Stress is purely a mental problem. When the mind goes haywire, then the rest of your body will also do the same.
You will become emotionally unstable when you're under the throes of stress and you will mostly like feel the repercussions on your body, like muscle cramps, headache, and more. It is important that a person learn stress management techniques to get rid of it before it becomes permanent.
Stress Is All In Your Mind
The initial effect of stress is in our minds. Our normal though patterns are disrupted that would often lead to confusion that would eventually affect us emotionally and physically when subjected to it for a long period of time.
Stress is oftentimes caused by work and financial matters. Friends and family members can also become a source of your problem, especially when they go out of their way to create conflicts.

Since stress starts with the mind, then you need take the necessary steps to control it with your mind. Relaxation plays a major role in stress management is often the prelude to every other techniques to help you cope with the problem.
We can never deny the fact that we can think clearly when we are at a relaxed state, we weigh each thought that passes through our minds calmly and rationally, whether it’s a problem or just some stray thought from the day's events.
Meditation To Help You Relax
One way to help your mind relax is through meditation. This method can help you focus your mind clearly on a problem without getting distracted and come up with the right solution to get it out of your system. After all, a calm and focused mind can easily cope with stress.
There are two ways to do meditation -- you can either enroll in meditation classes or you can do it on your own. The former is perfect for those who have plenty of free time to spare since meditation classes takes around 2 to 3 hours per session. You will be guided slowly by your mentor on the different exercises, both mental and physical, to help you relax.
If you don’t have the leisure due to the demands of work, then you can do it on your own while you're in the office or in the convenience of your own home.
Starting With Meditation
There are different methods and tools you can use to start meditation on your own. You can listen to calm music or chant a mantra. You can buy books to help you achieve meditation through visualization techniques. Pick one that suits our taste and get started.
First find a quiet place to start your meditation exercise. If it's your first time at it then make sure that you won't get distracted with the noise in your surroundings. Lock your room or tell everyone that you don’t want to be disturbed.
Start with the meditation by looking for a place where you can sit down and relax. Don’t lie down since that will only put you to sleep before you can complete the exercise. Apply your own relaxation method.
Concentrate on your mind and let random thoughts fill your head. Observe each thought calmly as if you are watching a movie. If a stressful scene comes out, try your best not to focus on it. Keep doing this exercise until you arrive at a time when your mind becomes blank.
Next is to think of one problem that you want to solve and focus on it. Again, don’t get emotionally attached to the image and only observe it in passing. You will eventually arrive at a solution to the problem without even noticing it.
Meditation To Help You Deal With Stress
Meditation is one of the techniques used in stress management. A person who is riddled with problems often finds it hard to focus; which often leads to more problems cropping up due to their mistakes.
Meditation techniques helps a person achieve a calm state of mind without having to resort to drugs or relaxation tools and implements. Every step to meditation is done in the mind.
Remember that meditation is not a one shot deal. It is almost impossible to attain a calm state of mind in just a matter of minutes, especially if it's your first time at it. It is essential that you keep on practicing meditation until you have conditioned your mind to instantaneously achieve the state just by thinking it.
Here are some steps for a beginner to start with meditation as their Stress Management strategy:
Step 1: Find A Quiet Corner To Start Your Meditation
Distraction is a hindrance to those who are still starting out with meditation. When you close your eyes, your sense of hearing will be twice as good so it is quite possible to hear almost anything in your surroundings that will make it hard for you to concentrate.
For beginners, it is important to start out in a quiet place in your home where noise is non-existent. Close your windows and lock your door. If possible, you can tell everyone in your home to minimize their noise so that you won't get distracted.
Step 2: Ready Your Position
It is advisable for beginners to avoid lying down when practicing meditation. The aim here is not to sleep, and it is a guarantee that you will immediately fall off to sleep if your mind reaches a relaxed state.
To stop this from happening, you can start your meditation in a lotus position or you can find a chair you can sit on. Make sure that your back is straight and your hands are relaxed on the armrest or on your lap.
Step 3: Begin Your Meditation With Proper Breathing
A good way to start meditation is to do the proper breathing exercise. You inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. This way, you can come up with a rhythm that you can easily focus on.
Also, the amount of oxygen in your body will be enough to keep you relaxed. Keep practicing your breathing until you can do it easily without having to think about it.
Step 4: Focus On Your Mind
While you are busy with your breathing, you will achieve a state wherein your mind will start throwing images at you. These are mostly in random, events of the day, future plans, problems and worries, fears and so on.
It will be hard to ignore these thoughts and you are not supposed to ignore them. The gist here is to focus on these thoughts without really paying any attention to it.
This might sound hard but a here is a simple example to understand the concept. You know that you have furniture at home, you can see them clearly with your eyes but you are not really concentrating on it.
Focusing on the furniture will usually make you think of its color, its material, how it looks in that part of your home, and more. You need to be able to look at these random thoughts in a detached state -- seeing them clearly in your head but not focusing your attention on it.
There will come a time that these random thought will stop and you will notice that you are already in a blank space in your mind. This is the state you want to achieve during meditation.
This is the place where you can think about your problems and focus on it till you can find a solution for it. With this, you have successfully mastered the basics of meditation for your stress management program.

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