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Use Meditation To Relieve Stress
Chris Impeterelli
Meditation is a form of alternative medicine that promotes
relaxing and mental calmness through the use of controlling
or suspending thoughts for a certain period of time. Since
meditation involves physical and mental relaxation, it's a
great way to relieve stress.
When some people hear about meditation as a way to relieve
stress, they laugh and think it's a bunch of baloney. They
think that meditation is not a viable solution to eliminating
stress. But research has shown that meditation works and is
a practical technique for stress management.
The most notable research on meditation's usefulness in relieving
stress was done in 1968 by Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard University.
He conducted a series of experiments on popular meditation
techniques and published his findings in the book "The Relaxation
Response." He discovered that meditation has a "real effect
on reducing stress and controlling the fight-or-flight response."
Dr. Benson wrote that meditation increased the skin's resistance
to damage or infections, slowed the heartbeat and breathing
rate, and reduced oxygen consumption.
Meditation is all about consciously relaxing your mind and
body for a period of time. Meditation means that you need
to focus inwardly so that your mind is basically so busy concentrating
on breathing and body form that there's no time to think about
the events that are causing you stress.
The act of meditation is actually quite simple to do. Meditation
does not require you to be a mystic or to be very spiritual.
Meditation is something that anyone can do almost anywhere.
When you prepare yourself for meditation, be sure to set aside
a certain amount of time where you're guaranteed not to be
interrupted. Meditation doesn't require hours of practicing
at a time for it to be effective in reducing stress. Practicing
meditation is ten- or twenty-minute time slots is definitely
good enough.
Effective meditation requires that you're in a comfortable,
quiet environment. This means that when you practice meditation,
you should make sure that you're wearing comfortable, unrestrictive
clothing. The atmosphere temperature (whether you're indoors
or outdoors) should also be comfortable for you in order to
make your meditation session as stress fighting as possible.
Stress-relieving meditation is all about concentration. Once
you're fully comfortable (you can sit or lie down) close your
eyes. Focus your attention of your breathing throughout your
entire meditation session. Count your breaths. You can even
say the numbers out loud to discourage your mind from wandering
to other thoughts.
Another way to control wandering thoughts when you're in a
meditation session is to use imagery. Imagery is very popular
in meditation. All you have to with imagery is focus on something
you consider refreshing or pleasant. Music is also a popular
way to help mind concentration during meditation. You can
do a monologue hum. Or you can use some soothing music that
features plenty of nature sounds.
The key to meditation is mind control. When you learn to control
your mind, you can control your thoughts, and you'll be able
to better control the functions of your muscles. Sometimes
it takes a bit of time to learn not to let your mind wander
to other thoughts while you're in a meditation session. But
once you've mastered meditation, you'll discover you'll be
able to do it almost anywhere to relax when you're feeling
overwhelmed with stress.
Meditation Hub is an information site that contains
articles, a directory and other Meditation
Resources. It can be found at: www.meditationhub.com.
Article Source:
http://www.articlerich.com
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