Everybody deals with stress on a daily basis. Here are some free meditation techniques you can use to help ease stress.
Stress is a part of our everyday lives; it’s impossible to imagine a life without it. Even while we’re doing the things that we enjoy, we’re also feeling stress. For example, if you’re a great writer with many novels to your credit, people might think that you have nothing left to worry about. After all, you’ve accomplished what you wanted to do in life. Still, you feel some pressure about continuing to produce good work.
You don’t want to be the type of writer who was a “one hit wonder.” And if you’re the type who writes popular fiction, you might feel some pressure to produce more serious writing. Even if people love your work, you might get stressed out when a critic slams it.
Similarly, it’s possible that you’re in a great relationship with your significant other. This doesn’t mean that you don’t feel relationship stress. If you haven’t yet gotten married, you might feel stressed about the idea of getting married. If you’re already married, you might feel stressed about the idea of having children. And once you have children, you have to balance your family life with your career and make sure that your kids have everything they need.
So even if your life is, to all appearances, great, you’re still going to have some source of stress or the other. As a result, it helps to have a few ways to work with it. Some people blow off steam by working out. Others take up a hobby or an art form that helps them to express how they feel. You can also try meditation techniques such as the following:
Take In the View
This exercise works almost anywhere. If you have a good view from your office, that helps. But you can also use this technique by sitting in front of a painting that you like or just taking in the room around you.
To follow this technique, you might take a few deep breaths and then step away from your work by pushing your chair back or turning around. Staying seated can help, since you may be tempted to fidget if you’re standing up. Then you might let your eyes wander around the view or the painting until they naturally settle at one point, the one that “catches your eye.” Let your eyes take in that point completely, then move naturally to something else in the view.
You might keep moving from point to point until you notice your body beginning to relax, and repeat whenever you need a moment.
Do Something with Your Hands
Stress and anxiety can show up in your hands and feet, and many people start fidgeting when they feel stressed out. Rather than just telling yourself to be still, you might give your hands something to do. A creative project works well, but it doesn’t have to be. You can occupy your hands by cleaning, cooking, sewing up old clothes that have gotten torn or replacing buttons that have fallen off.
You can also try pottery or ceramics.
To make the practice more meditative, try singing when you work or listening to a piece of music. Our fingertips are among the most sensitive parts of the body, so working with them can make it easier to rest your attention on what you’re doing.
Write Stream of Consciousness
This is a technique recommended by Julia Cameron, writer of The Artist’s Way and many other books on creativity, who calls it “morning pages.” Cameron suggests that every morning, you get up and start writing what’s on your mind right away. You might keep a letter-sized notebook and a pen next to your bed and write three pages of whatever is on your mind first thing in the morning.
Some people like to practice this while they’re not completely awake, since ideas and impressions from the night may not have faded yet, and writing them down helps you remember them. Even if no great ideas show up, you can use this time and space to air anything that’s on your mind, which many people find relieving.
If you can’t manage to do this right away when you wake up, you might try it after a cup of coffee or later in the day. It may feel less spontaneous but can still be a release.
These techniques are meant to complement, not replace, professional care. If stress or anxiety feels overwhelming or doesn’t ease, consider talking with a doctor or mental health professional.
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