The practice of meditation calms the nervous system. Have you ever wondered why people who practice meditation and yoga look so calm and happy?
Many people suffer from nervous system overstrain and stress due to the fact that they have lost the ability to quickly switch the nervous system into recovery and rest mode. Meditation is the best practice for this. Falling asleep quickly, deep and pleasant sleep, fresh and good morning - these are the benefits that regular meditation before bed will give you.
At the end of this article you will find a bonus: audio meditation for self-practice before bed!
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The main secret of the nervous system
The human nervous system consists of two parts. Each part performs its function. These are the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
The parasympathetic system regulates unconscious processes in the body. We cannot directly control parasympathetic processes. These processes, for example, include digestion, metabolism, blood flow, and the work of hormonal glands. All of this operates without our direct control. The parasympathetic system is responsible for the actions that occur when the body is at rest; it is a state of relaxation and recuperation.
The sympathetic nervous system refers to our conscious actions: physical and mental work. She is responsible for exerting effort and wasting energy to achieve goals in the outside world.
Feel the difference: we can consciously spend all our strength if we want. But we can’t do anything to restore our strength, just step aside and not interfere with the natural force to fill us with energy again.
If we simplify a person to the level of an animal, then the sympathetic system is activated in the process of achieving a goal. When we get food, fight with the enemy, run away or hide from danger. All these active actions serve us for survival.
The parasympathetic nervous system turns on when we have obtained food and eaten, won a battle, avoided danger and are lying down, resting.
In modern humans, the sympathetic system is active almost all the time we are awake. Nowadays, we rarely or even almost never encounter situations on the brink of life and death, as was the case in cave times. But nevertheless, the psyche goes into fight or flight mode when we have to talk with an angry boss, solve problems with money, tight deadlines and other everyday tasks.
We constantly strive internally for goals. Even during a break from work, we are accustomed to thinking about desires, being afraid of some imaginary events in the future, or experiencing events from the past. And although all this happens only in the imagination, the sympathetic system remains turned on.
Therefore, there is an imbalance between the two nervous systems. The sympathetic system is overheated by the constant activity of the brain, and the parasympathetic system does not receive enough energy for its work. This leads to chronic stress and mental burnout. After several years of such an imbalance in the nervous system, a person falls into chronic fatigue and feels constant nervous tension.
Meditation exercises to calm and relax the nerves
Deep Breathing Square
This practice lasts two minutes and you can do it anywhere you want. The exercise will perfectly calm your nerves, and if you do it constantly, it will relieve increased irritability.
This is done as follows:
- You need to gather yourself with your feet firmly pressed to the floor (even if you are sitting). Can be done with your eyes closed.
- One hand is placed on the diaphragm area (located in the upper abdomen) to control the breathing process (it should be directed exactly here).
- Inhale slowly for about 5 seconds.
- Now you need to hold your breath for 5 seconds.
- Also exhale slowly for 5 seconds.
The practice should be performed for 2 minutes.
Short guided meditations
This technique remarkably eliminates nervousness and attracts with its ease of implementation. All you need to do is simply find videos or audio recordings of guided calming meditations on the Internet and turn them on when you are on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
When choosing, you should focus purely on your feelings and choose the material that you like. So, the voice of the presenter should evoke sympathy and calm.
Recommendation! You can easily create a meditation for yourself if you do not want to use materials from the Internet. Your loved ones will help you with this; you can ask them to write down the text you have composed, and then you will need to diversify it with special relaxing effects at your discretion.
Stress-relieving visualization
This technique of relaxing the nervous system offers a person maximum freedom. It is performed quite simply - you need to close your eyes and visualize everything that will allow you to eliminate negative emotions from your consciousness and set you up for positivity.
To do this, you can go into the depths of your memory and extract the most pleasant memories from it. You will need to hold positive, bright images in your mind that protect you from irritability and anxiety.
In this case, a pleasant picture will be individual for each person. As a rule, meditation trainers advise imagining the following images to calm the nervous system:
- peaceful and tranquil landscapes;
- a glass partition that will protect you from any negativity;
- turbulent streams or an erupting volcano that resembles your emotions;
- colorful energy flowing through your body.
The options described are the most obvious and common. You can choose other calming associations for yourself and even create your own effective system for dealing with stress factors and anxiety. We wish you success in this difficult task, and finally, be sure to watch this interesting video:
How to restore inner harmony
To calm the nervous system, you need to restore balance and create harmony between the two nerve centers. To do this, you need to learn to turn off brain activity and give the reins to the parasympathetic nervous system. It can be difficult. Because, in essence, it means letting go of control and deliberately going with the flow for some time, not striving for anything. This process is called meditation.
There are several ways to calm the nervous system, most of which involve focusing on one thing for a period of time. As I wrote above, it is the activity of the mind that does not allow the nervous system to rest, even when we are just lying on the couch. The mind will never calm down on its own. This is his nature, he must be constantly busy with something. Stopping internal dialogue for the mind is death. Therefore, he constantly jumps from one thought to another, and this chaos creates chronic nervous tension.
In fact, it only seems that if we stop constantly thinking about something, we will cease to exist in consciousness. This is wrong. On the contrary, by reducing the activity of your mind, you will feel lightness and inner freedom. After meditation, you feel a surge of strength, fresh ideas and new feelings come.
Types of Meditations
Which meditation technique should you prefer? Meditation comes in the following varieties:
- breathing exercises;
- short guided meditations;
- visualizations.
