Stress. We all have it at one time or another throughout our life. Sometimes the cause of stress is work. Sometimes it’s our families, finances or what’s going on around us in the world. While we can’t always limit stress or the amount of it in our lives, we can arm ourselves with resources and tools to help create an awareness of it that leads to the management, reduction, or elimination of that stress. Interested in learning more? I’m talking about meditation.
I think most of us have heard about meditation. I know I have over and over again, but for a really long time it just didn’t stick or resonate with me. I couldn’t fathom a world without stress or a world where I believed I had the power to limit, reduce or eliminate stress. I want to talk candidly and openly with you about these things.
My Beliefs About Stress
For the last 15 years or more, I have subscribed to hustle culture, whether it was what I needed to climb the corporate ladder or by putting in endless hours as an entrepreneur. This blog and my work as speaker, trainer, and facilitator has happened because I put in the work. I simply had a goal and did whatever means necessary to do what needed to be done. As a child of a blue collar family, it has been ingrained into me that I must work harder than everyone else in order to succeed. I was told as a child the deck was always be stacked against me, and it was until very recently that I continued to I hold this as a universal truth for myself that shaped my world. I put in the work and I worked harder, longer, and was aggressively focused on my goals. What I didn’t understand was the cost of doing those things.
How Stress Impacts Our Daily Lives
Let me throw some stats and research at you. If you are experiencing stress or anxiety in your life or at work, meditation can be a real solution to help – not eliminate, but assist – with how you face and encounter anxiety and stress. From the Workplace Stress Institute, 83% of US workers suffer from work-related stress, with 25% saying their job is the number one stressor in their lives. But work isn’t the only stress and stress is different at different stages of our life. I recently shared about the stressor I’m experiencing as a new member of the sandwich generation. This new life experience is definitely one that causes stress, but it’s not any more or less important than the stress my 15-year-old daughter experiences at the current stage of her life.
One thing that is for sure is that we are experiencing more levels of intense stress regardless of our age compared to just five years ago. This research from the American Psychological Associates supports what most of us have been feeling, which is that stress and anxiety levels have increased since the pandemic. Yes, we have higher levels of not only collective trauma, but also more individualized and real stress.
For me that cost I mentioned earlier was having constant pain, tons of anxiety and stress and a need to medicate with things like food, television, or wine to get through the day. I did not like how I was feeling and I started looking for a different way.
How Meditation Can Change How You React to Stress
First off, I want to tell you are not alone. I kept hearing from my friends that they felt more stress now than they did 10 years ago, and I’m here to tell you this is true. Research has found that we do in fact have more stress in our lives. And yes, what you have or had been doing previously might not be enough to control how your body reacts to stress. This was certainly true for me, even as someone who has had a daily yoga practice. What I was doing just wasn’t working as well as it should, so I set out to find new tools and resources to help reduce not just my stress but more importantly how I (and my body) react to stress.
I choose meditation because I made a vow since the pandemic to simplify my life. I do not need another piece of work out equipment or a new gym membership. I want less stuff and more space for me. As a former member of hustle culture (see above), I decided to try what was simple and easy versus my old way of doing – which was overcomplicating my whole routine. I set out to start meditating with the intent of doing it regularly – not just when I was stressed or experiencing life, but as a form of preventative meditation like how I take my daily multi-vitamin and calcium.
How I Keep Up a Daily Meditation Practice
Each day I set out to meditate, I do so with one goal in mind: Meditate for at least five minutes. That’s it. After a great deal of trial and error, this is the method that works best for me.
- I meditate every morning as soon as I wake up. I do not leave my bed unless I meditate.
- I use the Kirtan Kriya Meditation from Spotify. It’s 12 minutes with mantra and mudra to keep me focused. I speak out loud and move my fingers.
- I remain seated with my legs crossed and focus on my breath in my bed. If I don’t do this, I will get distracted and forget.
- I don’t take myself too seriously. If my mind wanders, I come back to it and focus on my breath.
A study at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), showed this same regular meditation practice I do, the Kirtan Kriya Meditation, increased an enzyme linked to structures at the ends of our chromosomes, which affect how our cells age. Other studies on the practice have shown that this daily meditation improves blood flow to the brain, reverses memory loss, eases depression and decreases inflammatory genes. All of these things help how you and your body react to stress whether it’s using sick days or just feeling stuck. Meditation can work. This particular study focused on the benefits of the Kirtan Kriya Meditation (which also happens to be the 12 minute meditation I use). See the Spotify link above.
I challenges myself to start with a goal of 40 days of consecutive meditation. On my first try, I made it to day 23, missed a day and had to restart. My second go round, I found that moving my meditation to be the first thing I do every morning meant that I never missed. I rarely miss a meditation now, even eight months later.
Meditation works for me. My own “a-ha” moment happened when my car broke down in the middle of an intersection earlier this year in a not so great part of town. I had a panic attack. I freaked out and I couldn’t think clearly. I couldn’t function, let alone find my purse or car keys to get me out of harm’s way. It was only then did I realized what I was experiencing. I was able to take a few deep breaths and use a meditation technique calling tapping. I later realized that my panic attack was how I lived and operated every single day before I started my meditation, and I did not like how that stress made me feel. For me, it’s the self-awareness as a result of the meditation that have really made a difference. While I might not be able to control what happens to me, I can control how I react to what happens in my life and to those around me.
Think about that for a minute. You can control how you react to what happens. Like when your coworker makes an off-handed passive aggressive comment or when your sister does that one thing guaranteed to set you off into a spiral of negative emotions and feelings. I have found that I react much differently now than I used to. I am calmer. I am more even in my emotions and things that used to drive me crazy are not my problem to worry about, and I therefore, have less stress all because of a regular and consistent meditation practice.
How to Get Started With Meditation
One of the best things about meditation, is that anyone can do it. It starts with an awareness of your breath, a deep inhale and a deep exhale out. You can stop anywhere just for a moment and breath. The benefits are instant meaning your body and mind can begin to limit and reduce how it is reacting to stress. Three deep breaths can begin to reduce your stress levels and anxiety. One of the easiest ways to meditate is with a method I teach in my yoga classes called box breathing. Each part of your breath, the inhale, the pause after inhale, exhale and the pause after exhale happens at equal intervals. Each of those is an equal amount say three or four sections each. I’m including a short tutorial I made on TikTok for you to watch above. I also have a short playlist with four different meditation breathing methods including tapping you can also try for yourself.
The most important thing with meditation is to create consistency and to practice every day even if it is just 3 or 5 minutes a day. Tangible benefits might not always be there, but I promise you’ll realize one day a couple weeks from now how you are showing up different when that passive co-workers remark just doesn’t have you react in the same way. And another thing I’ve realized is that a lot of people have a regular meditation practice. They just don’t share, and maybe that’s because of the stigma around it. Self-care isn’t about religion or spirituality. It’s about taking care of your mental and physical health and what’s best for you. And I think that’s something worth sharing, which is why I am talking more about my own mental health and wellness journey.
