“I wanted to share the experience of how yoga and meditation have transformed my life, how they have enabled me to observe who I am, first in my body, and then emotionally, and on to a kind of spiritual path.” – Mariel Hemingway
Stress is universal. We are constantly under some form of stress. In fact, if we don’t have enough stress, we seek out more. There appears to be an optimum level of stress for which we strive. If our stress level is too low, we feel bored and do things to increase it, such as riding a roller coaster, going out to an action movie, thrill seeking, engaging socially etc. On the other hand, if your stress level is too high, we feel tense and do things to decrease it, such as resting, taking depressant drugs like alcohol, withdrawing from social interactions, taking vacations etc.
Stress actually can strengthen us. Muscles don’t grow and strengthen unless they are moderately stressed in exercise. Moderate mental stress can actually increase the size and connectivity of brain areas devoted to the activity. Moderate social stress can help us become more adept in social interactions. Moderate work stress can help us be more productive and improve as an employee, etc. So, stress can be a good thing promoting growth and flourishing. The key word here is moderate or what we called the optimum level of stress. Too little or too much stress can be damaging.
Unfortunately for many of us living in a competitive modern environment stress is all too often higher than desirable. In addition, many of the normal mechanisms for dealing with stress have been eliminated. The business of modern life removes opportunities for rest, working extra hours, and limiting or passing up entirely vacations to stay competitive. Persistently high levels of stress are damaging and can directly produce disease or debilitation increasing susceptibility to other diseases. Chronic stress can produce a condition called distress which can lead to headaches, upset stomach, elevated blood pressure, chest pain, and problems sleeping and can make other diseases worse.
Stress is epidemic worldwide, but particularly in the United States. It has been found that over two thirds of Americans experienced symptoms of stress such as fatigue, irritability or anger, or changes in sleeping habits. Forty-three percent of all adults suffer adverse health effects from stress and 75% to 90% of all doctor’s office visits are for stress-related ailments and complaints.
It is beyond the ability of the individual to change the environment to reduce stress, so it is important that methods be found to reduce the individual’s responses to stress and thereby reduce the conversion of stress to distress, reducing the damaging effects of chronic stress. Contemplative practices have been shown to reduce the psychological and physiological responses to stress (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/stress/). Because of their ability to relieve stress, mindfulness trainings are increasingly being practiced by individuals and are even being encouraged in some workplaces.
Exactly what aspects of mindfulness are effective for stress are not known. There have been identified five facets of mindfulness; observing, describing, non-judging of inner experience, non-reactivity to inner experience, and acting with awareness. In today’s Research News article “The “Observing” Facet of Mindfulness Moderates Stress/Symptom Relations Only Among Meditators.”
Neale-Lorello and colleagues investigate the relationship of these five facets of mindfulness with perceived levels of stress and physical symptoms of distress. They further separated their participants into experienced meditators and non-meditators. They found that meditators were higher in mindfulness, lower in perceived stress and had fewer physical symptoms than non-meditators demonstrating the efficacy of meditation for stress relief.
They further found marked differences between the groups in the relationships of the facets of mindfulness with stress and physical symptoms. In the non-meditators all of the facet except observing were negatively associated with both perceived stress and physical symptoms while for meditators none of the facets were associated with perceived stress while only non-judging and acting with awareness were negatively associated with physical symptoms. To some extent the lack of significant findings for the meditators may be the result of the fact that the meditators were already low in perceived stress and physical symptoms.
In a more complex analysis they found, not surprisingly, that life stress was positively associated with physical symptoms. But, this was not true for the meditators who were also high in the observing facet of mindfulness. “This result implies that mindfulness meditation training may allow people who attend closely to their experience to separate out the objective contents of what is observed from their cognitive and/or emotional reactions to them. Such a parsing would free up resources that might otherwise be expended on negative emotional responses … leaving the more mindful individual better able to deploy effective actions in response to stressors.” (Neale-Lorello).
These findings indicate that meditation increases mindfulness reducing the impact of stress on distress; physical symptoms. It does so, in part by increasing the observation of experience which appears to buffer the meditator from the negative physical effects of stress. So, meditation increases mindfulness, reduces perceived stress and physical symptoms and buffers the individual from the ability of stress to produce distress.
So, observe mindfully and be less stressed.
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
“You begin by letting thoughts flow and watching them. The very observation slows down the mind till it stops altogether. Once the mind is quiet, keep it quiet. Don’t get bored with peace, be in it, go deeper into it.” – Nisargadatta Maharaj