Meditation for Stress and Anxiety - Mindworks

Stress has rightfully received a lot of bad press as the cause for heart disease and many health problems. But stress is really a natural part of life. Viewed objectively, it is the pressure felt when challenged, either physically, emotionally, or spiritually. But stretching our boundaries isn’t necessarily a bad thing, what would life be without growth? It is when the scales tip into feeling overwhelmed or traumatized that we have difficulty coping.

Meditation can help with stress and anxiety, by putting it into a proper perspective. Can we reduce our perception of stress, or increase the resources we have to deal with it? Meditation can help us with both. For a practicum on the subject of stress see our online meditation course Working with Stress.

Guided Meditation for Stress Relief

2022-04-19T11:48:56-07:00By Maria Camara|

A mindful breathing meditation for relaxation Based on the guided meditations for stress reduction presented in Mindworks Working with Stress course, read on to learn how to switch from the usual mode of doing to a mode of non-doing—of simply being—at your own pace. Begin by assuming the correct posture for meditation. Now take a [...]

Physical health and the mind-body connection

2023-04-18T09:00:39-07:00By Cynthia Thaik|

What is the mind-body connection? The term “mind-body connection” refers to the understanding that our physical health involves more than just the body. Mind is what connects us and our physical body to the rest of the world. Mind connects us to our thoughts, attitudes, and emotions, as well as to our actions and [...]

Mindfulness and Healing

2022-08-14T20:12:23-07:00By Cynthia Thaik|

The importance of mindfulness to self-regulate and build resilience As a physician who practices mind-body medicine, I truly believe that mindfulness is the most powerful tool that I have. I share it with my patients so that they have access to this tool as well. Mindfulness is more powerful than any drug, surgery, or other [...]

Change Your Perception of Stress through Meditation

2023-05-25T11:16:51-07:00By Maria Camara|

How can I change my perception of stress? Authentic meditation practice can help us change our perception of stress and our reaction to it. “Stress” is a catchall term that covers a variety of reactions to unwelcome circumstances, from anxiety to panic. When we allow stress to run the show, it impacts our bodies and [...]

Simple Yogic Breathing Techniques for Stress Relief

2022-09-04T19:29:30-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Breathe Deeply: Why Deep Breathing Helps to Calm Your Stress When stressed, our breath gets short and shallow, a sign that fight or flight mode (the sympathetic nervous system) has kicked in. Deep, focused breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, reducing anxiety and inducing calm. You can learn simple yogic breathing techniques for stress relief. [...]

Healing Trauma Through Meditation

2022-07-03T20:20:07-07:00By Mindworks Team|

What Qualifies as Trauma, and How Does It Affect our Brain Structure? Meditation can help you heal from trauma and PTSD, but it’s not always the cure-all we want it to be. For some, meditation may appear to make trauma worse. Meditation brings conscious awareness to the activity in our mind, but we’re not always [...]

How Meditation Improves Physical Health

2022-09-25T01:33:56-07:00By Mindworks Team|

The Proven Health Benefits of Daily Meditation According to Science When considering its benefits, most people focus on how meditation can improve mental health. But because body and mind are connected, meditation has great influence over our physical health too. How Meditation Improves Health A healthy body is the manifestation of a healthy mind. So [...]

The Benefits of Exercise, Meditation and Brain Health

2022-11-29T20:31:54-08:00By Mindworks Team|

Upon first glance, exercise and meditation offer similar benefits. Both help improve mood, reduce anxiety and depression, and can lead to a calm, balanced state of mind. But exercise is not a replacement for meditation, nor is meditation a replacement for exercise. The two have distinct benefits that are equally important for maintaining general wellbeing. [...]

Meditation for Coping with Climate Anxiety

2023-05-26T19:55:22-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Eco-Anxiety: What it is and How to Manage it with Meditation Our planet is experiencing a rapid increase in temperature and associated severe weather events. Research points to the burning of fossil fuels and resulting greenhouse gas emissions as the primary cause. Life as we know it is at risk without urgent behavioral change on [...]

Does Meditation Release Trauma from the Body?

2022-12-18T17:14:15-08:00By Mindworks Team|

How Trauma Gets Stored In The Body (Somatic Memory & Nervous System) Nearly everyone experiences trauma at some point in their lives. Trauma is the result of an overwhelmingly stressful event which we don’t have the resources to process. While some eventually do acknowledge and process their trauma, others carry trauma with them. The energies [...]

Meditation for Releasing Negative Emotions

2022-12-18T17:14:53-08:00By Mindworks Team|

Why Emotions Sometimes Hurt (How Emotional Pain Affects Your Mind) Meditation is a powerful tool for helping us work with negative emotions. Negative emotions are uncomfortable and can be overwhelming, a feeling that often gets worse when we attempt to ignore them or push them away. With meditation, we learn that our negative emotions don’t [...]

Calming Nighttime Anxiety for Better Sleep

2022-10-24T20:27:08-07:00By Mindworks Team|

What is Sleep Anxiety? (How to Calm Anxiety at Night) If your anxiety gets worse at night, preventing you from sleeping well, you’re not alone. More than half of adults in the US say their anxiety keeps them awake at night. And when anxiety makes falling asleep or staying asleep difficult, that lost sleep leads [...]

Stress Reduction And Meditation

2023-05-25T11:18:49-07:00By Mindworks Team|

How Meditation Helps Relieve Stress (Simple and Fast Improvements) When we’re faced with unexpected or challenging circumstances that we don’t have the resources to handle, stress arises. The stress response occurs on a physical, mental and emotional level. Our heart rate and breathing quickens and our sweat glands activate. We may have self-defeating or judgmental [...]

How Does Meditation Reduce Stress?

2022-04-19T11:49:42-07:00By Maria Camara|

Mindfulness Meditation for Stress and Anxiety Stress and anxiety result when we feel we can’t handle the pressures and adverse situations of everyday life. It’s a simple question of supply and demand of available emotional resources. It’s not about whether the perceived stressor is valid or not—we feel a responsibility to respond to [...]

Meditation and Stress Prevention

2022-04-19T11:49:52-07:00By Maria Camara|

Preventing stress with regular meditation practice Did you know that meditation doesn’t only relieve stress? Science has shown that meditation prevents stress as well! It’s a practice that we can include in our lives so that whenever adversity and challenges arise—and they will arise whether we want them to or not—we can cope with them [...]

What Are the Health Benefits of Meditation?

2022-04-19T11:55:02-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Many meditation health benefits have a common denominator Beyond serenity: the health benefits of meditation Many of us associate meditation with serenity and mental focus. But meditation comes with a number of very convincing health perks as well. For some practitioners these may be fringe benefits, but for others they may be the most [...]

Meditation for Healing

2022-04-19T11:55:22-07:00By Mindworks Team|

In recent years thousands of people have participated in studies that confirm the beneficial effects of meditation for stress, depression, managing chronic pain, insomnia and other conditions. Clearly, there are forms of meditation practice that can help people cope with what ails them. But did you know that in some cases meditation can even help [...]

Can Meditation Help With Anxiety?

2022-05-10T19:57:31-07:00By Mindworks Team|

If you constantly feel nervous, worried or uneasy due to past or future events, you may be suffering from anxiety. Everyone gets anxious at some point or another. Generally speaking, being anxious is not a malady – it’s a normal apprehension that’s connected to concerns about the future. But when worry dominates our actions [...]