Practicing meditation?

[sajax]

I suffer with really bad anxiety and ptsd. My therapist says she wants me to practice meditation because it will retrain my brain from this constant state of anxiety I’ve gotten into. Does anyone find this has worked? I thought meditation would just relax u in the moment but the retraining my brain had me interested. I’ve always given up because I can’t relax enough to meditate and then assume it won’t work anyway. Thoughts?

[Krn210]

I meditate daily, except for this past week because I was too sick to do so. My advice is to stick with it. When I first started meditating I signed up for these 30 minute sessions at a local yoga studio. That was horrible for me for a couple reasons. The first being that I was new to meditation so trying to sit for 30 minutes was just not feasible. The second was that my anxiety was so high at the time that I couldn’t sit. At the time I had that constant rocking sensation which would get worse as I would close my eyes and try to relax. I only ended up going to the “class” twice and never went back. Fast forward to now...I can sit for a session and actually enjoy it. I use guided meditations from the Calm app. There you are able to customize how long of a session you do and have a variety of topics to choose from. So to sum up my long story, I think you should try it again. Don’t focus on how long you’re sitting, or how relaxed you get. Just keep showing up and watch what happens.

[sajax in reply to Krn210]

Thanks for responding. I’ll try! I find it so hard to turn off anxious thoughts.

[Krn210 in reply to sajax]

It is hard but you’ll get there. Count your breaths while you meditate so it’s harder for other thoughts to show up. So when you breath in count 1, on the out breath count 2. In breath 1, out breath 2. Or simply say (in your head of course) in as you breath in and out as you breath out. I have found that doing either of those holds my attention to the breath more.

[Marc787]

Hi sajax, I too have bad anxiety, depression and experienced ptsd fear. Meditation helps me a lot it calms me down with my anxiety and panic attacks. I use YouTube. But we have to find the root of the problem. That causes our anxiety. It's true that we have to retrain our brain. Our thinking made us what is now which is probably false. So we have to unlearn what we falsely learned and change what we told ourselves in our brain all these years to something different and new. Unfortunately this is the hard part but can be done. Dr. Joe dispenza on YouTube will help and understand. Our nervous system is always stuck on the ON switch. The trick is to find something or some way to calm our nervous system down. With ptsd your therapist can do emdr with you to bring out what ever emotional events that happened with you as much as possible so you get desensitized with that event and it will no longer bother you anymore but unfortunately that takes a lot of time and healing. Good luck and god bless.

[sajax in reply to Marc787]

I’m gonna look him up on YouTube. Thx!

[Missclc]

I meditate daily if I can and find it really benefits me , I never could before , but now it's part of my daily routine . I have also just started using the app head space and it's quite good but have been told it may cost later on , but worth a visit if you have access to this.

I have tried walking meditation too ,as a per part,of my daily routine is too have a walk even if just for five minutes and when u take steps u focus on them and every time your brain starts over thinking you focus on yr steps .

Also walking around the house in bare feet or even a garden if you have one especially grass is also very beneficial

I hope his helps here are some brilliant five or ten minute meditation on you tube .

Please try it you will benefit from it so much

Peace and blessings to you

[Marc787]

youtu.be/v7KQsS2kLM4(Not working as expected?)

I hope this will help you and understand. Good luck...

[wantobefree in reply to Marc787]

thanks for this!!!

[Hidden]

Meditation kind of goes with mindfulness somewhat...and yes...it can help retrain your brain. It "rewires" how the brain deals with anxiety...in a way. Rather than panic and be anxious, you will know what to do with these uncomfortable anxious feelings. You might still feel them, but they likely will be much less severe. The primary rewiring comes from focusing on the thought (typically your breath as you breathe) and when your mind begins to think about something else, you catch it, put it to the side or let it go, and return to the "thought". Doing this over and over, even if you think you're doing it wrong (you aren't), is how we retrain the brain. The breathing itself is extremely helpful to the nervous system. It is steady, in through the nose, out the through the mouth. Deep belly/breathing technique. It actually sends off chemicals to your nervous system to relax. Naturally, this is pretty difficult when you're going through a panic or anxiety attack. In this manner, I always tell people it's a lot like karate or other martial arts. It's not a study or a class...it's a discipline that requires practice.

I'm still low on the totem pole, but I've been using it for months and can tell differences in the way my body and mind handle anxiety....even down to how I handle it. While it may seem boring, tedious, or like you aren't really doing anything but breathing and thinking, it's doing a lot more inside for the better. I'm a proponent of it....and it's not a medication to get stuck on...it's all natural without any "snake oil" ideas to it. Give it a shot and I hope it does wonders for you as well

[sajax in reply to Hidden]

I’m trying cause I really wanna feel better.

[teemo1]

I believe meditation helps me quite a bit with anxiety. I personally use the Headspace app, but I know there are plenty of other apps and videos with guided meditations. Here is a good article on the subject:

bebrainfit.com/meditation-a...

[Ellie34]

I do mindfulness meditation and it has helped my anxiety a lot. It really can help so much but has to be done daily for it to work. I use the app headspace and do the anxiety section. Gives you techniques to do throughout the day when anxiety arises. I have suffered anxiety quite badly for 16 years and It’s really helped me more than any other method. Especially this app helps with thoughts. It teaches you to note them and return to the moment and slowly it really does help to re train your brain. It takes a while to get used to but if stuck at is great.

Wishing you lots of luck with what you decide😊

[sajax in reply to Ellie34]

Thank u!