Beneficial Meditation Activities to Fight Against Stress and Anxiety

For centuries, yoga and meditation have been used as effective tools to fight stress. This applies to people of all ages and backgrounds. Today, there is a variety of beneficial meditation activities which help regain your power over life. It is shown in various studies, among which is a 2015 one. This study showed that people who do yoga every day can minimize their stress levels, thus improving their productivity. Furthermore, the benefits of meditation and yoga go beyond the physical. In fact, these apply to the psychological and spiritual aspects of an individual.

Both yoga and meditation have been proven helpful in stress relief. Therefore, here are 6 beneficial meditation activities that function as stress management techniques.

6 Beneficial Meditation Activities and How They Can Combat Stress

Five Senses Exercise

The first activity involves the simple use of the five senses— sight, feeling, hearing, smell and taste.

For the sense of sight, turn your attention to 5 things you don’t normally notice. It can be a small dent on your door or a protruding nail on the wall. Then, turn your attention to 4 things you can feel— the soft skin of your baby, fine texture of your kitchen table, etc.

Afterward, leave some time to listen to the faint or loud sounds around you. For this part, you can also listen to a guided meditation music instead of the surrounding sounds. Next, mind the pleasant or unpleasant odor around which you normally filter out. This can be the smell of the breeze that you usually aren’t able to smell around your concrete walls.

Final exercise steps

Proceed to focus your attention on the taste you currently have on your mouth. You can also try eating or drinking something.

This activity lets you develop more awareness. Next, it makes you sensible to everything around. Eventually, the practice brings you to a mindful state. It’s been proven that bringing awareness to the present helps relieve your worries and stresses.

Mini-mindfulness Exercise

Another simple mindfulness exercise that can bring you stress relief as one of the many benefits of meditation is known as the mini-mindfulness exercise.

The goal of this individual activity is to focus on your breathing for as little as a minute. While you are at it, anchor your awareness to your present state and extend it to the environment. Notice every sensation and develop profound awareness of what you’re thinking and doing.

Experts concur that being present in the moment and being aware of your surroundings will help expand your thoughts and rid yourself of any stress.

Mindful Walking Down the Street Technique

The Mindful Walking Down the Street activity is based on visualization. Participants will pretend seeing someone they know across the street. However, this acquaintance just walks right past them without responding. From there, the reflection question transfers onto their thoughts and emotions. The activity ends with the participants realizing how their reaction affects their realistic behavior.

Sometimes, unguided emotions are the root cause of one’s stress. Thus, this activity for meditation can help you control stress. This is mainly because meditation allows you to make a clear distinction between impulse and action.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Activities

DBT is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy. This therapy typically treats people with personality disorders. Experts target threatening behaviors and eliminate them with therapy. But, not just that. This activity strives to correct these behaviors and improve people’s quality of life.

A core element of DBT is a mindfulness intervention. There are many exercises for this purpose. A simple one that anybody can practice at home is to simply spend five minutes observing a leaf while noticing every piece of it. Through this, participants will be able to fix their thoughts and reflect on their current experience. With that, stress will fade. This shows how meditation helps in stress management.

Body Scan

First, Body Scan is probably one of the most popular meditation exercises out there. It is very effective and requires a few props to start. As the name suggests, participants pay close attention to their body while lying or sitting comfortably. Furthermore, they pay attention to their breathing and how their body feels. Some of the body parts evaluated here include the knees, thighs, chest, and lower back.

The activity runs through all body parts as participants note the areas where they feel light or heavy. The entire activity itself is a guided meditation for stress and anxiety. Sure enough, the very same is usually practiced in a group.

Three-Minute Breathing Space

This final activity applies to busy individuals who need to relieve themselves from stress. The activity involves evaluating your thoughts and feelings. Moreover, it emphasizes awareness of breathing and thinking of outside the box.

It can be challenging to maintain focus throughout this activity, but it’s for your own benefit. With this, you’ll eliminate doubts on how yoga and meditation help in stress management. The best way to practice this activity is in a group setting, rather than individually.

Conclusion

Without question, yoga and meditation offer both physical and psychological benefits. Also, they can greatly aid in stress reduction. Plus, these can help develop a great sense of well-being. Finally, beneficial meditation activities are far greater than the time spent doing them.

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