To practice mindfulness for stress is to practice being fully present in the moment. When you do this, it’s not possible to be stressed. Unless of course, you’re under immediate physical threat. There is rarely anything to fear in the present. Most stress, anxiety, and fear is tied up with imaginings about the future.
Initially, It’s good to practice mindfulness when you’re not particularly stressed. Do this and you’ll be able to use it to reduce high stress levels when you need to.
The Short-Term Physiology of Stress
When you bring your awareness to whatever you’re experiencing you’re being mindful. That can be via your physiology, your senses, or your mind. Some of that awareness isn’t going to support you in bringing down your stress levels. Not unless you work with it. If you’re feeling tense, nauseous, or have racing thoughts, for example, focusing on those things isn’t going to help your stress levels unless you can unravel them.
The physiological effects of stress can be frightening, e.g. an increasing heartbeat, hyperventilating. If you focus on those things you’ll probably make yourself more stressed. By understanding that the physiological effects of stress are your primitive brain setting your fight/flight response into action, you can calm yourself.
Your Thoughts May not be your Friends
Your thoughts, when you’re highly stressed or anxious are likely to be negative and unhelpful to your wellbeing. Mindfulness experts often recommend you focus your awareness on your thoughts without judgment, or getting caught up in them. But it’s very difficult to do this when you’re feeling stressed and anxious.
Challenging the validity of your negative thoughts is an effective approach. Or better still, replacing them with more positive ones that you can believe. You’ll also feel less stressed if you distract or redirect yourself to something that is positive or at least neutral. Yoga, meditation, walking in nature (with headphones if necessary), gardening; anything that you can direct your full attention towards, is likely to bring your stress levels down.
Awareness
Mindfulness is beneficial as long as you can stay aware of your body in a holistic way. Focusing on stressful and negative thoughts isn’t going to help you feel better unless you can separate from your thoughts and become an observer. Letting go of your thoughts, or offering something to them such as curiosity or compassion can be mindful and bring you peace.
People who learn to do this often report lower levels of stress. When stress is managed properly it opens up the ability to feel all the good things in life: joy, happiness, clarity, peace, and satisfaction. It’s also a lot better for your long-term health.
If you’d like to develop more awareness about the underlying causes of your stress, we have an online course you may like to consider. Click the button if you would like to learn more about that.
A very Mindful YouTube Channel
There are lots of tools around to develop mindfulness. Sam Harris has his Waking Up App, which is highly recommended by a lot of people. Personally, I don’t like structured mindfulness meditations. I much prefer to bring mindfulness to whatever I’m doing. And I’ve found someone else just like me.
She calls herself the Cottage Fairy and she has created a very mindful YouTube channel which I love. It deals with mindfulness on three levels. It shows beautifully how she lives mindfully and shares what she’s learned on her journey. It’s also very difficult to watch it and remain stressed. Enjoy :
Stress is internal, so it makes sense that most of the solutions that work and aren’t a pill that plateaus and stops working would also be internal. When you brain is the source of your problems the brain is also the solution in most cases. This is a good resource to work on mental and physical ways to reduce stress organically without misusing pills that you may not need in the first place.
This is very interesting information. The mind is a powerful thing and it amazes me how two people can look at the exact same situation and respond very differently to the same stimuli. I read a study once that detailed how prisoners in a nazi concentration camp handled the stress of their terrible situation. It is amazing to me that even in these absolutely terrible situations many of the people maintained their faith, gratitude, and love of life. Remembering this seems to keep me grounded and not take the little stressors in my life too seriously.
You certainly give some great advice about being mindful in our days and developing ways to destress. Good points about not focusing on the dialogue going on in our heads but seeing why we are stressed and breathing through this to the other side. I find when I am playing guitar and singing at home or with friends that I am totally in the moment, it is similar to meditating for me. A perfect way to be mindful and relax.
I thoroughly enjoyed the video. What a lovely soul. I enjoyed seeing her day and her puppy was very cute. Loved the circles on the the ice and the words of wisdom.
Thanks Lily I love your comments 🙂
Hi TheCottageFairy
Thank you for the article you shared with us about how to Get Mindful About Stress,
your beautiful soul I recently discovered your videos and I feel at peace watching your amazing videos. great advice about being mindful in our days and developing ways to destress.
Thank you for spreading so much light and love Highly recommended.
Once again Thank you
Excellent post!
You are definitely resonating on the frequency of love and light. I can feel it!
I appreciate your grounded, balanced perspective. For example, you smartly point out that managing stress properly is the way to eradicate the majority of stress, anxiety, and poor mental and physical health outcomes. Only then can you experience greater levels of peace, joy, calm, and satisfaction.
Additionally, I loved how you pointed out the different ways to focus on everything but the problem. Focus on the solution and being present in that knowing.
Meditate on miracles as I always say.
Woh I enjoy your content, saved to favorites! .
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