Mindfulness For Stress Reduction

Do you get caught up in life's stressors? Do you have emotional reactions that go beyond the point where it is useful? You are not alone, and there is a biological reason why you are feeling this way.

When you repeatedly go over a situation in your head, it is because of prologued activity in the amygdala, which is important for emotion, particularly anxiety and stress.

Although you may still have the same reaction to a stressor when you practice mindfulness, your brain recovers faster. This is a key attribute of stress resilience.

Stress resilience means facing life's stressors and recovering quickly. You don't need to avoid stress completely, but instead, you learn from life stressors and move forward.

SRS has been designed to improve your body's stress response so that you can recover quicker. If you take SRS alongside practicing mindfulness regularly, you will see improvements in the health of your body and mind.

Incorporating a mindfulness habit takes time and dedication. It's certainly not easy. But the ingredients in SRS will help calm and focus the mind and make practice a little easier. This is great news as there is a direct correlation between time spent being mindful and how quickly you can recover from stress.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is noticing and being curious about right now rather than getting caught up in the past or worried about the future. The more mindful you become, the better you will focus, manage stress and think quickly. Just as you can build your body muscles through exercise, you can build your mindfulness muscles through practice, such as meditation, tai chi, or yoga.

Mindfulness is radical in that you are not trying to suppress any emotion or make it go away. Instead, you are simply observing your thoughts and emotions and finding new ways to connect with them. This is much more effective than suppressing an emotion, which usually leaves us thinking about it more. What if I told you to think about anything except a white bear? What do you think of?

It is common to be so caught up in your personal story that you miss the bigger picture and treat yourself harshly. By expanding your awareness, you will become more resilient to stress.

In a comprehensive review published in Clinical Psychology Review, taking evidence from over 200 studies, it was concluded that mindfulness practices have a range of benefits from,

"...increased subjective well-being, reduced psychological symptoms and emotional reactivity, to improved regulation of behavior." 

How Will SRS Help me to be Mindful?

The ingredients in SRS have been designed to improve the body's response to stress. This will help prevent stress reactions to thoughts, stimuli, and emotions and help you concentrate during meditation.

SRS will help you focus and refocus when your mind begins to wander and make incorporating a mindfulness habit easier. Let's take a few of the ingredients in SRS and how they can help with mindfulness training.

Phosphatidylserine

Phosphatidylserine slows down the release of cortisol and can help meditation by enhancing focus and reducing stress, which will help you to widen your awareness. This can make it easier to slip into a deep, meditative state.

L-Tyrosine

Tyrosine improves concentration, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. This natural brain booster will help you to concentrate on a mindfulness technique to reduce stress.

Awashagada

Awashagada has been shown to reduce levels of cortisol and regulate chemical signaling in the nervous system.

Ashwashagada has also been shown to improve sleep quality, lessen anxiety, and increase mental alertness upon waking. Many people find meditating in the morning easiest before their brain is filled with daily stimuli. Ashwashyagada may give you the calm and clarity you need to start a meditation ritual.

Taurine

Research has shown that Taurine acts like GABA in the brain because it has a similar structure and can bind to GABA receptors. GABA is responsible for feelings of calm and contentment. Taurine can therefore help you to feel relaxed and focused on your mindfulness meditation.

Chamomile Extract

A gentle and effective herb, Chamomile encourages a calm state and helps to soothe the nervous system. It effectively decreases cortisol levels and improves sleep, both of which will work to create more space for mindfulness in your life.

How Does Mindfulness Help With Stress-Reduction?

Regardless of the situation, there are different ways to interpret and handle what is happening. When you are practiced in mindfulness, you have more options. Benefits of mindfulness include:

Paying Attention Protects Us

Paying attention to the present moment helps us control the repetitive, racing, and non-productive thoughts that lead to stress. For example, if you don't get an immediate reply to an important text, you might imagine the worse, acknowledge your worry, and then try to return to what you are working on at that moment. Paying attention will allow you to have a more direct experience of what is happening and nothing more.

An Open Attitude Provides Relief

Another aspect of mindfulness is acceptance and curiosity of what is occurring. When you don't receive a text back, there may be many reasons as to why. The practice of keeping an open attitude leads to greater acceptance and improved ability to tolerate difficult situations.

Mindfulness Creates a New Relationship to Experiences

The core principles of mindfulness - intention, attitude, attention, lead to a fundamental shift in our perception. It allows us to dis-identify from thoughts and emotions, so instead of being controlled by them, we can separate ourselves and see a situation for what it really is. As we become more confident in doing this, we are less likely to become stressed by events that we previously would have perceived as a threat.

