These three meditation techniques to calm your anxious mind will deliver a feeling of quiet peacefulness in just minutes.
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In the excerpted article below, MARGARITA TARTAKOVSKY, M.S. Associate Editor of PsychCentral.com looks at 3 techniques using meditation to bring peace to your anxious mind.
First Meditation Technique To Calm Your Anxious Mind
1. “Just the wind blowing: allowing life to move through this moment.”
You can practice this meditation when you’re relaxed or not so much. The authors suggest taking a comfortable position and focusing the attention to your breath. Breathe in deeply and imagine that you’re surrounded by beautiful nature. Picture the wind blowing around you.
As the authors write, “Let all of your conscious experience — sounds, sensations, thoughts, emotions, everything — become the wind. Feel all of it moving and changing, arriving, moving around and over you, and then going. Notice how the wind takes on different qualities — soft, strong, harsh, gusty, gentle. Relax as the wind blows around you. Let it come and go in all its forms. You remain here, in calmness, abiding.” Read more here
Second Meditation Technique To Calm Your Anxious Mind
2. “The Tao of anxiety.”
In the moment anxiety feels anything but good or helpful. It can feel anywhere from frustrating to intrusive to downright terrifying. But anxiety can be a teaching tool, too.
According to Brantley and Millstine, “Worrisome thoughts are a sign or signal; they contain a message for you to decipher that will help guide you to a place of well-being.” They suggest asking yourself the following three questions to help you better understand yourself and figure out the changes you can make toward your well-being.
- “What can anxiety teach me?” It might teach you to be more compassionate toward individuals who also struggle with anxiety, Brantley and Millstine write. Or it might expose you to experiences that have tested your strength. “Take this still moment to acknowledge the countless times that you have faced your worst fears, fallen down, stood up again, dusted yourself off, and found the strength to move forward.”
- “What are my mind and body trying to reveal to me?”
- “What does [my] inner wisdom tell [me] must occur in order for [me] to recover?” The authors note that this is the most important question. You might be ready to examine the cause of your anxiety, resolve a conflict with a loved one or find new meaning in your life. “Let your anxiety symptoms help you see what needs to be healed in your life.” See the original article here.
Third Meditation Technique To Calm Your Anxious Mind
3. “Sea of tranquility.”
Ever notice that when you get comfortable with life, it suddenly does a 180? Life is unpredictable, and when you’re struggling with anxiety, this can be a tough thing to take. As Brantley and Millstine note, “There may be no realistic, foolproof way to be fully prepared for change, but there is a way to keep your perspective.”
This meditation, they say, helps to guide you through change. They suggest recording it so you can listen to it in future practices. Just remember to speak slowly, calmly and clearly.
1. Close your eyes and visualize yourself at the beach, sitting on the warm sands, with a refreshing sea breeze sprinkling your whole body. You are safe and secure. You are watching the waves drift in and out, over and over again. Each wave is like your breath, rising up inside from deep within and then releasing and returning out to sea.
2. What do you notice about the surface of the ocean? It’s much like your life — some parts are rough, choppy, with impending waves of uncertainty pounding away. Breathe in these moments that are challenging and upsetting. Remember that you have the stability and strength to weather the storm. Breathe out your fears and doubts about the outcome. What will be will be. Only the waves can carry all your secrets and anxieties out to sea.
3. What’s happening below the surface of the ocean? It is a calm, serene, quiet and contemplative underwater experience. Schools of fish are swimming to and fro. Sea plants are sashaying to a mysterious, musical current. Starfish cling to rocks in colorful display. Luminescent shards of sunlight splice through the water, transmitting warmth and radiance downward.
4. Depending on what life tosses your way, you may be bodysurfing the big one or floating along a sea of serenity. Be mindful of the journey, the highs and lows, the good times and the bad, the joy and the pain. Move gently with each wave. See the original article here
Make sure you try one or all three meditation techniques to calm your anxious mind.
If you would like a guided meditation to relieve your anxiety, please leave a comment below, as Dr. Kilstein has already recorded some guided meditations for anxiety.
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