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NoraSpinnor started the topic
Stress and Stillness: The Science of Not Reacting in the forum Meditation Practices & Techniques 1 week ago
Meditation doesn’t make your boss less demanding, your finances magically improve, or your past disappear, but it does change your relationship to all of it. One of the most profound shifts that happens with regular practice is that the world around you stays the same… and yet, it no longer shakes you the same way.
Studies have shown that consistent meditation practice reduces the size and reactivity of the amygdala, the brain’s fear and stress center. Even after only eight weeks of practice, participants report feeling less anxious and more emotionally steady, despite nothing in their external environment changing.
Meditation literally rewires our neural chemistry, pulling us out of survival-mode and helping us respond instead of react. The problems may still exist, but you’re no longer bound to them. You gain space. Perspective. Power.
For trauma survivors, this is profoundly powerful. It takes an overworked amygdala and actually starts to tune it to a new rhythm. This is difficult to achieve in waking consciousness.
Do you struggle to meditate because of stress?
Meditation is one of the few things that reduces stress long term.
Even just 10-20 minutes a day, practiced continuously, can start retraining our body’s stress responses.Share your struggles and experiences.
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Stress definitely accounts for some of my struggles with meditation. I’m always busy, exhausted, and burnt out, and meditation feels like yet another thing I have to do when I try to do them consistently.
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