There is not a single person who has not felt stress at one point in their life, but what is interesting to know is that stress can also affect the functioning of your body’s nervous system regulation. Stress when prolonged, begins to become chronic and can give way to problems that are both mental and physical such as high anxiety, depression and hypertension among many others. But there is a positive side as there exist natural ways of dealing with stress such as through meditation which is as old as thousand years and helps you in regulating the functioning of your body’s nervous system, relieving stress, and enhancing your overall health.
We’ll explore how meditation affects your body’s stress response, particularly focusing on nervous system regulation. Beginners and advanced practitioners alike will find useful techniques and strategies that can help them manage stress effectively using meditation regardless of their level of expertise.
How Stress Affects Your Nervous System
However, before we get into the benefits of meditation, let’s first set the stage by understanding the issue: how does stress actually affect your body’s nervous system?
It’s essential to understand that the nervous system is responsible for every activity and has two subdivisions which are the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.
- Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS): The SNS is the ‘Fight or flight’ system, it gets activated during stressful situations. It gets your body prepared by increasing heart rate, opening pupils and stimulating the release of stress hormones like cortisol.
- Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS): Also known as the ‘rest and digest’ system, it helps body restore the state of equilibrium. It decreases the heart rate, decreases the blood pressure, and assists in relaxation.
Chronic stress seems to leave the SNS activated, causing the body to be in a state of readiness. As time goes on, this leads to bodily harm which includes headaches, problems with digestion, and even heart disease. The more troubling factor in this is that many tend to not even realize they are in stress response, hence effective control of the nervous system is essential to remain healthy.
How Meditation Can Help Bring Your Nervous System into Balance
Meditation is a great approach when you want to enhance your parasympathetic nervous system and restore balance to your body. Below are some of the easy to follow advice that will set you on the right path to controlling your nervous system:
Breathing
One of the most efficient techniques for stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system is breathing. Breathing from the diaphragm tells the brain to stop the stress response and instead focus on relaxing.
Execution: Select a seated or reclining position that is comfortable. Once settled, close your eyes and take a deep inhale through your nose, counting from one to four. Next, hold your breath for four counts before slowly exhaling for a count of six. Perform this exercise for five to ten minutes.
Why breathe deeply: The reason for this is that slow breathing deepens the amount of oxygen intake, slows the heart rate down and invites the relaxation mode in the body. There’s evidence to suggest that deep breath works wonders at reducing the amount of stress on the body, and cortisol levels, which happen to be the leading stress hormone in the body (Friedman, 2007).
Mindfulness Exercises
Mindfulness means purposefully paying attention to what is happening right now, on purpose and without any criticism. It is through mindfulness that the brain learns to disregard certain overwhelming thoughts and emotions which can help alleviate stress greatly.
How to do it: First, find a nice place for you to sit in. After that, proceed to gently close your eye and concentrate on either the air entering and exiting your lungs or a particular word or phrase – this is also known as mantras. Allow the busy thoughts in your mind to come and go but do your best to bring back your focus on the breath. In the beginning, try practicing the methods for 5-10 minutes, as your progress increase the duration.
Why it works: Studies have shown that being mindful can alter the brain’s stress responses – for instance, it can amplify the activity in the prefrontal cortex which is the responsible center for higher order thinking and inhibition of emotion, while reducing activity in the amygdala which is involved in stress responses (Zeidan et al, 2010).
Body Scan Meditation
This technique of meditating involves visualizing able the toe in your foot to your head and back and being able to check if you feel sensations or if any approaching tightness or discomfort is available throughout time. It also promotes the relaxation response which results to less tension to be muscled through the body.
How to do it: Get into a comfortable position lying down. Now, give your attention slowly to a specific area on your body starting from your toes up to your head to top of the head. When you visualize each body part, focus on how it appears to be tensed up and try to visualize it as it is relaxed while exhaling.
Why it works: It aids in the comprehension of stress points and associated sensations. Such complexities do involve activating the PNS while promoting relaxation (Carlson et al., 2003).
Benefits of Meditation for Mental Calm and Stress Management
Let us now address the big question. That is, in what ways should you expect to change for the better after you start your meditation practice in an effort to balance your nervous system? Below are some peer-reviewed proven benefits that demonstrate the effectiveness of meditation in terms of relieving stress and enhancing health in general.
- Lower Blood Pressure: Both systolic and diastolic blood pressure appears to fall with meditation. According to research published in Psychosomatic Medicine, meditators had considerably lower blood pressure than non-meditators (Shapiro et al., 1996).
- Reduced Cortisol Levels: Meditation is an effective method for decreasing hormones that your body creates when it is under stress. Decreased levels of cortisol can help with anxiety and improve the immune system.
- Enhanced Emotional Control: Daily practicing of meditation may also be helpful in strengthening the activity of the prefrontal cortex responsible for control of emotion and impulse. As a result, meditation allows people to react to stress more effectively and engage in a stalemate.
- Enhanced Sleep Efficiency: Meditating for increased sleep, it relaxes the mind and the body. In a publication author by Ong and others in the Journal of Sleep Research, the patients who practice meditation said to have better sleep and lesser complaints of insomnia (Ong et al., 2014).
Guide on How to Integrate Meditation into your Standard Routine
Meditation has a lot of interest among many people more so beginners who express interest in practicing it over time but so many seem to think it is tricky to incorporate it as a daily activity. Below are some tips help them meditate on a daily basis.
- Begin with Small Steps: Only increase gradually the duration, say 5 minutes a day to an hour on average after a certain period of time. You won’t really have to do any more than you’ve already suggested in order to reap the benefits.
- Try to meditate regularly: Morning to boost your focus or at nights to help you sleep try to meditate around the same time constantly. In the long run, this will turn into an automatic reflex.
- Download meditation App: For those new to meditation, there are numerous applications available, including Headspace, Insight Timer, and Calm, which offer guided meditations.
- Be mindful of your activities: There is no need to be indoors, in a quiet space, to meditate, you can simply practice deep breathing or focus while washing dishes or even walking.
Final Thoughts
Undoubtedly, meditation is an effective method of taking charge of your nervous system and stress management. The utilization of breathing exercises, mindfulness and body scan techniques in your everyday life can be incredibly beneficial for improving your physical and mental health. If you’re a beginner to meditation, don’t panic—just start off slow, be kind to yourself and allow yourself to practice this wonderful technique- it’s truly eye-opening.
We’d love to hear from you if you have employed meditation in the past, or possess techniques for regulation of the nervous system! Hit up the comments section below and let us know the things you have gone through, or check out our other articles informed of mental health and stress relief.