What is Happening in the Brain?

Mindfulness and meditation change the structure of our brain. The hippocampus, which helps regulate emotion, grows in density, which helps us deal with stress better. The area of the brain associated with the fight or flight response, the amygdala, is also smaller in people who meditate. In contrast, studies show that the part of the brain associate with reason, the pre-frontal cortex, is larger.

Mindfulness doesn't prevent the threat response, but the speed at which you can recover becomes faster. SRS has been designed to support further this stress response by decreasing stress hormones and increasing hormones responsible for calm and focus.

The areas of the brain that are positively affected by meditation, are also targeted by SRS. Stress on the other hand often has the opposite effect and works to shrink the prefrontal cortex and increase activity in the amydala. Therefore incorporating a mindfulness practice alongside taking SRS will help to undo some of the damage caused by prolonged stress.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction MBSR

The mindfulness-based stress reduction(MBSR) program was developed at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in the 1970s. Mindfulness-based interventions were used to treat patients suffering from mental health concerns.

Studies have shown that patients who received mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy were better able to focus on the present and less likely to repeat negative thoughts.

However, anyone can benefit from the principles of MBSR. It is composed of two main components: mindfulness meditation and yoga.

It is different for every person but is based on a core set of principles:

• Practice should be to challenge rather than a chore.
• Regular disciplined practice is essential.
• Creating a lifestyle change to undertake formal mindfulness practice.

 

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn is considered the founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction. By combining a science-based perspective and Buddist principles, he created a flexible approach to helping people reduce stress.

Making the program secular and inviting people from all walks of life helped bring mindfulness practices to the western world. If you have a mind, you can practice mindfulness; it is open to everybody.

For more information, visit the Center for Mindfulness website.

What is Mindfulness Meditation?

Sit comfortably, and focus on breathing deeply. Start with 5 minutes, and slowly build up how much time you spend in this state each day. By doing this, you can train your brain to be less distracted and more focused in the present moment.

Mindfulness meditation isn't about turning off all of your thoughts. Instead, you learn to observe them without judgment. One technique is to picture thoughts that come up as clouds and let them pass by. It is a skill like any other and takes consistent practice to get comfortable.

There is no such thing as a perfect meditation, sometimes your mind will wander, but that's ok. Simply return your attention to your breath.

You might want to start with a guided meditation. This may help you to manage your thoughts and feelings while meditating. You can find some great practices on youtube.

 

Other Mindfulness Techniques

When you think of mindfulness exercises, the first thing that probably comes to mind is meditation. This is certainly a great habit to cultivate. But there are lots of other ways to participate in mindfulness training to reduce stress.

The Breath

You don't need to wait until your meditation practice to focus on the breath. You can bring your attention to your breath whenever you need to focus or quieten the mind.

Body Scan

Lie on your back and close your eyes. Move your awareness through your body, focusing on one area at a time. If you find an area that feels tight, focus your breath on this area until it releases.

Object Meditation

Hold an object that is special or interesting. Now focus all of your senses on it and note its size, shape, color, smell, texture, taste, or sounds it makes when handled.

Walking Meditation

Take a leisurely walk at a familiar pace. Observe how you walk and pay attention to the sensations in your body.

Mindful Eating

When eating, focus all your senses on your food. Eat slowly, utilizing all five senses: taste, smell, sight, touch, and even sound.

Mindful Stretching

You can practice mindful stretching with any set of stretches, but if you want a guided practice, you can give yoga a try. You can find some great guided practices here.

Take SRS

SRS will help make these daily mindfulness practices a little easier by giving you more focus and energy and calming your mind.

Create a Habit

To ensure that you regularly practice mindfulness, which is necessary to reap its rewards for stress management, you need to begin a habit. Attach it to something you already do so that you are motivated to take action. For example, your habit could become: wake up, brush teeth, mindfulness meditation, take your SRS supplement, eat breakfast. You will have accomplished a lot before you even begin your day!

SRS has been designed to support your body's stress response, which will make it easier for you to cultivate more mindfulness into your life. However, to really experience a transformation, it is good to incorporate a regular mindfulness practice.

 If your stress is becoming unmanageable and you are finding mindfulness techniques difficult to manage, then speak to your doctor about options that may be available to you. If your thoughts and feelings are too overwhelming to manage alone, then seek medical advice about mindfulness-based interventions such as mindfulness-based stress reduction or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.