Meditation for anxiety: overcoming anxiety
Anxiety is incredibly annoying. Whatever fear you have, it can affect your life considerably. If you have a fear of flying you will probably never get out of Europe. If you have a fear of water, swimming during hot summer days is your nightmare, and fear of spiders is of course one of the most well-known fears. This fear can almost literally drive some people out of their homes, not to mention psychological fears such as fear of a presentation.
To overcome your anxiety, in this article I will discuss the role meditation can play in it.
Overcoming Fear
Fear can be an incredibly paralyzing emotion. You can run away from problems because of fear, which when you have calmed down again are just as annoying. Or it can make you stiffen or even make you angry. The flight, fight or stiffen reaction is useful when you live in the wild, but in modern society it is not always helpful, with a few exceptions.
Especially running and stiffening obviously does not work to confront and overcome your fear.
Due to anxiety and the flight or stiffening response, you may feel a tremendous tension in your body that limits what you do. You suddenly become dizzy, your muscles tense and you can't get your words out.
Overcoming that very feeling can ensure that you can confront your fear and never have to experience it again or at least not to the extent you have now. You may even now bluff your way more easily through a situation you would otherwise only get through with sweaty hands.
Anxiety is often caused by beliefs you’ve developed in the past. A fear of dogs might have developed because a dog jumped on you when you were a child. As a result, you may have started avoiding dogs and places where they are found.
In many cases, there is a belief that you can only overcome your fears by frequently exposing yourself to the object or situation that causes your fear. For example, a fear of spiders can only be overcome by standing inside a cage with tarantulas, and a fear of public speaking can only be overcome by actually doing it.
Fortunately, there is growing evidence that overcoming anxiety does not always have to go hand in hand with a direct confrontation with your fear. There are multiple ways to overcome your fear without having to stand in a spider room or force yourself to do something you actually find very scary.
Among those treatments are:
- Cognitive behavioral therapy
- Hypnosis
- Mindfulness meditation
- Seated meditation
- Guided Meditation
These treatments actually change the way you think or the beliefs you have about the subject of your anxiety. Ultimately, those beliefs and thoughts cause you to feel anxiety in your body as well. Anxiety starts in your head and not the other way around.
Meditation also makes impressions you once received disappear, not the memory, but the belief that any dog can be dangerous.
Meditation can also be very helpful for fears that involve your ego. Examples of these fears include the fear of giving a presentation. Through meditation, you can boost your self-confidence, develop more self-compassion, and discover what “you” truly stand for.
Meditation Against Anxiety
In the distant past (1978), it was sometimes thought that exercise could help combat anxiety and regulate this emotion ( 1). Ultimately, this was compared to meditation even back then, and it turned out that people who meditated regularly experienced fewer physical symptoms associated with anxiety and were also better able to control their thoughts during anxious moments.
This directly demonstrates that training the mind is better against anxiety than training the body.
There are different types of meditation you can use to get rid of anxiety.
- Seated meditation
- Mindfulness meditation
- Guided meditation against anxiety
Seated meditation
In seated meditation, you focus on your breathing and your thoughts. You use this sitting meditation to get to know your thoughts and body better. This allows you to train the stilling of your thoughts, so you can apply this in a situation where anxiety threatens to take over to calm yourself again.
Mindfulness meditation
Mindfulness meditation can be used in multiple ways. You can already apply part of mindfulness meditation in sitting meditation. When a thought arises, in addition to refocusing on your breathing, you can name the thought and the emotion that comes with it and let it go.
When trained in this, you can also conjure up a fearful moment and name it and let it go. Over time, this allows you to remain calm in "real life" when unexpectedly confronted with your fear, because you recognize your thoughts and emotions and don't let them lead you by the feelings your body gets from them. You then know that those feelings are a result of your anxious thoughts.
Guided Meditation
Guided meditation is sometimes used during hypnotherapy to overcome anxiety. In guided meditation, you can play an audio recording or a therapist can provide guidance to help you let go of your anxiety while you meditate. Guided meditation helps you relax completely.
In some cases, music is also played in the background during the guided meditation. A guided meditation first helps you to relax, this is already done because the talking speed is much slower than in a normal conversation. This automatically gets you into a meditation flow faster already.
"Relax and sit in a comfortable position.... Place your hands relaxed on your lap....If you like you can close your eyes.... or focus your gaze on a particular point in the room you are in.....Take a deep breath through your nose ....and feel the air going in through your nose...in...out...in a very natural way.... As you breathe feel the air in your lungs....how your belly and chest work together to bring the air in.... and out ...."
After this introduction, mantras can be used to reduce anxiety.
Steps before and after meditating
When you start meditating, of course you want it to have an effect. To check if you feel effects, you can take the following steps before meditating:
- You first check how you feel emotionally. Are you already calm at that moment? Are you having all kinds of thoughts of stress? Or are you already working on the thing you fear?
- You control your physical condition. Do you have pain or tension somewhere in your body?
- How do you feel spiritually? All alone, connected to the world around you?
After the meditation practice, you can go through these questions again to see if it made a difference.
Anxiety attack away meditating
It’s great to gradually meditate your anxiety away, but if you’re having a panic attack, that won’t help you right then. Fortunately, you can also use the techniques you’ve learned during a panic attack to make it less intense or even prevent it ( 1).
If you notice anxiety thoughts and tension building up in your body start by breathing calmly. Then go past the tension in your muscles to relax them again.
Then you distance yourself from your thoughts. You name your thoughts the emotion you get from them and focus on your breathing again. You just keep breathing and relaxing your body.
Anxiety during meditation
When you are engaged in meditation, the thoughts that cause your anxiety may come up or you may feel a sense of dread. This is more common in people who are just beginning to meditate. Meditation can bring up all kinds of emotions that are in your subconscious. This includes anxiety. This is an unpleasant emotion and the temptation is then great to stop meditating.
Instead, try to keep going. Name the fear you have, name what you are actually afraid of and focus on your breathing again.
What you can do during those breaths is to imagine that with each inhale you are breathing in love and acceptance and with each exhale you are breathing out fear ( 2).
If things don't go your way you can always quit.
The other side of anxiety
In the end, a little fear is not a bad thing at all. Just imagine what would happen if no one at all had fear anymore. Not everyone can become a stuntman and natural selection would probably be a lot faster, but in the end, fear is also a good emotion to keep you really safe.
Therefore, always consider whether your fear is relevant or irrelevant to your survival. If your fear is not relevant, you can always apply meditation to get rid of it.
Would you like to learn more about strengthening your mental resilience? Then come to a seminar or check out the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.
Or join the online masterclass on hypnosis.
Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:
Sources:
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2000-07985-001
http://www.that-first.com/show/article/raja-yoga-fear-in-meditation/