Meditation

How to Make Stress Your Friend By Mastering The Power of Your Breath

By Jade Doherty

55% of Americans report high levels of stress. Learn how to make stress your friend, and reduce stress and anxiety through the power of your breath.

"How to make stress your friend?!" I hear you think. "That's like making friends with the enemy, isn't it? Who wants to be friends with stress?!"

Point taken. Stress is hardly the most appealing friend. If it were your first day at a new school, and you were looking around for who to befriend, Stress would probably be quite low down on your list of potential buddies.

Maybe Stress already feels like an annoying "friend" who follows you around, won't leave you alone, and seems to ALWAYS BE THERE!

But rather than dreading or avoiding stress, what if there were a way to work with this feeling?

What is stress?

First things first, what is stress? Stress can be defined as "the degree to which you feel overwhelmed or unable to cope as a result of pressures that are unmanageable"

And a lot of people are stressed. It's been reported that 55% of Americans experience stress throughout the day. In fact, you might say stress is public health enemy number one.

That's a lot of people feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope.

The impact of stress can affect every area of life and put us at greater risk of health issues, affecting everything from sleep, to health, to physical well-being, and of course mental well-being.

In short, stress matters.

Short bursts of stress are ok, but when it becomes chronic, it leads to problems. We humans weren't designed to be stressed all the time. Responding to a stressful situation - say being chased by a tiger - requires a quick response. So the body goes into a fight or flight response, to get us out of there! Run! Or fight! But just don't die.

This activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is entirely appropriate for a short, and necessary sprint out of danger. A pounding heart, faster breathing, your body produces a stress hormone, and you just need to getaway.

But you can't sprint constantly. It's unsustainable.

Ideally, after an intense, sympathetic nervous system response of fight or flight, the body goes into a resting state, with the parasympathetic nervous system taking over to allow for recovery.

But when you're experiencing chronic stress, that rest never comes.

How to handle stress

Meditation and breathwork are great tools to handle stress.

There are two main ways meditation helps.

Firstly by increasing our stress resilience. This doesn't mean that stressful things never happen, it means that when they do we're better able to handle them.

This can mean chaos is going on all around you, but you're calm. Your response to stress is different. Rather than your body's response being one of panic, and going into that fight or flight response, you're able to stay calm and perhaps even feel relaxed.

This can be because your body is in better health. If you've been practicing for a while, you will have started to move out of the stressed, sympathetic nervous system response, and into the parasympathetic nervous system, meaning your body is better rested and has had time to heal.

In addition to the physical benefits, there are benefits when it comes to mental health and resilience. By practicing meditation most people become more able to accept what's going on around them. A lot of stress can come from wanting things to be other than they are.

I know for me when I am less attached to an outcome or haven't already decided what I think should happen, I experience less stress. Rather than being enraged that the train is late, I can be accepting. "Yes, the train is late. It's a bit annoying. But there's nothing I can do about it".

So, by both engaging with your physiological response to stress and your mental response, meditation can make you more stress-resilient.

The second way meditation can help is by giving you tools for when you are stressed that you can use in your daily life.

Something happens, there's a challenge at work or a challenge at home, it's chaotic and stressful, but you now have tools you can use to reduce stress and bring you back to calm. You feel your body's reaction to stress, the heart rate increasing, the anxiety creeping in, and rather than it taking over, you instead go back to your meditation tools and are able to ground and calm yourself.

Will any meditation help?

Yes and no.

Anytime that you can spend sitting, and meditating is useful. Even if you just spend 5 minutes in the morning, sitting quietly, you'll notice you feel calmer throughout the day. It helps us find compassion for ourselves, and be happier.

However, if you really want to maximize the time you spend meditating and getting the best results, it's best to learn a technique that is designed to do just that.

There are many types of meditation, but they don't all do the same thing, and they don't all work with your body in an intentional way.

SKY Breath Meditation works by combining meditation and breathing techniques. These breathing techniques not only take you into deeper states of meditation, but they also work with you on a physiological level and can improve your physical, mental, and emotional health.

New research shows that SKY reduces anxiety, stress, and even symptoms of PTSD, whilst also increasing feelings of well-being and social connectedness. Not only this, but SKY is also superior to other mindfulness techniques in reducing stress and anxiety.

How does SKY help?

SKY was created by spiritual leader Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and works by engaging the breath.

You see, there is an intimate connection between the breath and emotions. You've probably noticed this already. When you're stressed, your body's response is to breathe faster. Your breath gets quicker and more shallow.

Whereas when you're relaxed, your breath is free, easy, and deep. Like a happy sigh. Ahhhh! That feeling.

By reverse-engineering this relationship - that is engaging with the breath - you can change the way you feel.

There are techniques for everything. For more energy, for relaxing, for focusing your mind, for grounding and stabilizing.

Stressful experiences still happen, but they don't stress you out in the same way. Either you're simply less affected, or if you do feel stressed, you just take yourself out for a moment, do your practices, and come back feeling better.

Life's challenges will always be there, but this time, you have tools!

How can I learn SKY?

Great! You are ready to take control of your stress and learn SKY. By learning how to harness the power of your breath, you are on the road to befriending stress. What if stress could be like a friend, in the same sense that a good friend lets you know when you're not feeling like yourself.

We are thrilled to invite you to join us for a free introductory class called Beyond Breath, where you will learn all about how SKY works, be guided through a meditation by an expert instructor, and have all your questions answered.

This is the first step. Try it out by joining Beyond Breath, and after that, you can join the full course. Participants see very fast results, so you'll leave the class feeling better than before.

Click the picture below and find a time that suits you.