Zen Meditation for Overcoming Anxiety

Zen meditation is a form of meditation where mindfulness is still incorporated. Also commonly known as Zazen, Zen meditation can help you deal with negative emotions like stress and anxiety. Give how fast-paced our world is today, most of us have trouble staying in the present moment. As a result, there’s a higher tendency to be consumed by our anxiety for what the future holds or something that happened in the past, which can hold us back from living our lives. With mindfulness, you’ll be able to overcome your anxiety better and regain control over your life. In this article, we’ll be talking about certain tips on zen meditation for overcoming anxiety.

Tips on zen meditation for overcoming anxiety

• Choose the right environment
  With any type of meditation, the environment plays a significant role. If you’re in an environment where you can easily be distracted by your surroundings, your zen meditation will easily be interrupted. Choose a place where you feel most at peace and relaxed with yourself as it’s all about the art of breathing and clearing your mind to help you focus in the present moment better. Most often than not, the ideal place of meditation is somewhere both quiet and relaxed – a place where you’re unashamed to show your true self.

• Let your mind be
  The reason why this type of meditation works for your anxiety is you let the thoughts come. The misconception about meditation as a whole is that it’s a breathing practice aimed to control your thoughts so you’ll never have bad ones – which is just a false concept. Zen meditation is about allowing your mind to wander to wherever it wants to go and just being aware of those thoughts. You’re silently and calmly watching your thoughts enter your mind, even your most anxious ones, and this is how you regain back control over your mind and anxiety. Don’t try to repress or control your thoughts as this defeats the entire purpose of your meditation.

• Breathe naturally
  It’s fairly easy to be very conscious of your way of breathing during meditation but you have to breathe as naturally as you can. Don’t manipulate your breathing or control your breathing in any way, but let it run its own course. Your breathing pattern should come directly from your diaphragm and into your lungs – that’s how you’ll know you’re breathing properly. Your breaths should also be too fast or too slow, but at an average pace.

• Go easy on yourself
  If you’re a beginner with zen meditation or even meditation as a whole, you can’t expect to get it right the first time around. We live in a world where there’s too much noise so when you’re in a state of quiet and calmness, it can feel unusual for you. You should also remember to not immerse yourself in a meditation that feels too long for you, especially as you’re still learning about meditation and mindfulness as a whole. Striving for perfection is a recipe for disaster so what’s important is you tried your best. Start with a 5-minute meditation first to avoid getting overwhelmed on your first try.

Why is zen meditation important for overcoming anxiety?

One of the common causes of anxiety is something that you can’t let go of in the past or obsessing over the uncertainty of the future. Both these aspects are difficult to deal with, but the mindfulness practice is letting your thoughts – even your anxious and negative thoughts – come. Only in having the acceptance of your thoughts can you let these thoughts go for good. Meditation, specifically zen meditation, gives you the state of inner peace and clarity to stay in the present moment instead of dwelling on either the past or the future. This is why mindfulness is so great to incorporate not just in your meditation, but in your way of life.

In conclusion, I hope this article was able to shed insight into zen meditation for overcoming anxiety. When you make mindfulness into not just a daily routine but a way of life, you’ll find that you’re more in control of your anxiety and thoughts rather than the other way around.