How To Eliminate Unnatural Stress

Meditation can compensate or substitute for the tranquility you would experience in a natural setting (like being in the woods, in the mountains, or on a deserted beach). The sounds and appearance of natural settings are soothing and comfortable. A natural environment is, of course, the environment we have evolved to live in.

Change a human being's environment to buildings and cars and strangers and time pressure and polyester and lots of extra mental and emotional stimulation from music and television, and your body is out of its element. And it reacts by feeling stressed. Cortisol and adrenaline start flowing. And they keep flowing without a break.

In a natural setting, it would not be all peace and harmony, of course. There would be times of great danger, of fear and anger. But those moments would be brief. And in between, the body would have the opportunity to settle down again and rejuvenate.

That's what meditation provides for a city-dweller. Meditation is a way to compensate for the unnatural setting we live in. And it works.

If you don't get enough moments of calm, you suffer. Stress has a thousand ways of showing up. And each one of those ways can be seen as a symptom of a "calmness deficiency." Like a vitamin C deficiency, the body can cope for awhile, but then the deficiency starts to show its negative impact.

If you can't take plenty of walks in the woods, or if you don't live near a quiet desert, or if you don't live out in the wilderness, you can compensate for your unnatural situation (and fulfill your need for a feeling of calmness) with meditation.

A lot of research has been done on the stress-reducing effect of meditation. Read more about that here. The results of the experiments show plainly that the symptoms of stress were caused by an insufficient number of moments of calmness and peace.

You don't have to be peaceful all the time to satisfy your need for calm. You just need enough of it. Daily meditation can provide that for you.

Learn how to meditate here: The Physical and Psychological Benefits of Mantra Meditation.

Adam Khan is the author of Slotralogy and co-author with Klassy Evans of What Difference Does It Make?: How the Sexes Differ and What You Can Do About It. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.