Meditation: Mental Health and Stress Strategy 2

Mental Health and stress can go hand in hand. Stress can effect your mental health in negative ways. This month we’re going to explore how meditation can help you with your stress and ultimatly with your mental health.

This is a monthly series. Check out the other posts from earlier this year:

• January – Mental Health and Stress: How They are Related
• February – What You Need to Know About Stress
• March – Mental Health and Stress Strategy 1: Breathing

Then come back and learn more about meditation. 🙂

What Is Meditation?

Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.

Wikipedia

So basically it is calming the body and mind. It is clearing our minds and helping oneself to have more awerness. It’s about creating more peace in our lives. All of that sounds pretty darn amazing!

There are so many different kinds and ways to meditate. And as someone who is still at the beginning stages of starting on this journey I don’t feel educated enough to teach you about them. So instead here is a list and a link to where you can get more info on some specific types of meditation.

• guided meditation
• mindfulness meditation
• spiritual meditation
• focused meditation
• movement meditation
• mantra meditation
• transcendental meditation
• progressive relaxation
• visualization meditation

How We Can Use Meditation In Our Lives

Starting or ending your day with some meditation will be a great way to start or end your day. Meditation will greatly aid your mental health and stress in a very good way. Starting with a few minutes could be some of the best few minutes in your day that will be dedicated just to you.

When you start to feel stress creeping in or know that you will be in a stressful situation you might want to pause and do a few minutes of meditation to get ready. Or to help you calm down.

We try to do some guided meditation during our bedtime routine with the kids to help them wind down. Another reason we have this goal is to help give our children some tools for when they are worried, stressed, or angry. We would like to also do some in the mornings but have yet to fit it in our tight mornings. We like to sleep in… Haha!

There are many benefits to practicing meditation, some of those being health benefits. Right now, stress and my mental health are the number one reason why I’m adding meditation into my life and the lives of my children. We hope that by teaching ourselves and our children we will be able to have more peace in our home.

How To Find Good Meditation

I’m going to lead you to the good ol’ YouTube to find some guided meditations that suit your needs and liking. They range in style, length, and there are so many to choose from. There are also people on Instagram that have guided meditations you can purchase.

I suggest you start with some guided videos to learn some of the basics. Once you feel comfortable you can start to practice on your own.

Like I mentioned before we use it at night, well most nights, as a family. I am trying to give myself a few minutes in the morning to take some deep breathes, think good thoughts about the day, and set a goal for myself. This will be a quick time for me to meditate, but when I do make it happen I am a much calmer person in the mornings.

How To Meditate On Your Own

If you are wanting to do your own meditation, I did an awesome FREE course. It’s only 3 days and will teach you:

• The basics and definition
• Ways it can benefit and help
• The basics of starting on your own

What I loved about this course was that I got emailed the course over three days. There are great graphics with the information laid out nicely. And it is to the point. If you are interested (and you should be!) in doing this free course than click HERE to get started right away. You won’t be dissapointed!

By using meditation we can help reduce stress which will help our mental health status. That’s a win in my book! What do you have to loose? Nada! You will gain some techniques that will help you create a calm moment. What are you waiting for? 🙂

What are your favorite tips for meditating? Share in the comments below. Also, I’d love it if you found this helpful to share on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or pin on Pinterest. Thanks so much!! 🙂

Xxx, Steph