Stress and Anxiety Relief

I thought I would deviate from my ususal blogs and offer a technique that I have found useful for stress relief. If you need stress and anxiety relief...and who doesn't, take a few minutes a day and try the following technique:


Have you thought meditation is only about making your mind go blank? And really, that doesn't seem very useful or interesting does it?

Yogis and meditators have practiced various forms of meditation for ages, and the benefits may lead to enlightenment, but what if your goals aren't so lofty - just a reduction in blood pressure or clearer thinking, maybe a calmer mind and a little less worry would be nice.

Here is a meditative practice called Metta, or kindness meditation you may want to try. Metta cultivates a sense of compassion for yourself and for all life, and gets you off the hamster wheel of worry and anxiety. Set aside a few minutes, it would be 5 or 10. Maybe the same few minutes you would have listened to a ryling radio show or the news that would have brought your blood pressure up.

You can begin by sitting in a comfortable position, closing your eyes if you want to.

Sit with your back straight, without being strained or overarched.

Take a few deep breaths, relax your body. Settle into your body and into the moment.

This meditation begins with the self and then the focus broadens out to people close to you, then your community, then all beings. You might imagine it like ripples going out in a still lake.

First, contemplate kindness for the self, Classical Metta phrases are:

"May I live in safety. May I be happy. May I be healthy, May I live with ease."

See if certain phrases emerge from your heart that express what you wish most deeply for yourself, not just for today, but in an enduring way. Phrases that are big enough and general enough that you can ultimately wish them for all of life, for all beings every where.

Second comtemplate and repeat the phrases for a loved one, a friend or family member:

"May you live in safety. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.

Then apply the pharase to someone you don't really know - consider the bank teller or cashier you saw this morning, and again repeat the phrases: May you live in safety, etc.

Lastly apply the contemplation to all beings - you can include all people, animals, trees, etc.

"May all beings live in safety, May all beings live with ease, etc.

You can repeat these phrases over and over again, have your mind rest in the phrases and whenever you find your attention has wandered, just see if you can gently let go and begin again.

Try this practice for a few weeks and see what happens. So much research is now being done on the benefits of meditation, and the results are amazing health benefits which affect the health of your heart and mind.

Info borrowed from Cape Cod Times. Check out the center for mindfulness at UMass http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/index.aspx