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 Meagan Voulo graduated from Farmingdale State College in the spring of 2015 with a BS in Applied Psychology. She is currently enrolled in a PhD student at Stony Brook University in the Integrative Neuroscience program. Meagan can be reached by email at meagvo@gmail.com or you can visit her personal blog, Recovering and Discovering, at www.recoveringanddiscovering.wordpress.com/ |
| Major changes in life – good or bad – are often accompanied by stress. As someone in recovery from a chronic illness, I can attest to the fact that excessive stress can be debilitating, both mentally and physically, making it difficult to cope with change in an adaptive way. Maybe you are dealing with stress due to changes in your work environment, your social circle, or your family dynamics. We all get stressed by different things and we cope with stress in different ways, but the important thing is to make sure we don’t fall into maladaptive habits. There are many negative coping skills that very well may relieve stress in the short term – drugs, alcohol, binging, starving, not sleeping – but in the long run they end in more pain and suffering. One way that I’ve learned to cope with stress is to be mindful. What exactly is mindfulness? Mindfulness is simply awareness of what is. Mindfulness involves observing, describing, and participating non-judgmentally. Numerous studies have shown that practicing mindfulness has many benefits to our mental and physical health, from decreasing stress and anxiety to enhancing working memory capacity. That being said, we can all benefit from practicing mindfulness, especially during stressful times of change. To prove to you that mindfulness isn’t just meditation, I’ll explain a brief mindfulness exercise that I do when I feel my stress levels getting very high. It’s called thought diffusion. First, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Then imagine each of your thoughts as an object passing by you. You can adapt this many different ways. Many people imagine placing their thoughts on a leaf floating down a river or on a cloud passing by in the sky. Personally, I imagine my thoughts as actual sentences going down a bright red slide. The important thing is to just notice each thought that comes up in your mind – good, bad, or neutral – to not judge it, and let it go. You can continue to engage in this activity for as long as you’d like. Personally, I only last about 3-5 minutes, but that is enough for me to feel noticeably less stressed as soon as I open my eyes. However, don’t be discouraged if this doesn’t work for you the first time. Mindfulness takes practice, so keep on trying. Also, if you don’t think this particular exercise is for you, try looking up different ideas on the internet. Mindfulness is a budding field of study with many resources to help you find a technique that works for you. |
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