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If you guessed meditation already, then you guessed right. Ever since I started meditating every day about a month and half ago, my anxiety has nearly healed itself and my depression is diminishing. A few months ago I was suffering from severe anxiety and I was doing everything in my power to make it better; going to a therapist, working out, eating healthy, spending time in nature, surrounding myself with positive people, and taking supplements for stress. All of that certainly helped, but it did not get rid of my problem.
In order to cure my anxiety I had to make two big changes; first I had to tackle the source of my anxiety and then I needed to heal it. For me, the source was a toxic and emotionally abusive relationship I had gotten myself ensnared into. For healing, I had to work on fixing the damage the constant stress and adrenal glands have done to my brain and body. The reason why both are so important is because as long as you are being triggered by what has you so anxious in the first place, meditation is not going to fix the problem, it will only help you to cope with the problem.
We cannot always remove ourselves from stressful situations and I highly recommend working out problems over running from them. That being said, if your anxiety comes from emotional abuse, or abuse in any form, that is never acceptable and you do have the right to remove yourself from it. It does not matter if that abuse is coming from a family member, a friend, or a partner; no one deserves to be treated badly, especially in an ongoing basis.
Anxiety comes from many sources and mine personally was from this toxic and abusive relationship with a covert narcissist. This person fed off of my emotions, whether they were good or bad. When they stopped getting what they needed from me, they started manipulating and triangulating me against other family members to get a bigger reaction and would then pretend that they didn’t say or do anything to harm me, turning it around and saying that I made it up, that I was being selfish and lacked empathy, and that they didn’t understand why I was treating them terribly. They began a smear campaign to attend to get me to give them more attention and to isolate me from other people. The more I tried to defend myself or fix the situation, the more they fed off of the drama and would spin more. The emotional abuse started small, but it grew over time until it reached the point where I was constantly on hyper alert for the next abusive text, phone call, or verbal attack. I developed crippling anxiety. I had to say enough is enough. As painful as it was, I had to remove myself from that person. With the help of a therapist, my husband, and loving friends and family, I realized that the relationship was in no way good for me and I had to let it go if I wanted to feel safe and happy again.
For many people, anxiety can stem from overthinking situations and “what if” scenarios. It can come from overwhelm and toxic busyness. Anxiety can develop when we constantly have too much to do and not enough time to do it. Anxiety can stem from fear or stress. It can come from being overworked, feelings of inadequacy, a bully at work, a health scare, an accident, or any umber of stressful factors that impact our lives. The first step is recognizing where our anxiety comes from in the first place. Once you have it identified, only then can you come up with ways to overcome it. If it’s fear based, you can tackle it through therapy and practice. If it’s from a stressful situation, you can figure out how to solve it. And if it’s from a mental attack in some way, be it from a person or a situation, you can figure out ways to remove yourself from it.
During that time, meditation is a great way to relax and cope with stress. Once you are free from what has harmed you, you may notice that you’re still feeling stressed, exhausted, and anxious. This is adrenal fatigue. Your brain and body was in such a high state of alert for so long that it doesn’t know how to relax anymore. You’re still at that elevated and heightened state of worry, panic, and even fear.
The reason why meditation really works for anxiety is because it aids in the healing of both the mind and the body. Anxiety doesn’t just effect our brains and the way we think, it effects how we breathe, how we sit and carry ourselves, and how we hold tension in our muscles. Just ten minutes of meditation a day over the course of two weeks is enough to start making noticeable changes. Just ten minutes of meditation is enough to lower our heart rate, release the tension we’re holding, and quiet the brain.
If you want to learn how to meditate or more about different types of meditations, click on this link here for my recent post about a meditation seminar I attended. The goal isn’t about becoming thoughtless, but rather letting go of your thoughts for moments of peace in between. If you’re worried about not being able to meditate, this post should also put those fears at bay.
Why Meditation is the Number One Tool In Your Fight Against Anxiety
Meditation is essential for curing anxiety because it heals your brain and your body. While therapy, healthy eating, exercise, time in nature, and positive connections are also beneficial, meditation is the number one tool that I have found creates lasting change. It heals your brain by slowing down your brain’s response to stress by telling your brain to slow down the production of stress hormones such as cortisol. It quiets overactive thinking and creates more grey matter in the brain. Grey matter is a simple way of saying neurons. This is important because parts of the brain consisting of grey matter includes muscle control, sensory perception, emotions, memory, self-control, decision making, and speech. When we make these parts of the brain stronger, we strengthen our ability to control our emotions as well. Meditation helps us not only strengthen the brain, it actually rewires the brain for better cognitive function all together which means that you will become more likely to be able to think before your react and stay calm in stressful situations, decreasing our brain’s stress response. Meditation is so good for the brain that it actually strengthens it against memory loss.
When the brain is in a healthy space, the body will surely follow. You will notice that while meditating, we relax our muscles, especially in our shoulders, jaw, and backs where we hold most of our tension. We also take deeper and slower breaths. Short term, this makes us more relaxed in the moment, but the long term benefits also help us to decrease stress’s impact on the body, which is why through meditation we can lower our blood pressure, increase our heart health, decrease our risks for stress related illnesses, and strengthen our immune systems.
Please share this article with people you know who could benefit from a meditation practice. Do you meditate? I would love to hear about your meditation journey in the comments below.
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