Meditation and Stress

Stress is your emotional and physical reaction to pressures in your life. I think it is safe to say that we all experience a little stress in our day to day lives. Stress, as you may already know can cause serious health problems.

I recently met someone that was experiencing extreme stomach pain on a daily basis.  He went to his doctor who ran him through a variety of exams. He went to a specialist who ran him through even more exams. We're talking a colonoscopy, cat scan, blood work- you name it- they checked it.  After 3 months of testing and doctor's visits they came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with him. They said that his high pressure job was to blame for his physical ailments. In other words- STRESS was the cause of his illness.


In life you are going to have stresses. One way to reduce the intensity in which you experience them is through meditation. 


"Meditation helps to reduce the activity of part of the brain called the amygdala, which governs feelings of stress. Those who are more stressed and anxious have an amygdala that is overactive. Meditating reduces this," according to Mark Williams, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry and co-developer of one of the many variants, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).


He goes on to say that stressful situations lead to stressful feelings which lead to stressful thoughts. These stressful thoughts create a cycle of more bad feelings, each feeding into each other.


“Meditating breaks this cycle by reducing the links between the insula and the parts of the brain that analyse, as we have seen on brain scans. It doesn't stop a person from feeling or thinking but it uncouples these two parts of the brain, giving the patient more control." (source)


So the next time you're feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Don't reach for that glass of wine.. instead grab a pillow and sit in silence for 10 minutes.  It can improve your health.