Meditation to get rid of fear, anxiety and negative thoughts

Any competent doctor will tell you that you need to control your psycho-emotional state; if you can’t do it yourself, you can even be prescribed medications. Why is this so important? When stressed, the hormone cortisol is released. It affects the functioning of all body systems. Because of this, the functioning of the cardiovascular and nervous systems is disrupted, which can lead to deterioration in well-being, sleep problems, and problems with the gastrointestinal tract.

People who know how to cope with stress and avoid conflict situations tend to lead fulfilling lives. They have enough energy for work, friends and hobbies. Mentally balanced people have happy families, give birth to healthy children and raise them to be just as psychologically balanced.

The impact of stress on human health

Scientists have proven that the body of people who are constantly exposed to stress wears out 40% faster than those of those people who live in peace. Frequent stressful situations cause the following symptoms:

• Redness of the skin, various rashes;
• Feeling tired and exhausted even after a full sleep;
• Loss or gain of body weight;
• Constant feeling of anxiety;
• Tremor (shaking) of the limbs;
• Stool disorder.

If you do nothing, there is a high chance of developing the following pathological processes:

• Panic attacks;
• Depression;
• Heart failure;
• Stomach ulcer;
• Hypertension;
• Anorexia;
• Stress can also cause a decrease in sex drive in both women and men.

Advantages

— Compared to the same psychoanalysis, the EMDR technique is short-term. For example, one fear can be completely and irrevocably removed in 2 hours of work.

- Compared to behavioral techniques (the therapist takes you by the hand, and you go down to the subway together, or approach an elevator, a spider, an airplane, etc.), you do not need to actually encounter objects that cause anxiety, fear - it is enough to imagine them.

— Compared to hypnosis, it is absolutely safe, there is no artificial intervention in the psyche. EMDR is a natural psychophysiological process). This technique can be used with both children and the elderly.

— Compared to almost any direction in psychology, you can use this technique yourself.

— Transparent for the client: in comparison with other areas in psychology, where everything is quite blurry and unclear what exactly will happen to you, in what ways, in what time frame, etc. – everything is transparent and clear here: at the very first meeting, the client receives clear information about how his request will be resolved.

— Helps in solving a huge range of queries: anxiety, fear, panic attacks, somatic disorders, stress, anger, guilt, acute grief, dissociative disorders, PTSD, violence.

Sleep as the basis for well-being

Adequate rest and healthy sleep are the first rules of a stable psyche. A well-rested person is more resistant to stress. The norm is considered to be 7-8 hours of sleep (and at least 9 hours if a person trains hard or works on his feet).

If there is not enough sleep, the stability of the nervous system decreases. You've probably observed how small children become capricious when they are tired and want to sleep. A similar condition is observed in adults who regularly do not get enough sleep - it becomes difficult for them to control their emotions, they feel irritation and aggression.

To improve the quality of your sleep, be sure to create a comfortable sleeping environment in your bedroom - darken the room, ventilate it before bed, and try to make the room quiet. Maintain a sleep schedule - try to go to bed and wake up at approximately the same time every day and not deviate too much from this schedule, even on weekends. If these measures do not help, contact a neurologist or somnologist. Your doctor will help you improve your sleep and quality of night's rest.

Why you should try

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash
Once you achieve this state, you will be able to notice the beauty around you more often, even in the smallest things. Stressful situations will no longer knock you out of your usual rhythm so much. Emotional swings will be replaced by a peaceful, stable state.

Before starting practice, think about exactly what manifestations of anxiety and worry are manifested in you. Perhaps you want to eat constantly, trying to drown out this feeling with food. Or, on the contrary, the piece doesn’t fit into your throat, and you distract yourself by cleaning, walking around the room, or tapping a rhythm on the table. Or you feel a racing heart and swirling pains in your stomach.

Meditation and psychotherapy, their impact on health

Meditation is a great way to cope with depression and stress without medication.

The effect of meditation on the body is:

• Improving brain function. It has been scientifically proven that a course of meditation helps restore brain cells;
• Reducing the risk of developing heart disease;
• Eliminate feelings of anxiety;
• Developing mental resistance to stress;
• Increasing immunity and strengthening the body's defenses.

Scientists from Washington conducted an interesting study. 15 colleagues from one enterprise voluntarily took part in it. Before the rehabilitation course, each of the volunteers underwent a stress resistance test. It turned out that 14 out of 15 workers live in constant stress and cannot effectively cope with nerve-wracking situations.

The workers completed an eight-week meditation course under the supervision of a specialist - and a repeat test showed that the workers became much calmer and learned to control their emotions. Psychotherapy also shows good results - it helps solve problems and combat anxiety.

