Anxiety is something that everyone has faced at some point in their life. For patients seeking an alternative to drug-based pain relief, meditation is simple to incorporate into a daily routine and works effectively both alone and in conjunction with medication. Due to the low cost, meditation progressively relaxes the brain and helps the user toward greater personal growth and development. This article explores the use of meditation to alleviate anxiety and provides nurses with a practical way to share with their patients.

How can you effectively meditate?

All meditation approaches have one characteristic: they are all capable of inducing tranquility. To do this, perform these critical steps: relax-center-accept-observe. Maintain a comfortable posture, direct your attention to a reference point such as an item or the breath, accept and be open to the present moment’s experiences, and watch what occurs. For instance:

• Close your eyes and relax in a comfortable posture.
• Deeply relax all of the muscles in your body, from your feet to your face.
• Breathe in and out smoothly and effortlessly via your nose.
• For 10 to twenty minutes, keep doing this. While you may check the clock, you should avoid setting an alarm.
• Then sit quietly for a few minutes, either with or without your eyes open.
• For a short period of time, avoid standing.

Individuals who have never meditated before might begin with a 1–5 minutes session of guided meditation for anxiety and gradually extend the length by 20 minutes every session. Mobile meditation applications are accessible for those who are more tech-savvy and time-constrained or you can find a guided meditation Los Angeles

Meditation and Anxiety

Meditation has been found in research to relieve anxiety symptoms as good as or better than benzodiazepines, a commonly prescribed medication for anxiety that has been linked to physical dependency and addiction. According to research on the brain circuits involved in anxiety reactions, benzodiazepines and meditation share the same brain route, which explains why meditation may be used in conjunction with or even in substitute of these medicines.

Although meditation has been practised in a variety of forms for millennia, it was not employed in Western therapeutic settings until the 1970s. Scientific interest in mindfulness meditation, which is defined as a condition of attention and mindfulness without judgement, has increased in recent years. Among the several fascinating meditation techniques available, mindfulness is widely regarded as one of the most helpful for lowering stress and anxiety.

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine discovered that mindfulness-based stress reduction programmes generate the relaxation response, which is defined as a decrease in heart rate, respiration, and brain activity caused by meditation. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to activate brain regions associated with cognition, mood regulation, and reduction of negative thinking processes.

Although benzodiazepines are frequently administered as the first line of treatment for individuals with anxiety disorders, a 2014 study found that only half of patients benefitted from this treatment. Medication had no effect on anxiety in healthy people who participated in the trial, while a 20-minute meditation session lowered anxiety by 22%. With continuous practice, our malleable brains can adapt to changes in the environment and develop emotional resilience.

Description of meditation styles

Complete Attention (Mindfulness): This meditation is founded on the principle of fixed attention and tries to bring about a state of consciousness that is alert, calm, and free of judgement. The most popular method is to concentrate on the breath, which acts as a focal point of consciousness. Allowing oneself to feel the breath as it circulates through the nose or mouth and seeing how it causes the chest or abdomen to inflate and deflate rhythmically eliminates mental distractions.

Meditation on a Transcendental Level: It is a mantra-based meditation technique with the goal of attaining pure consciousness. The mantra, which is a word or phrase chosen by the practitioner or the instructor, acts as the focus of awareness in transcendental meditation. To begin, you must relax and close your eyes, allowing your thoughts to flow freely. Then, while allowing the mind to clear, repeat the phrase. Concentrating on the mantra progressively elevates the body and mind to higher states of awareness. As long as the practitioner lacks self-direction, intensive practise under the supervision of a competent instructor is required.

Stress Relieve from Nature: Naturally, stress release is another form of meditation mantra based on self-creation that serves as a complement to transcendental meditation. Three days of teaching are conducted at home with the assistance of a handbook and an audio file. A single NSR mantra transitions the mind from a busy state of thought to a calmer state, with the purpose of lowering stress and anxiety and achieving inner peace. This method should be done twice day for a total of 15 minutes.

Meditation and PTSD

Meditation has also been shown to be beneficial in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a severe type of anxiety marked by intrusive thoughts, nightmares, and flashbacks following a traumatic experience. Due to the severity and nature of the trauma, people with PTSD have significantly greater and longer levels of anxiety than those with generalised anxiety. These traumatic incidents might occur as a result of military warfare, interpersonal violence, or sexual assault.

In research involving 74 military members suffering from PTSD or another anxiety illness, half of the group engaged in a 20-minute transcendental meditation session, while the other half remained in a control group. The participants gradually transitioned from an active and analytical condition to a more relaxed state, before gradually resuming active thinking. After one month, the authors discovered that the majority of patients (84 percent) in the transcendental meditation group had stabilised, decreased, or discontinued medication therapy, compared to 59 percent in the control group.

Only 11% of patients in the transcendental meditation group raised their dose, compared to almost 41% of control group patients. This tendency persisted after two and six months. Furthermore, after six months, they discovered a difference of 21% in the degree of symptoms across groups, with patients in the control group experiencing an increase in severity compared to those in the transcendental meditation group.

In a study of people experiencing stress and anxiety as a result of unemployment, half were taught a formal meditation technique and the other half were instructed to stretch and talk as a distraction. While both groups reported reduced worry and tension, follow-up brain scans revealed that only the meditation group had increased activity, or communication, between the portions of the brain that process stress-related emotions and other areas associated with focus and calm.