6 Ways To Reduce Stress Through Meditation

We all face stressful situations throughout our lives nowadays, ranging from minor annoyances like traffic jams to more serious worries, such as a loved one's grave illness. No matter what the cause, stress floods in our body with hormones. Your heart pounds, your breathing speeds up, and your muscles tense.

We can't avoid all the sources of stress in our day today lives, nor would we want to. But we can develop healthier ways to make our life happier. Here we learn how meditation is helpful to manage stress in life.

We know the negative effects of stress on health. Do you know how to relieve stress? Physical exercise and relaxation contribute to improving the quality of life, but what meditation techniques can be applied without having to do workshops or go to group practices? These are some types of  relaxation techniques recommendations that you can apply in your life:

1. Breathe Consciously

It is the simplest and most immediate meditation technique. When you feel stress building up in you, take a deep inhalation that fills your entire diaphragm with air, hold your breath for four seconds, and then slowly exhale, emptying your diaphragm. Repeat it as many times as you need.

2. Listen To Mantras

For stress management something you can do at home, in the office, or while in traffic is to listen to mantras. Mantras are sounds based on energetic vibrations that contribute to relaxation and alignment of the chakras. Get them on YouTube and even on Spotify.

3. Practice Alternate Breathing

Another technique of how to manage stress is inhaling and exhaling, exchanging the nostrils. With the thumb close the left nostril while you breathe through the right, then make the change: cover the right nostril while exhaling through the left. Practice it for 5 minutes. Paying your attention to timing as you breathe will help you stay in the present moment and relax.

4. Make Active Visualizations

It is a relaxation technique that uses the imagination as a tool for calm. Close your eyes, take several conscious breaths and begin to visualize yourself in a scene that inspires calm, a forest, a beach or a river. Pay attention to creating the details in your imagination, the more you focus on the details, the more involved you will be in the technique.

5. Practice The Ujjayi Breathing

It is the breathing technique used in yoga. With the tip of the tongue behind the upper teeth, take an inhalation with the nose, then exhale through the nose as well, but when doing so, contract the glottis a little to generate a kind of cajon sound. The correct way to breathe is to fill your stomach with air first, then your rib cage, then your chest and exhale in reverse order.

6. Paint Mandalas

This relaxation technique has been widely used since ancient times. The word "mandala" comes from Sanskrit and means "sacred circle." These concentric figures can be painted inside out or outside in. It is an active meditation technique for stress relief that keeps the mind focused on the painting, keeping it away from problems and stress.

Now you have 6 relaxation techniques for anxiety and stress. In most of these practices you only need time and breath. Pay the necessary attention to your relaxation so that you can experience the benefits of stress reduction such as improving concentration, sleeping better and lowering anxiety levels.

Rather than choosing just one technique from many, experts recommend sampling several to see which one works best for you. Try to practice for at least 20 minutes a day, although even just a few minutes can help. But the longer and the more often you practice these mindfulness meditation, the greater the benefits and the more you can reduce stress in your life.

If you want to know more ways to release stress, this content will interest you: "5 recommendations to live stress-free"