Note for yourself how anxiety can be physically disguised

After analyzing these so-called symptoms, think about what feelings are behind the anxiety? After all, this condition is such a defense of the body. Your psyche is trying to protect you. And knowing this, anxiety becomes not an enemy, but a friend who with all his might protects you from something, as it seems to him, bad. By realizing the manifestations of anxiety in yourself, you are already a few steps closer to freeing yourself from it.

Ask yourself, what topics worry you now, what problems make you feel anxious, what are you worried about at the moment? What is behind anxiety is the main thing that you need to pay attention to more often.

You can make a short list. Describe in it which situations particularly bother you. What is the reason for this concern? What is the worst possible outcome? Now answer yourself, what feeling is behind this fear?

In this preparatory practice, it is very important to honestly answer the question: “What will I feel, what will I experience if the situation that worries me happens?” Perhaps you won’t receive some emotions/feelings, praise, or something more valuable and fundamental to you?

Having answered these questions, move on to the next step - meditation.

Effective meditation for deep calm

How to learn to control your psycho-emotional state?

How to maintain health and increase stress resistance?

• Don't take on several things at once. Complete every task you start without being distracted by extraneous factors. If your job does not allow you to do only one thing, make a schedule for the priority of tasks and, in the time allocated for a task, do only it.
• If you are nervous about a situation, ask yourself if there is something you can do. If not, then you need to come to terms with the fact that this situation and its result are beyond your control and try to distract yourself with something else. If you can, no need to worry, just do it.
• Try to develop independent self-esteem. Of course, listening to a negative assessment and scolding is unpleasant - but, if you think about it, this assessment has nothing to do with you. This is just the opinion of another person, which can be taken into account if the person is important to you, but should not be taken as an objective reality. Evaluate yourself.
• Set realistic goals for yourself. Not the easiest, but achievable. When determining the deadline for completing a task, reserve 15-20% of the time for force majeure situations and the human factor, then delays will not unsettle you.
• Light physical activity helps stabilize the psycho-emotional state - nothing calms you down like a light jog or swimming.
• Go to bed no later than 11 pm, try to sleep at least 8 hours.
• Organize your workplace in such a way that it is pleasant to be there and easy to find everything you need.
• Eat the right foods. For the stability of your psycho-emotional state, it is very important to eat a balanced diet. B vitamins are especially important.
• At least once a week, do something that makes you happy. Meet with friends, dance, eat delicious food, play computer or board games.

If nothing helps, and you feel that it is difficult for you to cope with stress on your own, contact a specialist; you may have depression. In this case, you need qualified treatment.

Can panic attacks be cured and what treatments are most effective?

There is no clear answer to the question of how to treat a panic attack and whether it is possible to get rid of panic attacks forever. In each case, the doctor must select therapy taking into account the individual characteristics of the person’s psyche, the presence of concomitant diseases, contraindications, the root cause of the development of PA and other factors. We can highlight only the main areas of treatment that have proven their effectiveness. These include methods such as: • Psychotherapy. • Drug treatment. • Alternative medicine. • Physiotherapy.

Among psychotherapeutic methods, the most studied and proven effective is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Its essence is to identify and eliminate the patient’s belief in the danger of PA symptoms for his life and health, since it is the fear of death that is the basis for the development and intensification of panic attacks. When collecting anamnesis, you should find out exactly what symptoms cause fear in him, what he is most afraid of. Then, during the therapy process, the psychotherapist explains to the patient the biological mechanisms of the development of these symptoms, literally “on fingers” proving their non-danger for him. Among the most alarming and literally terrifying symptoms for the patient are the following:

• Increased and rapid heartbeat , when every heartbeat is felt throughout the body. Panic in this case arises from the fear that the heart will not withstand such a “mad race” and it will end in a heart attack. But the heart muscle has a sufficient reserve of strength and is able to withstand even the most maximum loads without negative consequences for it. Sometimes the patient believes that tachycardia and pain in the heart area indicate that a myocardial infarction (MI) has already occurred. But as soon as the patient calms down, moving away from the circumstances that frighten him, everything stops, while with MI the pain is permanent and intensifies with the slightest physical activity or movement.

• Feeling of suffocation. It should be explained to the patient that this sensation is actually the result of overexertion of the chest muscles and diaphragm due to his intense breathing, leading to hyperventilation. The semi-fainting state in this case is caused not by a lack of air, but by its excess.

• Fear of going crazy . It is also the result of hyperventilation, which leads to a feeling of unreality and disorientation. The patient must understand that these are temporary phenomena, and his mental state is normalized along with the normalization of breathing.

• Fear of falling or inability to walk . It also has its own rational explanation, which is that with PA the vessels of the lower extremities dilate, the blood flow to them increases and the muscles actually become heavier. It seems to a person that his legs are giving out, he cannot move from his place and is about to fall.

