Every day life can be full of stressful moments.

A delayed commute, a set back at work, the pressure of upcoming bills, parental duties feeling too much, or a fight with a loved one. Different situations on different days can leave anyone feeling exhausted for different reasons. And all this added to already stressful conditions where the human mind is never at rest, always thinking from one topic to another, and of other obligations. Is it no wonder that the mind struggles to relax at the end of a stressful day.

Why meditation?

When we pile stresses or underlying fears, both our mental and our physical health suffers. Long-term stress can affect every part of our body. We’ve found that long-term stresses include things such as job loss, divorce, death, relationship problems, financial difficulties, and so forth.

In order to calm down we must learn how to focus on one thing at a time. We should practice focusing on one thing until that becomes second nature. When we do things slowly, we pay attention to them better. We also try not to let ourselves get caught up in thoughts about past failures or future worries. Our minds are constantly wandering off somewhere else. By learning to control our thoughts, we gain control over our lives.

When we’re in stressful situations, our brains naturally release adrenaline into our bloodstream; it prepares us for action. But if we’re constantly stressed out because of traffic, it can lead to heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke.

How to de-stress

Fortunately, that stress response can easily be counteracted by a range of methods to relax, including several that we may do anytime and anywhere. There’s not any one answer as to how best to relax someone, but these are great places to begin:

• Breathing deeply can stimulate the body’s parasympathetic nervous systems, lowering blood pressure and heart rate. Deep breathing also relaxes muscle tension. Try box breathing, which involves inhaling for 4 seconds, holding the breath for 4 seconds, then exhaling slowly for 4 seconds before repeating.
• Get outside. Nature calls, and you must answer. A 2020 study found just 10 minutes outside can improve your mood, focus, heartrate, and blood pressure. Plus, the great outdoors are more relaxing if you have time to walk around in them. After a brisk workout, you’ll experience a flood of endocannabinoids, triggering positive feelings and helping calm anxiousness and stress, and in long term, exercise may decrease the number of bad mental wellness days you experience. Try a walking meditation whenever you’re feeling stressed out.
• Do practice gratitude for the situation that made you upset, not just for everything else. Gratitude is negatively correlated with stress levels and helps us cope better. Keep a gratitude journal or list and write about what you’re grateful for every day. But if you find yourself in a highly stressed state, focus on what you’re grateful for in that moment instead of ruminating on how bad things could get.

The best way to get through any situation is to know that nothing stays the same. Acceptance means knowing how things really are, without trying to make them fit into your own expectations. You may feel frustrated, angry, sad, or scared. But if you can accept these feelings, they won’t control you. When you let go of resistance, you allow yourself to experience emotions without having to fight back. And when you do so, you give yourself permission to respond appropriately. By learning to live with uncertainty, you gain strength.

But like reasoning with an infant, that’s much, much easier said than done. Operating that way takes a heightened sense of awareness, one that can only come with experience. The untrained human mind is easily distracted by passing ideas, anxieties, and feelings, and it’s hard to stay focused on the present moment while we’re living in it. It’s also difficult to accept that moment for how it really is. Practicing mindfulness meditations helps to calm the mind and enhance that sense of awareness, along with decreasing overall anxiety.

It’s all about mindset

Mindfulness, or being aware of what is happening right now, helps us by allowing ourselves to be fully present in any situation we encounter. When we feel angry towards someone, we might notice that anger, but also understand that it is not who we really are. We might then choose to let go of our anger rather than stay stuck in it.