Everybody is experiencing stress at one point or another. Humans have been conditioned to believe that stress is part of this century's evil, according to the Huffington Post.
Experiencing stress is one thing but managing it is another. Fortunately, Tiffany Cruikshank has found a way for stressed human beings to destress in five minutes. Cruikshank is a meditation and Yoga expert. She explains that our response to stress is useful. The response is necessary when you want to talk about reaction time. However, pre-conception of stress is what ruins the productive mood in the day. That is why, knowing you have a pile of paperwork on your desk even before getting to work already stresses you out.
Which is why Cruikshank believes that responding to stressful events can be controllable. "I think a lot of it has to do with the pressure we put on ourselves in a world that's moving at supersonic speeds," she adds. "We feel the need to keep up-and when we don't, we judge ourselves and create a lot of internal stress."
Luckily, she has written a book titled "Meditate Your Weight." The book centers around weight loss and guided meditation. Her five minute stress meditation is definitely a helpful tip to rewire the stressed employee's stress response. "The most important thing is just to notice the process," she says. "Begin to question whether this internal stress or tension is appropriate to the situation." (In other words: No, you aren't in mortal danger because your apartment is messy and your to-do list is long.) And with a mindful perspective, she says, comes peace.
Set aside five minutes of your day and practice this five minute meditation:
The first part is to observe how you breathe, acknowledge the sensations in the body.
Then, recount a stressful event in full detail and really connect to that memory.
Notice the sensations the recollection brings up in your body. Is it possible to just allow the sensations to exist and to disengage the mind-to just notice and watch them?
Take a moment to do this.
Then, notice what it feels like to acknowledge that everything will pass at some point. Consider that in the big picture, a month or year from now, you'll look back on this one little stressful experience and it will be insignificant.
Last, notice what it feels like to acknowledge that right now, in this moment, you have everything you need.
