If anxiety gets the best of you, you are not alone. Last year, there were nearly 300 million people reported worldwide that suffer from anxiety, making it the top mental health disorder in the world.
Here are 6 reasons why you can help yourself become a more calm and confident through meditation, and let go of anxiety's grip on you.
1. Meditation makes you focus on who you desire to be (more than your problems).
It's too easy to focus on yourself as an anxious person with an anxiety problem, instead of the opposite. Take a moment right now, close your eyes and take three deep breaths, and imagine yourself, as your most vibrant, happy, calm, and confident self. It might not be easy right away, but try to actually see yourself in this way, with your imagination.
It's often easier to focus on what we don't want. If you want to create long-lasting change in thinking patterns, you must put energy and mental focus into your solutions more than your problems. Meditation helps you get there and escape any repetitive mental loops of negativity.
2. Meditation relaxes everything on a deep and sustainable level.
It can be too easy to chase temporary escapes that create relaxation for a moment. However, meditation gets to the root of things. Layer by layer, moment by moment, you are able to unpack the layers of your mind, release tension, and come into a present state of being.
Science continues to back up meditation's benefits on relaxing the entire body, and particularly the nervous system and electrical brainwave activity. Chill out, and meditate, you can do it.
3. Peace is in the present moment.
No matter how wrapped up you might have been even moments ago, going back and forth between the past and the future in your mind, meditation allows you to let all of that go, and come into the present moment. It is here, you can experience a sense of peacefulness, only when you've decided to sit down and give your mind a moment to get quiet and unplug.
4. Technology pause.
If nothing else, meditation is a conscious activity that you can decide to do, that doesn't involve you looking at your phone or a screen. We need breathers from everything and increasingly this means time away from screens in the modern world. Of course, you can listen to music while meditating if you prefer, but this is different to mindlessly scrolling.
There is growing evidence the increased social media usage, corresponds with increased anxiety levels. 20 minutes of meditation, is 20 minutes not on Facebook or Instagram.
5. Meditation makes you physically healthier.
If you're healthy, you have less to worry and feel anxious about. Meditation is continually proven to make you physically healthier, from improved cardiovascular health, to a reduction in ashtma, to helping with chronic pain, and alleviating depression and more.
The link between the mind and body is real, and when your body is in good health, your mind is in good health, and vice versa. Meditation helps on both fronts.
6. It helps deal with other people who make you anxious.
Dealing with other humans is not easy task sometimes. But it can be easier when we feel a sense of calm and peace within ourselves.
If you have to cross paths with people that make you react, meditating can help you be more patient, compassionate, and forgiving toward people that challenge you. It'll also make you more stable and strong in yourself, so that the energy of other people will not be able to throw you off center.
By Keith Allen
Keith Allen is a teacher on YogaDownload.com. His classes balance a meditative focus with safe alignment. He has studied extensively from different teachers, lineages, and styles around the world, and remains a passionate and dedicated student of yoga and meditation. Enjoy his classes on YogaDownload.com or follow him on Instagram.
Convinced meditation will help you calm your anxiety? Practice meditating with Keith, right now.
Meditate and Cultivate Calm with Keith Allen
Body & Mind Relaxation Meditation with Keith Allen