How Does Meditation And Mindfulness Exercises Help Deal With Inner Stress And Fear

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Pinterest

Stress and fear are two of the natural responses of the human mind. Like any other response, they can be useful if applied to the appropriate scenarios. For instance, if you are experiencing an imminent threat, activation of the natural fight or flight response can help a great deal. However, at other times when you find yourself consistently worrying, being anxious, or scared of something for no apparent reason, you can end up hitting the overall quality of your life. It can’t be more emphasized that being anxious or scared in response to a disturbing event is a natural phenomenon for all of us and that the feeling is supposed to slowly fade away. But for a good proportion of the humankind, the feelings of stress and fear can turn out to be chronic in nature. This is what hinders their day to day activities and prevents them from achieving their true potential in terms of productivity and creativity.

Being stressed or scared is usually associated with troubling thoughts. You could be stressed about a past event, scared of what is going to happen next in your life, or even anxious about the present circumstances of your life. Whatever the reason is, if you are what is commonly termed as the “born worriers” or have been experiencing episodes of excessive stress and fear only recently, then you have landed on the right page. You would be relieved to know that the answer for you lies in something as simple and time efficient as meditation. There is no argument over the benefits that meditation has to offer since it is a conventional technique that is being used for years by the mental health professionals and in practices of conventional medicine. But we don’t want you to take anything for granted. We aim to provide the information that you require in order to make an informed decision. Without further ado, let’s walk you through the ways in which meditation helps strengthen your mental capacities and pull you out of a vicious cycle of stress and fear.

The Changes Occurring Inside Your Brain

It is understandable that excessive stress and anxiety is the cause of your bad mood. But what the majority of us fail to comprehend is that the power of anxiety over your mind is much greater than that. Research has accentuated that anxiety can cause malfunctioning of the brain and even changes in terms of its structure. The part of the brain that is primarily responsible for storing the memories, known as the “HIPPOCAMPUS” can shrink in size as a result of excessive stress, fear, and anxiety. On the other hand, “AMYGDALA”, the part of the brain that is responsible for producing the fight or flight response expands in size causing a feeling of chronic fear or anxiety in an individual.

The bad news is that the changes occurring inside your brain due to excessive stress and fear are not confined to just that. For the purpose of communication, the brain cells release certain chemicals which are known as the neurotransmitters. In response to stress, fear, and anxiety, stress hormones are excessively produced in the brain causing an imbalance of these chemicals leading to a malfunction that translates into further stimulation of the feeling of stress and fear.

The good news, however, is that the simple and time efficient practices of meditation can help a great deal in not only reducing stress and fear but also antagonizing the structural and functional disruptions caused by anxiety for a more permanent cure. Regular meditation, therefore, can help even the most chronic patients of anxiety.

Meditation – A Barricade For Negative Thoughts

Regardless of how chronic or lifelong your patterns of mood swings, stress, fear, and anxiety have been, meditation can help pull you out of the vicious cycle. If you have been experiencing anxiety lately, you can testify that troubling thoughts which are primarily due to the “mental time travel” that pushes you to overanalyze your past or overthink about the future, are the root cause of the cycling worry and anxiety. By breaking the pattern of negative self-talk, meditation puts a barricade between you and the disturbing thoughts. The whole point of meditation is to activate the natural relaxation response of the body by removing the negative emotions such as stress and fear. It does so by collecting your wandering thoughts and focus from the past and the future and bringing it all together to the present, to an event that is positive and harmless. This is what naturally helps in making you calm and peaceful.

Meditation – A Simple Practice To Reestablish The Balance Inside Your Brain

Much like the range of mental disorders, it is difficult to pinpoint the root cause of anxiety. There could be a wide range of factors associated with this negative emotion. It could be emotional trauma, a disturbing