Meditation offers powerful benefits. Overall, it helps focus your attention in a deliberate manner. By meditating, you can trade noisy mental chatter for a calm, quiet inner peace. Isn’t that something most of us could use?
Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years in the East. More recently, Westerners have started meditating to access the many benefits.
One of the primary benefits is to reduce stress hormones. Importantly, meditating calms the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. These systems activate our panic responses (“fight,” “flight,” “freeze,” or “friend”). As a result, meditating can help manage symptoms of anxiety and trauma.
Meditation and Medication
Historically, people battling anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been given medication. However, a new study has found that people with PTSD have been able to eliminate or reduce their need for psychiatric medications by meditating regularly. Therefore, this is great news for people trying to manage complicated anxiety, trauma, or PTSD. Not only can meditating help calm your nerves, but also it can help reduce the side effects of psychiatric medications. For example, one of the biggest side effects of PTSD medications is depression -- which is pretty much the last thing anyone dealing with PTSD needs.
How to Start a Meditation Practice
If you are suffering from complicated anxiety, depression or trauma and would like to try meditating, here are some steps you can take to get started.
Find a Group Practice
If you’re completely new to meditation, we suggest joining a group that meets weekly. You can usually find groups in your local area through online communities such as Meetup.com.
Be Open Minded
Be open minded about what meditation looks like. Many different kinds of people use meditating in their daily lives. If you tend to be a skeptical person, try to have an open mind as you begin your practice.
Be Patient
You won’t “get" it overnight. You’ll have to keep at it before it becomes natural for you and you really reap the benefits. Try to have patience and just keep at it.
Han Kim, LMSW
You don't have to suffer
You don't have to suffer with the painful symptoms of complicated anxiety, depression, and trauma -- we can help. Most of our therapists use mindfulness techniques like meditation with their clients. Our meditation expert, Han Kim, LMSW, helps people manage career stress using tools like meditation and hypnosis in talk therapy.