Stress is a huge factor in how your body behaves or misbehaves.
Stress creates the fight or flight response and for thousands of years, served to protect our ancestors from life threatening situations.
When we feel we are being threatened the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine are released causing an increase in our heart rate and a tensing in our muscles as a reaction that gets us to safety. Once we’re safe, these hormones subside, and the stress is replaced by the counterbalancing relaxation response.
But, unfortunately, these days, this counterbalance doesn’t always happen, keeping us in a state of hyper-stress for way too long and creating an environment that can cause a
Weakening of the immune system, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, mood swings, high blood pressure, elevated heart rate, high cholesterol levels, increased risk of heart attack and stroke
If this is you, please know that there are ways to create the relaxation response, and one of them is through medication. I love meditation and do it every day.
Because meditation is the most powerful tool for creating a sense of peace, even when still surrounded by the day-to-day stressors of life.
We all know we can’t control what happens outside of us or what happens to us, but we can control our state of mind and how we respond to stressful situations, which are the only things we have control over.
Worrying, getting angry and arguing with others does not change the external event.
In fact, when we do this it promotes the release of stress hormones again, putting you right back into the fight or flight response. Which, as I already explained, we don’t want.
Meditation is a form of mindfulness that reduces stress hormones and creates the relaxation response. And it’s really easy to do.
When I speak of meditation, I often hear, "oh I can’t do that", "I can’t sit still", "I can’t clear my mind". I was actually this person, but when I set my mind to creating a meditation practice for myself, I put these ideas aside and I tried. If you feel the same way, all I ask of you is to just try.
Because it’s actually quite easy, all you need to do is focus on something we do all the time, day in and day out, and that is your breathe, we are breathing every day, all day and not paying attention to it, so now, we’re going to do just that because, it’s how we activate the relaxation response in the body.
Does your mind wander while meditation, yup, it does, and this is part of the process, and when you catch it, you bring it back to your breath. And when it wanders again, and you notice, bring it back to your breath. You just keep bring it back to your breath. This is meditation.
It’s called a meditation practice for a reason, we keep practicing our focus.
Meditation is not about stopping thinking, for 20 minutes, this is pretty much impossible unless you’ve been meditating for many years.
Meditation is not worrying about your mind wandering or getting frustrated because it’s wandering or beating yourself up because you didn’t do it right. It’s the moments in between, when you focused on your breathing – that’s where meditation happens. And this is when your body and mind relax so they can get back to doing all the healthy things we need them to do.
If you’d like some help creating a healthy space for your aging process, please reach out to me at donna@donnajskincare.com to see how we can work together to help you exceptionally age.
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