing sound is not a one size fits all thing. Some people prefer just the sound of a voice, some find accompanying music or nature sound to be additionally soothing. Maybe the sound of a particular voice is not relaxing for some, where it could be for others, and so on.

Remembering that some time in meditation is better than no time, the length of time you’re choosing to meditate for must be what works for you. When I started out, I was listening to a twenty minute guided meditation at least twice a day. Once in the morning to help set me up for the day and once later in the evening, to support a better night’s sleep. Occasionally, if I had time, I would get comfortable and listen for another twenty minutes in the middle of the day.

This may seem like a lot of extra time to find in the day but believe me, it is so worth it!

Body Scan

A body scan is a form of meditation that doesn’t require anything other than yourself, although there are plenty of guided meditations that include a body scan or are specifically a body scan exercise. You might find it helpful to listen to body scan meditations a few times before adopting the practice purely within your own mind and body.

The idea is that you bring your awareness to the different parts of your body, moving your awareness from one part to the next. You can choose to notice any sensations that may be present, or simply allow your awareness to rest momentarily on any one part before moving to the next.

Sensory Awareness Meditation

In a sensory awareness meditation, the busy mind is brought to focus on the information being received by the senses, providing a body based focus and perfect opportunity to simply be with ‘what is’ in the moment.

In a sensory awareness meditation you may give all of your attention to what you can hear, the sounds in your environment and the sounds of your body. You can allow yourself to become aware only of the sensation of touch, like the feel of your body resting on the surface beneath you, the touch of your clothing on your body, the sensations of air on your skin, as well as such sensations as warmth or coolness. You may pay attention to what you can smell and to what you can taste. You can also spend time absorbed in the detail of what you can see around you.

You can focus on any one of these, or you can roll through each of the senses, one after the other, or allow yourself to focus on a combination of sensations. The benefits of this exercise are multiplied when we do it immersed in nature.

This exercise not only provides anxiety relief in the moment, it can also train a greater awareness of what is going on in our environment. This awareness is supportive in that it can lead to enhanced appreciation for the beauty that surrounds us. It can also make us more aware of what some of our environmental anxiety triggers are, if any. Being armed with this kind of information can support us to respond differently when exposed to such triggers or, where possible to avoid or mitigate them.

Yoga Nidra

Yoga Nidra is the state of deep rest that results from what is generally a combination of all of the above techniques. This state is also known as non sleep deep rest (NSDR) or conscious sleep. However it is known, it is definitely happening in the rest and digest mode. Some may argue that yoga nidra is not meditation, however it comprises a relaxation technique that releases stress and tension from the body. Progressively relaxing more and more deeply will ideally, but not always, result in that state of yoga nidra. The term yoga nidra has been used as a synonym for samadhi, a deep meditative state. In my experience, a regular practice of yoga nidra facilitates the experience of samadhi during other forms of meditation.

Again, I cite YouTube as an abundant source of Yoga Nidra meditations guided by male or female voices, with soothing backing tracks or no backing tracks and of a great variety of lengths of time.

Mantra Meditation

A mantra meditation involves establishing a soothing breathing pattern and accompanying it with a mantra, such as “I am that I am.” Of course, you could use any phrase you like, such as a simple prayer or a phrase of your own creation that makes you feel good. The idea is that the repetition of the phrase is keeping your mind focused.

Prayer beads can be added to the mantra meditation, as practised in certain religious traditions. The moving of the beads through the fingers can add another point of focus and grounding for the busy mind.

Chanting is another twist on a mantra meditation, which allows for the additional benefits that come from maximising the power of the vibrations of our vocal chords. You can learn more about that in a post about Sounding for Anxiety Relief.

Gratitude Meditation

Gratitude is pretty famous by now for its capacity to bring about all kinds of positive affects for the whole human system. In a gratitude meditation, you would make yourself comfortable, allow your breathing to slow and deepen and then direct your mental energy to all of the things you are grateful for. Even on a really bad day, if we choose, we can find a heap of things to be grateful for, even if they are just little things.

Active Meditation

If the thought of sitting still to meditate is a complete turn-off for you, or you have pain or trauma that prevents you from sitting still, or you just can’t see yourself making time in your day for a sedentary meditation, then active meditation might be more your style. The basic concept is the same in that you’ll be breathing for calmness and focused on neutral or pleasurable things to keep the active mind more peaceful. Again, thoughts are likely to still be coming up but you just allow them to do so, without attachment or judgement.

This kind of meditation may be seen more as practising mindfulness but either way, the outcome is that you get to benefit from the experience of activating the parasympathetic nervous system.

A few examples of active meditation include walking, swimming, gardening and cooking. The first three of these combine the benefits of exercise and time in nature with the mindfulness. And if the food you’re cooking is appropriately nutritious and supportive of your gut health, then you’ll get additional benefit from that too.

A bit like with the sensory awareness meditation, you pay attention to the information you are receiving from your environment through each of your senses as you engage in your meditative activity and allow yourself also to be aware of what’s going on in your body. Basically, you encourage your focus to become completely absorbed in every aspect of what is happening ‘in the moment’. Again, this is excellent practice for developing awareness of your environment which can in turn support you to make choices that minimise stress or anxiety, or support you to avoid them altogether.

Making Time To Meditate

If you’re thinking that you don’t have enough time in your day to meditate, I wish to respectfully challenge you. According to recent studies, the average person spends around 2.5 hours a day scrolling. If you’re not anything like average and have (or make) no time to scroll, I commend you. If you’re average, or close to, or above average in this regard, I ask you to reconsider, do you really not have time to meditate?

I allow myself a minimum extra half hour in the morning, that is to say, I wake up with at least half an hour to spare for meditation. It might seem like a stretch at first but the benefits far outweigh the discomfort of getting up early – especially if you’re one of those who wakes up and lies in bed worrying about things for half an hour before getting up.

Even five or ten minutes spent in meditation during your lunch break can supercharge you for your afternoon session.

Before bedtime, you could watch another episode of your favourite show, or perhaps spend another hour or so doomscrolling, or you could choose to meditate.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probable pretty keen on doing something to relieve anxiety. Meditation of some kind is a must if you really want to experience less anxiety in your life for the long-term, as well as relieve anxiety in the short term. There’s tons of studies to corroborate my anecdotal evidence.

If you want to experience the benefits, it’s up to you to make it a priority, even just once a day.

If you need additional motivation to get meditating, consider this. As well as being a proven technique for anxiety relief, meditation:

• improves sleep

• enhances self-awareness

• enhances creativity and productivity

• reduces pain and inflammation

• reduces blood pressure

• slows the rate of cellular ageing

• improves focus and concentration

• improves decision making capacity

• improves emotional and behavioural self-regulation, which in turn

• improves relationships

I hope all this has been helpful and that you find yourself enjoying the benefits of meditation soon. Even today!