Can Meditation CURE anxiety? Or any other technique?

[Recursoinominado]

Last few years my anxiety level up a few notchs, maybe because of the pandemic, long covid, i don't know.

6/10 on a good day. 9/10 on a bad one.

It is basically a awful feeling in my belly/chest area that i can't get rid of.

This is really bothering me.

Had this as long as i remember, to be honest, but this is no way to live.

[Snuitje]

In meditation you realize it's just a story.

I don't know how your life is or where the problem could be. Based on this very limited info I can't really give more then: it's just a story in the mind. I don't know how psychological healthy you are etc, otherwise I could go deeper with this.

[Recursoinominado]

4 minutes ago, Snuitje said:

In meditation you realize it's just a story.

I know that in theory, but that's your direct experience? Have you healed chronic anxiety or something?

My health is ok, everything i could do as health goes, i did it.

This anxiety is a lifelong thing.

[Federico del pueblo]

@Recursoinominado  is it general sort of vague anxiety or specific anxiety in response to specific triggers/situations?

In general meditation is said to be effective in reducing anxiety, mostly due to neuroplastic changes in the brain, like a decrease of activity in the fear center of the brain (the amygdala in the limbic system) and strengthening of the prefrontal cortex which is involved in the down regulation of irrational fear responses from the amygdala. So basically your brain becomes more balanced from meditation.

But it's important to understand that if your anxiety has significant roots in traumatic incidents or developments (especially during childhood) then you will probably also have to do more specific work, like trauma release techniques, UNLESS you become extremely advanced in meditation, because these memories and the formed associations are a root cause of your current anxiety even if the anxiety seems vague and unrelated (random).

Edited May 16, 2023 by Federico del pueblo

[Recursoinominado]

@Federico del pueblo

Its both general, constant and triggered by specific situations like siting to read, write, intelectual, slow and tedious work in general.

I am diagnosed with TDAH, so you can guess how it is...

I would bet it is due to early trauma. Had a very stressful childhood and family situation.

All my family has severe anxiety or worse.

[Yimpa]

What heals anxiety is deepening your love. Start to appreciate even the stuff that you dislike, even if you can only love it a little bit right now.

You’ll not only start to be more in tune with yourself, but you’ll even reinterpret the feeling or image you label as anxiety or anxiety provoking.

[Federico del pueblo]

So you mean "trastorno por déficit de atención con hiperactividad" with TDAH, as in adhd? ?

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I would bet it is due to early trauma. Had a very stressful childhood and family situation.

All my family has severe anxiety or worse.

 

Sure. This suggests that some specific work is necessary, apart from meditation.

I don't know how you view the use of psychedelic substances, but I can just quickly tell you about my own experiences with lsd in the context of dealing with a chronic stress condition,  which is a dysfunction of the nervous system.

In my moderately dosed lsd trips tons and tons of stress come to the surface, it's like I open a barrel filled with stress and then the stress can flow out of it. My body reacts so strongly that I'm lying on the matrice twitching like a fish on land who's struggling because of the oxygen deficiency.

I don't even get to where forgotten childhood incidents become conscious again because there is so much current or recent stress that comes up and gets abreacted by the body. It feels very healing though, like the anxiety is flowing out of me.

So maybe you'd like to contemplate if that's an option for you too (be modest on the doses though, especially in the beginning). You'd have to research whether with your specific mental health challenge you'd be at an increased risk of suffering adverse effects from psychedelic states.

Apart from that, meditation combined with some kind of regression therapy and maybe emotional freedom techniques (Eft) is what I would suggest.

[Recursoinominado]

25 minutes ago, Federico del pueblo said:

So you mean "trastorno por déficit de atención con hiperactividad" with TDAH, as in adhd? ?

lol sure, sorry, TDAH is the term in portuguese.

27 minutes ago, Federico del pueblo said:

In my moderately dosed lsd trips tons and tons of stress come to the surface, it's like I open a barrel filled with stress and then the stress can flow out of it. My body reacts so strongly that I'm lying on the matrice twitching like a fish on land who's struggling because of the oxygen deficiency.

Nice! I have experience with psychedelics and have ayahuasca righ now in my fridge, will experiment with low to moderate doses to see if i can purge the stress out of my nervous system.

I am also thinking and researching about holotropic breathing, i did a few times but nothing consistent, maybe is time.

[Yimpa]

4 minutes ago, Recursoinominado said:

I am also thinking and researching about holotropic breathing, i did a few times but nothing consistent, maybe is time.

Have you looked into Wim Hof Breathing method?

[Federico del pueblo]

1 minute ago, Recursoinominado said:

Nice! I have experience with psychedelics and have ayahuasca righ now in my fridge, will experiment with low to moderate doses to see if i can purge the stress out of my nervous system.

Excellent!

2 minutes ago, Recursoinominado said:

I am also thinking and researching about holotropic breathing, i did a few times but nothing consistent, maybe is time.

Good idea, had the same experience myself (nothing happening in a holotropic breathing session), but it could in fact take several times.

Would be curious to know whether now, after having opened my unconscious mind several times with lsd, unconscious stuff would come to the surface more easily with holotropic breathing work ?

Feel free to report back here if either psychedelics or the breathwork yield any kind of results for you.