Minute quantities of stress are a part of everyday life. It’s natural to feel antsy and worry about accomplishing essential tasks which are a part of your routine, such as meeting deadlines, waking up in time for work, or worrying about how well you did in an interview. Unfortunately, this can become problematic when stress gradually builds up, causing you to become unusually anxious, erratic, and eventually panicked.
According to the American stress institute, over 70% of the people in the US noted stress causes them physical pain. Living with stress and anxiety is not easy and can throw you off your balance into a frenzied state of mind. There are many remedies to counter the notion, but nothing tackles stress like a focused meditation session. It is a process in which you invite numerous health benefits into your life through the power of mindfulness. Meditation allows you to think, relax and control your impulses. Here are some ways how meditation breaks stress:
Helps Cope with Job Anxiety
A challenging career can often put you in a stressful position. You may feel burnt out at work, anxious about handling your responsibilities, and mishandling your opportunities. Consequently, you may start second-guessing your decisions, make expensive mistakes like causing accidental data leaks, or may even freeze on the spot in a high-alert situation. This is best illustrated by an example such as diving into a competitive profession like nursing.
As a nurse, you have to balance both your career and education since the field requires lifelong learning. So, after your bachelor’s, it is natural to look for advanced degrees and even explore DNP FNP programs online to facilitate your knowledge and become a more skillful professional. However, no matter how self-paced your degree choice is, you may still struggle to keep up and feel the familiar sensation of anxiety creep over you.
While it sounds intimidating, you can break free through simple meditation. Methods like deep breathing, closing your eyes, and allowing the peace to structure your thoughts can stabilize you. As a result, you can study better and cope when you’re under a heavy workload, enabling you to conquer your advanced degree with no trouble.
Controls Impulse
When you feel cornered, you can become impulsive. It is a type of flight or fight response to your situation. For instance, as a nurse, if you accidentally cause a medical error, you may be tempted to cover it up. Impulse arises with built-up stress. You end up making decisions like dropping out of college, lying, or even cheating to get your way.
In contrast, this can give you temporary relief from your predicament. But, in the long run, you find yourself in a deeper hole. So anytime you feel the surrounding circumstances are suffocating and you can’t find an outlet, choose to meditate. Whether you take a few minutes out and sit in a quiet corner to think, deeply breathe while walking, you’ll feel the effects of meditation.
At the same time, using yoga as a form of meditation can help you calm down and give you the stability you need to make the best decision suitable to your situation. Impulsive decisions can lead to massive fallout, cause rifts between loved ones, and cost your job. So save yourself the trouble and regain control of your impulses.
Allows You To Sleep Better
Stress steals your sleep. Anytime you lie down with your eyes closed, you may start overthinking or panicking. Consequently, your thoughts can keep you from falling asleep and pushing you towards insomnia. Globally, over 50% of adults struggle with insomnia. If left untreated, this is an actual medical condition that can cause severe health problems, such as hypertension. Therefore, if you wish to have sufficient sleep every night, you should meditate before bedtime.
Meditation can dim down your thoughts and radiate a sense of inner peace. When you’re at ease and in a good mood, your body responds favorably to these positive changes, such as increasing the release of melatonin, allowing serotonin to flow in your bloodstream, reducing the heart rate, and bringing down your blood pressure. Once you’re sleeping, you may also enter REM, a crucial phase in your sleep cycle.
Helps Fight Addiction
Leaning on substances is not uncommon when you’re under high-stress levels. Substance abuse can also stem from your career. So if you work in an intense job and have numerous workplace injuries, you end up abusing different chemicals. What starts as light drinking to relax easily becomes strong codependency on these substances to calm yourself. Addiction is a slippery slope. Once you start, it can become difficult to quit. It can heavily intervene in your life, leading to neglecting your responsibilities, whether your career or looking after your children, and opening the gates to abuse.
Prescription pills can also cause addiction, especially if you’re taking them to counter the effects of physical pain you feel in your body. It includes preventing headaches, migraines, or pain in your arm which can flare up due to immense stress. Recovery from addiction is long, tedious, and painful, often resulting in a relapse. You may also feel emotional turmoil and developmental health conditions in response to your addiction.
However, you can conquer your stress and weaken the hold substances have over you with guided meditation. Rehab centers also encourage and look towards meditation as a treatment method. So if you feel your substance consumption habits, such as drinking more often than you should, are getting worse, seek help through meditation. You learn to regain control, fight your cravings, and allow better and more uplifting thoughts to flow throughout your body.
Final Thoughts
Stress can be a significant source of discomfort for you. What starts as small jolts of anxiety can turn into a full-blown disorder. When you allow stress to accumulate, it can make you panicked and anxious, robbing you of sleep and pushing you into the arms of addiction. One of the most fruitful ways to combat stress is through meditation.
This process forces your mind into healthier ways of thinking and coping instead of allowing your disarrayed thoughts to consume you. As a result, you emerge victorious in your career, choose your actions carefully, get plenty of rest and manage to avoid the addiction from clawing into your life.