Does Guided Meditation Work For Anxiety?

In order to handle the immense anxiety and stress of your daily life, you have to be able to slow down and take some time to do a little self-care. One of the best ways to do this is to employ mindfulness practices like meditation.

If you are considering adding meditation to your daily routine, you might come across a wide range of options. For those that are beginning, we highly suggest trying guided meditation.

Guided mediation can help with anxiety by guiding you through the process of focusing your mind and calming it down. This process allows your mind to be more relaxed and less anxious and stressed.

What is guided meditation? Will it actually work to help with your anxiety? All good questions and ones we will answer in this quick look at guided meditation.

What is Guided Meditation?

Many find meditation to be difficult at first because they are not able to quiet the mind. But that can be handled by trying guided meditation. This type of meditation uses a guide to bring the person into their meditative state.
Typically this is done through the use of mental pictures or with a set of breathing exercises that soothe your mind easily into a calm state. There are many options when it comes to finding a guided meditation guide.

Guides: Where to Find Them

One of the main reasons for many people's anxiety and stress is the fact that in this world it is hard to disconnect. With an oversaturation of information always coming at us via our technology, you might think that the last thing you would want to do is utilize it as a way to find a guide for your meditation.

But there are actually a lot of great tools via your smart technology that give you access to guides. Here are a few places that you might look if you want to find a good guide for your guided meditation practice:

• Music streaming services - Many guides upload their meditations to sites like Spotify or Apple Music. All you have to do is search for guided meditation, and we are sure you will find a good selection.
• Podcasts - On those same streaming services or anywhere that has, podcasts might be a good source for guided meditation.
• Mindfulness sites - Take to Google and lookup websites that are dedicated to mindfulness practices. There will inevitably be a section where you can find guided meditations.
• Apps - Many different apps are available that can help you too. If you want to do it by yourself, then check out apps like Headspace.
• YouTube - You can find guided meditation sessions on video streaming sites like YouTube as well.
• Yoga businesses - Yoga is all about mindfulness, and that means that many yoga studios have meditation sessions that include guided meditations.

Tips To Improve Your Guided Meditation

Meditation is a great tool to help deal with all of your stress and anxiety, but it needs to be consistent. So it is important to make sure you set aside time, especially for this activity. Once you have set aside the time, you may still struggle at getting into a place where meditation is easy to do. So because we understand there are a lot of challenges at first when it comes to any form of meditation, including guided meditation, we thought we would give you some tips to help you. Here are our tips for doing a successful guided meditation at home:

• When you sit down for your guided meditation, before you get started, turn your phone and other computer technology to silent or airplane mode. Then sit for a few minutes to disconnect so you can get the most out of your guided meditation.
• Then find your space and make yourself comfortable. Then close your eyes and do a few passes of your favorite breathing exercises.
• When you start to do your guided meditation practices, choose the best time for you and make it consistent.
• Don’t be hard on yourself if you struggle at first. Meditation, like any other mindfulness practice, takes practice and you will find it easier and easier as you go.

These are just a few of the tips but there are so many others that could make this amazing practice a habit that will eventually lead to amazing effects that will eventually lead you to live a happier and healthier life.

A Quick Guided Meditation Script

In order to be successful in using a guided meditation for anxiety, you have to be able to create space for your feelings to really be felt. There is a wide range of guided meditations, but we thought it might be helpful to walk through a guided meditation for anxiety script. If you are beginning, you should try this one:

• Find a comfortable place to sit. Once you have, take some deep breaths. Find your center and feel your connection with where your body meets the ground. Feel the weight of your body, and then take a few more deep breaths. If you are still feeling anxious, continue your deep breaths until it dissipates.
• Really feel your feelings. Think about a recent time that you have felt this anxiety. Try to remember every detail. Concentrate on the conversation or situation and pay attention to the feeling as well as how your body feels.
• Then move your mind into a broader focus. Try to focus on your senses in that moment as well as in the moment you are in currently.
• For those that meditate with their eyes closed, open them and take in your environment. Notice the first three things you see around you. Try to find pleasant or neutral things and then, in your mind, describe them from their physical aesthetic as well as how they make you feel.
• Then take in the sounds that fill your space. Try to focus on just three of these and begin describing them in your mind.
• After tuning into the sound around you, you should take in your taste. Really pay attention to the tastes that are in your mouth. Once you have done this, you can then begin to hone in on the smells.
• Lastly, you are going to pay attention to your sense of touch. Think about your skin and how it feels against the fabric you are sitting on. The air on your skin as well as the clothes on your skin.
• Now that you have created some space between your anxiety and your inner being, you can return to feeling. Feel where the anxiety in your body is located and then begin to breathe and relax. Begin asking yourself questions like “what do you need?”, what are you trying to teach me?”.
• Then when you have paid attention to what your body feels and says, you can finish out your guided meditation for anxiety with an action you can take to address the anxiety. Then take a few deep breaths and relax for a few minutes more, and you should feel more in tune with your body.
• This meditation script can be repeated on a daily basis and be used for not only anxiety but many other mental issues.

Final Thoughts

Using guided meditation for anxiety can be very effective, and it may be a great option for beginners and experienced mediation practitioners alike. There are many avenues you can take to add this into your life, and we hope that the information we have given you has made it clear that guided meditation for anxiety works very well. It may not be an immediate fix, but with dedication and patience, you will see an improvement in your mental, emotional and physical health.