When Meditation Is Not for You

Some people have the idea that they must meditate to achieve maximum relief from stress. However, Adam Grant, professor of management and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, contributed a recent New York Times article that reminds us that we can gain relief with or without meditation. Here are a few highlights: 

Stress is not always bad. In fact, the way you view stress will affect your health. In an eight-year study, “adults who reported a lot of stress in their lives were more likely to die, but only if they thought stress was harmful.” Over a hundred thousand Americans may have died prematurely, “not from stress, but from the belief that stress is bad for you,” says health psychologist Kelly McGonigal.

Stress is a signal that something matters to you. An experiment led by the Stanford psychologist Alia Crum, found that people who had only 10 minutes to prepare a speech, simply reframed the stress response as healthy and it was enough to relax them.

Increase mindfulness by removing absolute thinking. By changing “is” to “could be,” you open up yourself to the possibilities that there are more options available. Mindfulness helps us see that there are many different ways of doing things. We see opportunities not difficulties.