Effects of stress
Nowadays very few people would say no if we ask them about a stress reduction. We all know how stress manifests in our life and we are all looking for solutions to relief ourselves from worries, headaches or stiff neck, tight jaw. Stress impacts both our minds and bodies. It is a state of hyper-arousal where our minds and bodies are on alert and our adrenaline levels lifting up. In a situation like that, we all feel that we need to do something to protect ourselves. In this article, we try to help with this problem
Effects of Stress
In stressful situations, your body produces adrenaline rush that tenses your muscles, elevates your respiration, changes your blood flow or increases your heart rate. This can happen when you feel you can't finish a task or you have to speak before a big audience. Under stress, you might feel anxious, restless and unable to concentrate. You become aggressive, impulsive, irritable or angry.
Practicing mindfulness can help to reach a relaxed state for your mind and body.
How does mindfulness can help you?
1. Paying attention to protect us
Paying attention to the present moment helps us to control the non-productive, repetitive thoughts that lead to stress. For example, you have to represent your self before a big audience. You can think about all the negative possibilities that can happen and lead you to stress. Instead of that just think about that all of the people in the audience are here to learn something new from you and most of the people didn't care about some little mistakes.
Paying attention allows us to cultivate a more direct experience of what is happening and nothing more. We spend too much time reacting to events and spinning out explanations, implications, and stories and all of these often create stress. Just paying attention to the present.
2. Open attitude - It provides relief
Another aspect of mindfulness is an attitude of curiosity and acceptance of whatever is occurring. For example, when you don’t get a reply to your text, you could accept that there may be many reasons why. You might be curious as to whether your partner thought the text was as important as you did. According to psychologist Scott Bishop, who has researched the impact of mindfulness on our mental wellbeing, the practice of paying attention with an open attitude leads to a decrease in rumination and avoidance strategies, both of which underlie anxiety. An open attitude leads to a greater acceptance of what is happening, improved ability to tolerate difficult situations and a lessening of reactivity and repetitive negative thinking.
3. New relationships to experience
According to some psychologists, the core mindful practices of intention, attention, and attitude lead to a fundamental shift in perspective they “reperceiving.” Reperceiving allows us to dis-identify from thoughts, emotions, and body sensations as they arise, and simply be with them instead of being controlled or defined by them. We realize, “this worry is not me,” or “these thoughts are not me,” which cultivates the ability to see a situation as it really is. As we do this more and more, our confidence in our ability to cope grows, and we are less likely to become stressed by events that would have previously felt like a threat.
What's happening in the brain?
There are tons of researches about what happens in the brain during and after meditation. Practicing mindfulness changes the structure and function of parts of the brain associated with emotional control. These studies were done with experienced meditators, where results indicate that mindfulness practice enhances the ability to self-regulate attention and emotion.