The Truth About Meditation And Anxiety

It seems that these days there’s new and exciting information being published around the benefits of meditation and anxiety.

I originally got involved in meditation because I was having panic attacks which resulted in worry filled days and many a sleepless night. Because I didn’t want to go on medication at that time as the side-effects for me were almost as bad as my anxiety, I decided to try meditation.

Meditation And Anxiety Relief

Now, just to set the record straight meditation didn’t cure me overnight. Initially it gave me some relief from the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, mostly while I was actually meditating. It wasn’t until after several weeks of consistent (daily meditation), that I noticed a significant reduction in anxiety.

If you were to ask me exactly how this happened I wouldn’t be able to tell you from a  scientific perspective as that’s not my area of expertise. But what I can tell you is that I loved the stillness and peacefulness that washed over me while I sat in meditation each morning and afternoon. My meditation routine consisted of two sessions a day for 20 to 30 minutes per session.

Not only did it help to clear my mind and give me a break from worrying all the time, I soon found that my out-of-control life was coming back into balance and that surprisingly my creative expression started going through the roof. I’d never really been very creatively inclined before meditating, but now I couldn’t turn it off.

Before I knew it I had started writing on a daily basis, mostly about my experiences, which led to my first best-selling book. From there, it was like all these new doorways had been opened in my mind and any thoughts or feelings of worry, stress or anxiety were gone.

In their place was a confidence and excitement about life that quite frankly was so new to me that I didn’t know what to do with it. That’s when I decided to travel overseas and study more about the mind and meditation. It took me on a 10 year adventure around the world where I got to meet and learn from some of the most amazing personal development and meditation teachers on the planet.

How To Beat Anxiety

As I already mentioned, I am not a medical doctor so whatever I say next is coming from my own experiences of healing myself from anxiety and teaching meditation to thousands of people around the world.

There’s no real one-size fit’s all solution for anxiety as there are both internal and external factors to consider. I would recommend you start with the internal factors because if you can learn to reduce the level of discomfort they create in the mind and body, then it’ll make dealing with any external factors that much easier.

Numerous studies have now shown meditation to be an effective way to treat anxiety. Specifically, mindfulness meditation was found to have anxiety-reducing benefits across more than 47 scientific studies and what was even more interesting was that there were flow on benefits of mindfulness into other areas such as stress and depression.

The bottom line is that if your days are spent filled with stress and worry, then it might be time to give mindfulness meditation a go. Keep in mind, it’s probably not going to work overnight but if you commit to doing it every day for the next 30 to 60 days you are bound to see results.

Start with 10 minutes a day and then as you get more comfortable with meditating, see if you can extend it to 20 minutes a day. I find that the morning works best, but if you find it hard to sleep at night, then practicing meditation is a better use of time than laying awake staring at the ceiling.

Whether we’re feeling anxious, depressed, or agitated, these conditions are being triggered by our brain in response to stressful thoughts and events. It makes sense then that when we meditate these triggers start to lessen which in effect turns down the part of the brain that reacts to stress.

This is why mindfulness is such a powerful tool. It literally trains the brain to be less fearful, and more calm.

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