There are differences between all versions of meditation, but one main distinguishing feature also stands out: they do not require significant effort or much time, and the effect of the exercises will be pleasantly surprising.
There is another method for choosing the most suitable relaxation for yourself: you need to determine how you perceive information from the outside world.
Thus, breathing practices are most suitable for people with a well-developed sensory channel (kinesthetics).
Auditory learners (those who perceive everything by ear) should seek help from guided meditations.
And for visual learners (people who perceive information through their eyes), visual techniques will be the most acceptable.
Please note that you need to choose your breathing technique very carefully. Now there are a huge number of them, but not all of them are capable of calming - some, on the contrary, have a stimulating effect. Such exercises will eliminate chronic fatigue and drowsiness, but are not at all suitable for nervous and tense people.
conclusions
There are a lot of different meditation techniques. But they all lead to the same goal. It is important to choose the appropriate meditation method to calm the nervous system. Because all people are different and there is no one universal recipe. What helps one person relax may be like a red rag to a bull for another. If you sit for 15 minutes in meditation and this makes you even more psychotic, do not force yourself and find a more suitable way to relax.
Don't forget to get your free online course on mindfulness meditation : get the course for free
There I show you the fastest and safest way to learn to meditate from scratch and bring a state of mindfulness into everyday life.
Categories:Meditation
Tags: meditation
Concentration techniques
Meditation to calm the nervous system and psyche can be based not only on relaxation, but also on concentration. This approach allows you to distract yourself from negative thoughts by switching to the physiological processes occurring in the body - breathing, vision, sound vibrations.
Breathless
Breathing is one of the few functions that are regulated by both nervous systems (parasympathetic and sympathetic). It is performed unconsciously, but can be controlled, making this process a junction of two nerve centers. Therefore, by changing your breathing, you can consciously influence the activities of the unconscious.
The main principle of this effect is that rapid breathing activates the sympathetic system, and slow breathing activates the parasympathetic system. By adjusting the frequency of breathing cycles, you can shift the balance in one direction or another.
Meditation to calm the nervous system and psyche according to this principle is performed as follows:
- sit up straight, without support;
- breathe slowly, deeply and silently.
At first it will be difficult to perform such an exercise. But with regular practice, entering a meditative state will become simpler and easier.
At a Glance
The eyes are also the point of contact between the two parts of the autonomic system, since they move unconsciously, but you can control your gaze if you wish. This feature can also be used to consciously influence the unconscious: by stopping moving your eyes, you can slow down your brain to get rid of stress. An additional bonus of this technique is the reduction in pressure.
Meditation for nerves and pressure is carried out according to the following algorithm:
- in the center of a sheet of A4 paper, draw a black dot with a diameter of 2 cm;
- fix the sheet on the wall, sit opposite at a distance of 50–60 cm so that the point is at eye level;
- look at the dot without blinking for as long as possible.
It is necessary to increase the duration of the exercise to 15 minutes. It is believed that this is the amount of time it takes to completely calm the mind. This is the most powerful meditation for reducing blood pressure and calming the nerves. But it affects each person differently, so you need to try different techniques to find the best option for yourself.
On the sound
Meditation to calm the soul and nerves using sounds is based on alpha waves and binaural beats, which are background sounds of the appropriate frequency that provide deep relaxation to the brain.
Such calming practices are based on the results of modern research on brain activity, although the principle of sound influence has been used since ancient times. Shamans used tambourines for this, Tibetan monks used singing bowls. Nowadays, it is enough to turn on suitable music, audio recordings of alpha waves, binaural beats or singing bowls. You just need to listen to them, relax and disconnect from the outside world.
Audio meditations
You can carry out meditative practices not on your own, but by listening to audio recordings and following the voice of the leader. The following videos are considered effective in this regard:
- Kryon meditations for healing. Kryon is a disembodied angelic entity that resides in positive vibrations and made contact through telepathic communication. Kryon is called upon to provide people with comprehensive support, one of the methods of which is meditation.
- Tokareva N. P. “Meditation for healing.” Slavic Bereginya Tokareva Nadezhda in her sessions cleanses the subtle bodies of a person and helps to transfer consciousness to higher dimensions.
- Archangel Michael's meditation for cleansing and healing. This technique is aimed at cleansing negative energies, thoughts and feelings, freeing oneself from unnecessary connections and attitudes that interfere with physical and psychological health.
To heal from diseases and improve the health of the body, you need to work comprehensively and, first of all, on your own consciousness. Meditation is the simplest, most accessible and effective tool for such work.
Benefits of Healing Meditations
Various meditative techniques aimed at treating diseases and general health are not just individual esoteric exercises, but a whole complex of targeted effects on the cause of pathology. In most cases, they are used as an addition to primary therapy, but sometimes they can completely replace it.
Meditation for healing the whole body works in the following directions:
- reduces the severity of the negative effects of stress;
- eliminates various nervous disorders - aggressiveness, anxiety, irritability;
- restores self-confidence;
- allows you to establish communication with others;
- normalizes blood pressure and blood flow;
- relieves migraines, headaches, insomnia;
- activates the production of serotonin;
- adds vitality and energy;
- strengthens immune defense;
- increases concentration, memory, attention;
- promotes rapid recovery of the body.
Even a short relaxation and healing meditation done regularly over 2-3 weeks can produce visible results. The high effectiveness of healing techniques is achieved due to their multi-layered nature, which involves performing three main meditative actions:
- relaxation;
- visualization;
- positive attitude
Meditation for healing the figure and body is traditionally performed at night so that the subconscious mind continues to carry out healing during sleep.