• Fear of losing control of yourself and publicly starting to scream, cry, or run wherever your eyes may lead you. This never actually happens.

• Fear of losing consciousness . Its source is the dizziness experienced during hyperventilation. The patient needs to be clearly told that fainting is usually a consequence of a sharp drop in pressure, while with PA, blood circulation increases and blood pressure rises. If loss of consciousness does occur, this may indicate a medical problem and requires immediate contact with your psychotherapist or attending physician.

After working through individual symptoms, the patient is explained the general mechanism for the development of PA symptoms, which is that at the time of an attack the release of the stress hormone adrenaline sharply increases. If a person manages to control his fear, then literally after a few minutes the excess adrenaline is utilized by the body and its level decreases. Therefore, to the question of how to help a person during a panic attack, there is a simple answer - to convince him that he should not actively resist the symptoms of panic attack, it is better to behave passively and simply “go with the flow”, waiting for the panic to end. This will allow the patient to realize that the symptoms quickly disappear without any serious consequences for him. Having repeatedly been convinced that PA is not dangerous, the patient ceases to be in constant anxious anticipation of the next attack. As a result, panic attacks initially weaken, occur less frequently and gradually disappear. A variation of this technique is the method of systematic desensitization, when panic fear is caused by special techniques, first in the presence of a psychotherapist, and as the method is mastered, without his support. In fact, the essence of the technique is not to combat the symptoms of PA, but to develop an addiction to them, perceiving them as a harmless condition that should simply be waited out.

Psychodynamic therapy, aimed at finding the causes of panic in the subconscious, has also proven itself positively in the treatment of panic attacks. I will not dwell on the purely psychoanalytic aspects of this method. I will only say that the domestic version of psychodynamic therapy is person-oriented psychotherapy. Its goal is to identify internal personal conflict and reconstruct the patient’s normal system of relationships. As a result, not only panic symptoms are reduced, but also interpersonal contacts are optimized, the range of social connections expands and the patient’s quality of life improves.

Guided meditation for anxiety

If relaxation offers so much, you might wonder why everyone doesn't do it. Spiritual practice is one of those things that falls into the “not hard, but not easy” category. Silence of the mind—sometimes aptly called the “random image generator”—is no easy task!

Unfortunately, many people give up on self-medication because they can't calm their thoughts and aren't sure they're doing it right, or they're not getting the results they were hoping for. But with guided meditation, you don't have to go it alone. You can follow along with an experienced teacher who will lead you to a relaxed, trance-like state.

How Meditation Changes Your Brain

This practice has been known for thousands of years to help you relax. It changes the structure and function of your gray matter (but in a healthy, productive way). Regular relaxation not only reduces anxiety symptoms, but also reverses the damage caused by anxiety. Thanks to the latest neuroimaging techniques, these changes can be monitored and measured. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University conducted more than 18,000 studies of meditation to determine its most effective uses. They concluded that the number one benefit of meditation is anxiety relief.

Other studies confirm that relaxation benefits mental health conditions of all types, including generalized anxiety and panic disorder, social anxiety, agoraphobia, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, eating and bipolar disorders, and drug addiction.

Here are some powerful ways to meditate that will improve your brain and mental well-being.

Moving

One of the simplest, most accessible moving exercises is considered thoughtful walking. For a unique relaxation experience, try walking the maze. There are a surprising number of intricate paths open to the public.

There are structured moving meditation practices - tai chi, qigong, yoga or any of the martial arts. Note that you can train yourself to be focused when performing any activity.

(Think of the classic “wax, wax” scene in The Karate Kid, where car waxing becomes a mindfulness meditation). You can slowly eat, make tea, wash dishes or brush your teeth.

Meditative balances. Chemical substances

No one knows for sure what is causing the alarm. Risk factors include your underlying personality type, emotional trauma, and even your genes. There is also evidence that anxiety may be caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals caused by severe or prolonged shock. The practice of meditation helps restore an optimal balance of neurotransmitters.

It increases GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) levels, which is essential for feeling happy and relaxed. Feelings of restlessness, slight stress, and fear are common signs that you have low GABA levels. Meditation lifts your mood by increasing the amount of serotonin, another neurotransmitter vital to happiness. Reduces cortisol, a stress hormone which, in excess, significantly contributes to anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances and memory loss.

Meditation creates a healthy brain

The gray matter of people who regularly engage in spiritual practice shows:

• measurable increases in cell number, hippocampal volume, and cortical thickness.
• Conversely, the size of the amygdala, an area of ​​the brain associated with fear, anxiety and stress, decreases in size and becomes less reactive.
• blood flow to the mind is increased, neural connections between different cortical areas are improved, and neuroplasticity is enhanced.
• Protecting you from age-related mental disorders, including Alzheimer's disease.