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Articles

How Meditation Can Help Anxiety

In Meditation - On March 26, 2015
By Deepak Chopra
Fear is a negative emotion, unless youre facing an actual threat and need to fight or flee. And the usefulness of fear is minimal in daily life,
particularly in the form of anxiety.

Stressful events can produce short-term anxiety in almost everyone, which disappears after the event. But foran estimated 6.8 million
Americans with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), anxiety is a chronic condition they cant shut off. All of us know people we accept as
born worriers, but their reality is much more debilitating than that title describes. Being in a state of chronic anxiety can severely limit
their daily activity.
You probably know already if you worry excessively. In fact, if you have chronic anxiety, even the smallest thing can trigger it. You find
yourself with fearful thoughts about finances, family, your health, and whats happening at work. Some days youd rather hide under the
covers.

Why You Worry

The first thing to realize is that reality isnt whats actually worrying you, but its your fixed habit of mind thats causing you to respond to
everything with anxiety. Second, you need to look rationally at the anxiety response and concede that youre not improving it by feeling
anxious. This seems obvious to non-worriers, but somewhere inside, many born worriers believe they are taking care of situations that
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anxious. This seems obvious to non-worriers, but somewhere inside, many born worriers believe they are taking care of situations that
others are overlooking, like whether they remembered to lock up the house or turn off the gas stove. Any trigger can provoke worry, so the
question is how to prevent this from happening.

The Toll it Takes

Because of the mind-body connection, you should also consider the physical side of anxiety. Even if you have accepted worry as a tolerable
trait, it exacts a price in the form of insomnia, easy startle response, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, headaches, inability to relax,
trembling, twitching, feeling out of breath, and various stomach and digestive problems. If these persist for more than six months after
something bad has happened to you, a diagnosis of GAD may be appropriate. Even if your symptoms are manageable, you shouldnt have
to live this way. Anticipating the worst, which has become a habit even when no threat is in sight, distorts how you approach work, family,
and the world in general.
There are many theories about what causes chronic anxiety, but they are as diverse as explanations for depression. Its more useful to
consider how to retrain your mind so that your worry subsides and is replaced by a normal undisturbed mood. The standard medical
advice is to take medication (usually some form of tranquilizer), augmented by talking to a therapist. However, self-care has other tools,
such as meditation, diet, sleep, massage, and exercise that you can pursue on your own.

Meditation
One aspect of anxiety is racing thoughts that wont go away. Meditation helps with this part of the problem by quieting the overactive mind.
Instead of buying into your fearful thoughts, you can start identifying with the silence that exists between every mental action. Through
regular practice, you experience that youre not simply your thoughts and feelings. You can detach yourself from these to rest in your own
being. This involves remaining centered, and if a thought or outside trigger pulls you out of your center, your meditation practice allows
you to return there again.
Being able to center yourself is a skill that anyone can learn, once they have the intention and the experience of what it feels like. Anxious
people often shy away from meditation for various reasons. I cant meditate is code for feeling too restless to sit still or having too many
thoughts while trying to meditate. With a patient teacher, these objections can be overcome. Anyone can meditate, even if the first sessions
are short and need to be guided. Being on tranquilizers, which for some anxious people is the only way they can cope, isnt a block to
meditation.
Numerous scientific studies have found meditation to be effective for treating anxiety. One study, published in the Psychological Bulletin,
combined the findings of 163 different studies (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22582738). The overall conclusion was that practicing
mindfulness or meditation produced beneficial results, with a substantial improvement in areas like negative personality traits, anxiety, and
stress. Another study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20350028) focused on a wide range of anxiety, from cancer patients to those
with social anxiety disorder, and found mindfulness to be an effective management tool.
The researchers analyzed 39 studies totaling 1,140 participants and discovered that the anxiety-reducing benefits from mindfulness might
be enjoyed across such a wide range of conditions because when someone learns mindfulness, they learn how to work with difficult and
stressful situations.
All mental activity has to have a physical correlation in the brain, and this aspect has been studied in relation to anxiety. Chronic worriers
often display increased reactivity in the amygdala, the area of the brain associated with regulating emotions, including fear. Neuroscientists
at Stanford University (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20141305) found that people who practiced mindfulness meditation for eight
weeks were more able to turn down the reactivity of this area. Other researchers from Harvard found that mindfulness can physically
reduce the number of neurons in this fear-triggering part of the brain.
Here are three simple, practical ways to take advantage of all this knowledge:
1. Regular meditation allows your brain to develop new pathways besides the old worry grooves. The mind begins to experience itself
without being overshadowed by anxious thoughts.
2. Exercise puts the body in an active state. High-intensity aerobic exercise is more effective than anaerobic, and a 12- to 15-week
program is better than a short routine.
3. A diet of natural organic foods without additives, along with avoidance of refined sugar, evens out the metabolism
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2077351/). Meals should be regular and satisfying.
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Comments
I am a 54 yr. old man who has had a lifelong struggle with severe social anxiety disorder. The last 3 yrs. or so since I've started doing fairly
regular meditation have been very helpful in quieting the negative thoughts and voice that has been present in the back of my mind my
whole life. I'm pretty sure that if I had known about and had access to meditation when I was young that my life would have been very
different in a most positive way.
John MacKinnon - March 31, 2015

I started practicing Hatha yoga about 3 years ago when my stress levels became too much to handle. I noticed now I mediate more at
work while sitting at my desk. I stop eating meat seven months. Now, I feel so much better
Tahisha - March 29, 2015

Good afternoon.
I watched you today on the Oprah Winfrey show. and this was the first time i was able to get sleep in years doing your meditation. Your
voice is so calming. Thank you so much i really appreciate you and i will be using it on a regular basis. As I've never meditated before.
Doctors gave me pills i tried acupuncture exercise nothing helped me and I've been like this about18yrs now only God helps me to
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Doctors gave me pills i tried acupuncture exercise nothing helped me and I've been like this about18yrs now only God helps me to
function on a daily basis..
Now i have to meditate on a regular basis as I'm totally exhausted.
Thank you so much.
God bless you always.
Pauline - March 29, 2015

I meditate all the time, it is part of me in every thing I do. I tune into the low frequency and the higher vibration. I am one w
/the Light.
Margaret Ruth Naegele Landry - March 28, 2015

No doubt meditation is good for all! Coffee & coke wrecks havoc with sleep-wake cycle, making one jittery and shaky. Spiced milk chai is
better with no caffeine kicks.
Rootbook - March 27, 2015

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