Anxiety and stress are highly prevalent nowadays. Many people work far more than 40 hours a week, have more than one job, have to deal with balancing work and school, need to attend to the needs of their families, in addition to a variety of other things they need to complete during the day. Money problems, stressful home environments, lack of work/life balance, and so many other things can stress people out or contribute to their anxiety. Chronic anxiety, of course, should be treated by a professional but if you are someone who experiences occasional rises in stress-levels or wants something to go along with treatment for anxiety, guided meditation for anxiety and stress relief may be a good thing to consider.
What Is a Guided Meditation?
When you think of meditation, what kind of image comes to mind? Many people think it is just laying there, breathing deeply, and maybe you thought of “clearing your mind”. It is more than that, however. Guided meditation is designed to relax your body and guide you on a “journey” to assist you in reaching a goal. If you’re someone who has problems with public speaking, you can use guided meditation to put yourself in a calm state and then practice a public speaking scenario in your mind.
You will activate muscles in your body you may use during the public speaking experience, muscles in your face or your arms, for example. You can expand your diaphragm in line with a natural speaking rhythm. By imagining this scenario while you are in a stress-free, relaxed state of mind, you can start to think of public speaking as being a more relaxing thing over time.
How does this work? When you experience something, your brain stores the experience in your brain as a memory, not just of the actual events but of the emotions you felt, the state of mind you were in, the sensations involved, etc. Many good experiences with something, such as learning a new language or having a good history when it comes to choosing romantic partners, will make your brain think of certain experiences as positive overall.
When you have similar experiences again, they won’t invoke negative thoughts or reactions because you think of them as good, as safe. On the other hand, when you have bad experiences with something, your brain begins to think of these experience as negative. This can trigger the “fight or flight” response when you have the same experience again, making you anxious or stressed out.
By going through a guided meditation and working toward making your brain associate more positive emotions with public speaking, driving, going on a date, etc., you can ease those feelings of stress when you have the actual experience again.
Find Guided Meditations Online
There are a variety of one-off videos online that guide you through a meditation session. You can also find guided meditations at many places such as yoga studios if you’d like to do one in person with a professional. For those of us who want to relieve stress from the comfort of our own home and get a little deeper than just watching a video, there are courses online at MindValley University.
MindValley University has a very worldly team of people behind it. Their entire team comes from over 46 countries and they have a variety of different backgrounds and skillsets. They are artists, filmmakers, cultural experts, public speakers, philosophers, spiritualists, life coaches, financial advisors, and much more.
The people who work for MindValley University believe in sharing their knowledge so that everyone can be exposed to different ideas and grow as people. Aside from their online classes, they also have events all around the world and are a publishing company as well so you can experience learning from them in a number of ways.
Lifelong learning is important and this is one of the reasons MindValley University was founded. They want everyone to grow in mind, body, and spirit. Everyone, from the founders to the teachers to the behind-the-scenes coders are dedicated to providing meaningful knowledge and skills beyond what you can learn in a traditional classroom. Learning should be fun and it shouldn’t stop once you graduate from high school or college.
Read any of their reviews on the website and you will see plenty of happy students. One of the great things about MindValley is that they don’t just post selected positive reviews. Anyone who has taken a class can write a review and it will be published. They also try to respond to any critical or negative reviews and work toward turning an unsatisfied student into a satisfied one.
Courses to Consider
MindValley University has a variety of programs and free courses in their Mind and Spirit section. Choosing one involving meditation or hypnotherapy is a good way to find not only guided meditations but other resources to build your skills in lowering your stress levels and fighting off anxiety.
Have you tried meditation before but just can’t seem to get anything out of it? Maybe you weren’t able to relax. Maybe you relaxed a bit too much and fell asleep. Maybe the experience just seemed boring and useless. Try “Learn the Meditation Practice of the World’s Top Performers.” This is a whole new approach to meditation. Each meditation only takes a few minutes. You don’t have to spend a lot of time clearing your mind or focusing on your breathing, as you do with some other meditation courses.
The meditations in this course are also designed to be fun and fulfilling so you won’t feel like you’ve wasted your time after completing them. This course is designed to support you on your journey to living a happier, more successful life. Each course is only 10-20 minutes so that you can fit it into even the busiest of schedules. By the end of the course, you’ll have the skills you need to become a top performer yourself and move on up in the world, without the added stress.
“Hypnotherapy for Abundance” is a good choice for anyone who feels like something is holding them back from achieving their health, career, or romance goals. According to this course, your brain is programmed by a variety of factors to settle you into a sort of comfort zone and to react, with stress and anxiety, when you are pushed outside of that comfort zone.
This can keep you from fully realizing your dreams, experiencing a fulfilling romantic relationship, pursuing your true passion, or truly feeling healthy in body and mind. This course has a series of 20-40 minute guided sessions to reprogram your brain and help to push you past that comfort zone and into a life where you are really thriving, not just surviving. You will learn to let go of whatever is holding you back.
The first session is designed to help you start to get rid of negative thoughts and emotions, including any self-sabotaging thinking that prevents you from pursuing the things you want. You’ll learn how to go back to that sense of wonder you felt as a child, that feeling that you can do or be anything. Over the course, you’ll build your self-confidence, learn how to beat unhealthy cravings or kick addictions to the curb, cut through all those mental blocks holding you back, and gain the skills you need to heal conflict with your loved ones.
Want to learn how to practice meditation for yourself to help reduce stress levels even when you can’t do a guided meditation? Take the “6-Phase Meditation Quest.” This is a short course, only seven days, and by the end of it, you will have all the skills you need to start doing daily meditation on your own. The course is designed to help you transform yourself in as little time as possible.
It comes with both warm-up exercises and guided meditations for each part of the six phases of the meditation quest, plus one extra to use after you’ve finished the course. You will learn how to be a happier, healthier, more compassionate person by the end of the course, even while you’re still living your regular, stressful life. The best part is that you can continue transforming yourself after the seven-day course is over, as it sets you up for success and for continuing your meditation practice on your own, without the assistance of the course.
Soothe Your Soul
Meditation can seem confusing or even useless to some people, but the reality is that it is more than the stereotypes associated with it. You can use meditation as a way to unwind after a busy day. You can also use it to reprogram yourself away from negativity and toward a positive outlook on life, which really helps to reduce stress and allows you to pursue your dreams more fully. If you are somebody who struggles with stress or anxiety, go ahead and try a guided meditation for anxiety and stress relief course today.