Stress is a fact of life. It is our body’s normal response to any kind of demand. While a little stress is good, chronic stress can be detrimental to our overall health. As such, it is important to find ways to reduce our stress levels.
Starting a meditation practice can help you relieve stress and put your mind at ease. Here are 3 ways meditation can help reduce and manage stress.
Improve focus and attention
A lot of people multitask in the hopes of getting more things done in a limited amount of time. What they fail to realize is that multitasking not only compromises their productivity, it also leads to stress.
Our brain can only focus on one thing at a time. So, if you’re talking to someone while writing an email, you’ll notice you’re doing neither.
Meditation helps by training your brain to stay focused on the task at hand. It helps you figure out which tasks are essential, keeping you from getting distracted with less important tasks. As a result, you become more productive and less stressed.
Promotes relaxation and restful sleep
According to studies, 85% of the American workforce suffer from sleep disorder. Often, they have trouble sleeping due to work-related stress. Those racing thoughts keep you from getting a good night’s sleep.
According to a study that was conducted by a group of researchers from Maastrich University in Germany, mindfulness meditation can help improve our hyperactive mind and improve our sleep. Over the course of two weeks, meditators experienced improvements in sleep duration and quality. The finding come as no surprise since meditation evoke relaxation response.
Stress prevention
From divorce to loss of a job to death of a loved one or work-related issues, we all experience stressful situations in life. More often than not, our emotions tends to color our perception and judgment. When adverse situations occur, we tend to think that they are beyond what we can handle.
Through mindful meditation practice, we train our minds to become more focused and capable of handling stressful and demanding situations. It helps improve our ability to adapt through tough situations; hence, the reduction of everyday stress.