Stress affects people in different ways. I become quite withdrawn when at these stages and my mind goes into overdrive stressing about many different things.
Other people suffer from panic attacks, become very shaky and nervous, feel sick in the stomach, become sad and can begin to think in a very negative way.
Most of the conditions I have described above are actually a mental and not so much of a physical problem. This is why I believe meditation to be an excellent form of stress relief or stress management.
I know all about the benefits of meditation and stress. Stuttering ruined my early life and caused me to lose a lot of my self-confidence. I worked hard to stop stuttering and was eventually rewarded with fluency at the age of 21.
Stress and worry also affected my work life within the pet insurance company where I held quite a senior position. At time I would worry far too much about the trivialities of work.
The main benefits of meditation:
It reduces your heart rate
It relaxes your breathing and can even make it slower
It can lower blood pressure
It can increase your self-esteem by making you think in a more positive way
Helps you to think in a more logical and clear way
Helps you to reduce stress
Some of the forms of meditation:
Walking meditation
Mandala meditation
Yoga meditation
Sitting meditation
Prayer meditation
Visualisation meditation
I personally prefer the sitting meditation. I try to make time around three of four times a day when I will sit down to meditate. At the start I was quite unsure as to the whole aspect of meditation and whether it would prove to be beneficial. I must admit that I really found it hard to fully focus at this point. With practice and realising that I needed this to work for me, I managed to get enough concentration and focus to see the full benefits.
A lot of the people in my circle of friends think that I am a bit mad, including my best friends Dave and Pete who work providing people with various SEO services. They can not believe that I actually just sit there and think. Meditation has had such a positive effect on my life and continues to do so, therefore my friends can mock as much as they like. A few weeks I mentioned to the group that I thought it would be a great idea if they also tried meditation – have a guess what happened? Yes, they are laughed at the whole concept.
