As the COVID-19 pandemic is slowly coming to a halt and safety precautions are being lifted, people are returning to their pre-pandemic lives. The embrace of packed schedules can unfortunately create stress. A lot of people are feeling stressed during these times, particularly with work or school-related stress.
Some stressful life events may include:
Job loss
Starting a new job
Moving
Death of a loved one
Major illness or injury
Divorce
Marriage
Retirement
Transitioning to adulthood
Pregnancy
Broadly, stress can be described as a change that creates physical, emotional, or psychological tension. To help ease your worries, you can turn to meditation. Meditation is the active practice of training your concentration and awareness to achieve a clear and serene mental and emotional state.
Anchor Therapy is a counseling center in Hoboken, NJ with psychotherapists specialized in helping children, teens, adults, and couples with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, trauma, and life transitions. Anchor Therapy is accepting new clients and is now providing in-person sessions and telehealth (video/phone) sessions to residents of New Jersey and New York.
Chronic stress can produce several troubling physical and psychological symptoms, including:
Fatigue
Irritability
Insomnia
Frequent Headaches
Frustration
Weakness
Weight gain/weight loss
Chest and back pain
These symptoms of stress are affiliated with:
Cardiovascular disease
Stroke
Diabetes
Depression
Anxiety
Hypertension
Cancer in some cases
Chronic stress gives rise to high levels of cortisol, a steroid hormone responsible for mediating your body’s stress response. When you are under extreme stress, you experience elevated cortisol levels.
This high stress level may cause:
Anxiety
Depression
Hypertension (High Blood Pressure)
Osteoporosis (Weak and Brittle Bones)
Stress-related fatigue (e.g., occupational stress)
Insulin resistance
Obesity
Luckily, there are ways to manage stress, such as adopting a meditation practice.
Meditation has become an extremely popular practice to help relieve stress.
Meditation can come in several forms, such as:
Focused Attention Meditation
Emphasizes the breath or the body
Often include a body scan which encourages you to consider your physical body while meditating
Breathwork is used to help you concentrate
Open-Monitoring Meditation
The present is acknowledged with a receptive attitude
Sit in silence and simply observe your arising thoughts and emotions
Kindness or Compassion Meditation
Also known as loving-kindness meditation
Incorporates aspects of both focused attention and open-monitoring meditation while highlighting ethical enhancement
Aims at altering emotional responses
Mantra Meditation
Commonly referred to as transcendental meditation
A word or phrase is continuously repeated
Eventually, the mantra will become more and more subliminal as it dwindles into silence
If you’re interested in learning the benefits of meditation, read along!
1. Meditation Lowers Cortisol Levels:
Various scientific studies have supported the claim that meditation can help lower cortisol levels. When you are feeling stressed, stress can be shown in physical ways.
Stress can impact the following organ systems:
Nervous
Immune
Cardiovascular
Respiratory
Reproductive
Musculoskeletal
Integumentary
Cortisol moderates your stress response. When cortisol is released in your body, it allows you to stay on high alert during stressful situations. During these instances of stress, the fight or flight response can happen in your brain. The fight or flight response is an automatic response to a stressful event where you may freeze or go into fight mode. For instance, if you are walking and notice a car coming at you from across the street, you have two options: you will freeze or you will jump out of the way. This response can create an increased heart rate and respiratory rate.
When meditation is added to the mix, it has been shown to lower cortisol levels. Individuals who are considered at-risk for elevated cortisol levels can see greater decreases in their levels due to meditation. Therefore, meditation interventions are the most helpful for stressed people; however, that should not discourage you from meditating if you are not considered an at-risk individual. Overall, meditation can offer you strategies to manage stress which contributes to well-being. The advantages of meditation do not diminish over time.
2. Meditation Helps You Reach Calmness
For years, Buddhist and scientific theories have characterized calmness as an expected result of mindfulness practices. Calmness can be defined as a state of mental tranquility, self-control, and regularity of temperament during strenuous times. The relationship between mindfulness practices, like meditation, and calmness continue to be explored today by scientists.
In a 2020 study, participants were asked to complete a mindfulness practice while two components were being measured: the attainment of an even-minded state of mind and independence. While there was no significant impact on hedonic independence, the study revealed that there was a significant increase in an even-minded state of mind where participants practiced mindfulness activities.
3. Meditation Improves Academic Performance
Short-term meditation intervention enhances self-regulation and attention which has a helpful impact on learning academic principles, like doing math and reading. To receive the benefits of meditation, you must engage in an intervention that relaxes the body, promotes mental imagery, and exercises mindfulness. The method of meditation employed involves making little to no effort to control your thoughts and encourages a serene state that promotes awareness of your body, breath, and mind. The self-regulation that is involved in this exercise encompasses attention control and emotion regulation.
While individual distinctions in self-regulation may impact school and life outcomes, attention is essential for remembering things. The self-regulation that is produced due to meditation creates positive emotions and less stress which creates the perfect learning environment. Overall, meditation can help improve your level of attention and your emotions, which can make you do better in school and work!
The practice of meditation can be incorporated into your life in countless ways:
Meditation can be added to your daily routine, establishing resilience to stress.
It can be employed as an activity to remain centered during times of emotional stress.
Meditation can be used as a quick stress reliever that assists in reversing the body’s stress response.
Contacting a licensed mental health professional can help you decrease your stress levels and establish mindfulness practices.
For additional information, please view the following sources:
Ajala, Tosin O. (2017) "The Effects of Adaptogens on the Physical and Psychological Symptoms of Chronic Stress," DISCOVERY: Georgia State Honors College Undergraduate Research Journal: Vol. 4 , Article 2.
Juneau, Catherine, Shankland, Rebecca & Dambrun, Michael. (2020). Trait and state equanimity: The effect of mindfulness-based meditation practice. Mindfulness, 11, 1802-1812.
Koncz, Adam, Demetrovics, Zsolt & Takacs, Zsofia K. (2020). Meditation interventions efficiently reduce cortisol levels of at-risk samples: A meta-analysis. Health Psychology Review, No Pagination Specified.
Matko, K., & Sedlmeier, P. (2019). What Is Meditation? Proposing an Empirically Derived Classification System. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 2276.
Tang, Y. Y., Tang, R., Jiang, C., & Posner, M. I. (2014). Short-term meditation intervention improves self-regulation and academic performance. Journal of Child and Adolescent Behaviour, 1-2.
Thau L, Gandhi J, & Sharma S. Physiology, Cortisol. (2021). In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing.
Victoria Scala
is an intern at Anchor Therapy in Hoboken, New Jersey. She is currently an undergraduate student at the Honors College of Rutgers University-Newark, looking to study Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the graduate level. As an intern at Anchor Therapy, Victoria is committed to producing content for and managing the office’s social media presence and blog.
