Logan Voss
Life can be stressful. We all know this. For some people with PTSD, it’s often filled with intrusive thoughts, emotional and physical flashbacks, acute episodes of anxiety, and more. There are many healing methods to assist with PTSD, including healing modalities. People with PTSD use everything from medication to therapy to overcome the symptoms of the condition that they can’t ignore. However, a new healing method is on the rise: mindfulness meditation. So what is mindfulness meditation, and how can it relieve post-traumatic stress? Read on to find out.
What Is PTSD?
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a serious mental health condition present in many people who have experienced traumatic events. We often think of PTSD with veterans, but anyone can experience it. Symptoms vary among people who struggle with the condition. For example, night terrors and flashbacks are extremely common—both mental and emotional—and profoundly impact the person who experiences them. Emotional flashbacks are when a person feels the emotions they experienced during the traumatic event.
What Is Mindfulness Meditation?
Mindfulness meditation is a method of training the mind. It has many benefits, including lowering blood pressure, helping you detach from distressing events, and increasing grey matter concentration in the brain. Grey matter is a tissue in the central nervous system that helps regulate a number of things. When you strengthen or increase it, you’ll positively impact emotional regulation, memory, and learning. Therefore, mindfulness meditation is the perfect supplement to PTSD because it can strengthen this tissue.
How Mindfulness Meditation Helps
Mindfulness meditation relieves post traumatic stress in several ways. For one, it “softens you,” in a sense. You become more in tune with the world and less in your head. This is a godsend for people with PTSD, especially since the mental issues they experience reside up there. Flashbacks are almost always dissociative. You are there in the past, not here in the present. Because of this, mindfulness meditation may help someone who struggles with the disorder.
Let’s Try a Session
Mindfulness meditation is incredibly simple. Let’s try it ourselves:
- Sit in a position that’s comfortable for you. Turn off your phone and let other people in the house know that you’ll be meditating so that they don’t disturb you.
- Take three deep breaths.
- Focus on your breathing. Your mind will most likely wander, so don’t beat yourself up over it. Instead, when it wanders, don’t follow the mind in its reverie. Turn your attention back toward your breathing instead.
- Do this for 10 minutes or more.
It may seem a little strange at first, but this simple exercise will radically change the way you see and approach the world by increasing your grey matter. It will help make you more aware of your thoughts and calmer overall.
We hope you’ve considered the benefits of mindfulness meditation and are inspired to try it yourself!
