How Can Meditation Reduce Stress? - Women's Fitness

How Can Meditation Reduce Stress? - part of the women's fitness video series by GeoBeats. Studies have shown over and over and over again the physical benefits of meditation in reducing stress, in lowering blood pressure, in all types of physical benefits. It is the act of stopping and breathing and getting in touch with what is happening right now. So often stress and anxiety are caused by looking at our entire life all at once and becoming tremendously overwhelmed. And when we bring the focus back to what is happening right here, right now just in this breath, somehow and I do not want to say magically, somehow you are able to calm down, and get a little bit of relief. Just a half a breath or breath at a time. You are also able to break down the stress factors. You can sit and say, Wow what does this feel like, are my palms clammy, is there fluttering in my heart, is my stomach tied up in knots, what is this feel like? So, you get out of the emotional factor and bring it down to the physical. That again in itself helps to calm you down. If you are going into a stressful situation or if you are stuck in traffic and you are starting to feel yourself get stressful, stopping for a moment calming yourself, bringing your awareness to your breath can help tremendously because it depersonalizes the situation. Instead of seeing the big picture and what is going to happen if I am late and, you know, letting that habitual line of thinking take over, you bring yourself back to the present and you breathe one moment two moments, three breaths, four breaths. You feel your feet on the floor you feel your hands on your lap, or on the steering wheel, and you say okay right now it is like this, there is some stress, there is some anxiety. Can I just be in the present moment and let it be? And bring some kindness and compassion through your experience and go Yeah! this is rough right now. But it is OK!