Introduction
For many years I had recurring issues with stress.
Being worried and overwhelmed regularly kept me feelingdistracted, unproductive, and less emotionally connected to thepeople I loved. Just thinking about that time makes me want toreach back through a time tunnel and hug my past self!
Thankfully, there was one technique that truly helped me withmy anxiety. Actually, this technique pretty much saved me—andstill does.
It’s a type of meditation that taps into the five senses: sight,sound, touch, taste, and smell. I love doing these sensorymeditations—not only because they are fun, but also becausethey work incredibly effectively to calm my busy, chatteringmonkey mind.
As soon as I developed the practice of using these sensorymeditations, I started to feel more calm and confident—evenwhen a challenge would strike.
These sensory meditations work in a powerful and quick way because they direct your attention to one of your specific senses. This mental refocusing then happily distracts your brain from your worries—and retrains your brain to focus instead on the peace of the present moment.
I’m not the only one who loves and recommends sensory meditations as a method for relaxation. So do psychologists, yogis, neuroscientists, and university researchers. Often referred to as g
rounding tools, anchors, one-pointed meditations, or
concentration meditations, sensory meditations have been shown to offer many benefits. They can help
• relax the mind.
• encourage the mind to be more open to other choices and think in new ways.
• release the anxiety that might otherwise lead to stressinduced habits, like overeating and smoking.
• improve how quickly people learn.
• reset your brain and body to deal with anxiety from a place of inner strength and greater clarity—so that you stay calm and confident even in the midst of challenges.
• stop obsessive anxious thoughts.
• calm you quickly when you’re dealing with uncomfortable feelings, like anger, fear, grief, or self-loathing.
• retrain your brain to focus better—which means you’re more able to focus on solutions.
For all these reasons, meditation is regularly being prescribed by mainstream doctors as a tool to help patients combat stress, reduce high blood pressure, and even regulate hormone levels. These days lots of doctors and psychiatrists are recognizing the amazing powers of meditation to calm people down—and make them feel more balanced.
• Harvard researchers have reported that mindfulness meditation can increase cortical thickness in the brain’s hippocampus (the brain zone in charge of learning, memory, emotion regulation, and more). They also found that meditation reduces brain cell density in the amygdala (the region that helps trigger physical reactions to fear and anxiety, among other things).
• UCLA research has reported that meditation plumps up the gray matter volume throughout the brain, which can change your brain for the better, helping you to calm down and learn to focus more successfully during stressful times.
• A review of research at Johns Hopkins found that meditation seems to have as much effect as antidepressants when it comes to improving some symptoms of mild or moderate depression.
Unfortunately, a lot of people find meditation boring or hard to do. They complain that they feel restless and uneasy attempting to sit, be still, and meditate.
I confess: I was one of these people!
This is why I was so excited when I discovered these highly effective sensory meditations. They not only work—they also do not feel like work! It’s super fun to concentrate on your five senses—and far simpler to do than the most popular mainstream meditations, which mostly promote trying to concentrate on your breath.
Let me tell you—concentrating on taste, sound, smell, touch, and sight can actually be very enjoyable to do. And for me, it was a must that my stress-reducing method should be doable in a stress-free way!
These sensory meditations are all fun and simple good stuff—plus they are hugely effective at stopping a moving train of negative thoughts from plowing through your happy day.
Best of all, the feeling of inner peace that these tools bring comes swiftly because you can use these tools for as little as two minutes. In fact, if you’re a busy person, you will love how you can easily sneak these calming tools into your schedule. I still turn to these sensory meditations all the time when I’m on a work deadline or dealing with a surprise curveball challenge.
I’m excited to share these awesome sensory meditation tools with you so that you can learn to become a happier, more relaxed version of you. Let’s get started!
Copyright © 2019 by Karen Salmansohn. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
