Manage Your Stress With Conscious Meditation

One late August afternoon, I found myself smack in the middle of an all-too-familiar horror story: rush hour traffic in LA. Sun beating down, nothing moving, trapped in a sea of frustrated drivers, and running late to an important meeting — I was getting stressed out. Suddenly, an article I read that morning about the Menla Conference (an ultimate living and longevity conference of scholars, doctors, and Tibetan Monks) popped into my head. One of their main topics was the benefit of meditation.

Now, this wasn”t the first thing I had read about meditating. For years, I”d been encountering proof of its many benefits, but I still had not regularly stuck to a routine. Today was the day. Sitting in my car, I decided to try a simple counting and breath meditation. Breathe in deeply, exhale, count, and repeat. Within a minute, I was already feeling better. After five minutes, I was calm and focused. With that short meditation, I was able to completely change my outlook. That was my first real experience at managing my stress with conscious meditation and proof positive that I wanted more meditation in my life.

Since then, I have gone on to use meditation as a powerful healing tool in my life and use it with my clients. It”s a virtual panacea of healing.


5-Minute Meditation

♦ Inhale deep into your belly below the belly button.

♦ Then breathe out. Do this several times. Then on the exhale start counting to 3, 4 or 5.

♦ On the inhale, count back down to 1.

♦ Do this for 5 minutes. It”s that simple!


Challenge Yourself

Commit to 30 days of doing this once in the morning, once in the evening, and at any point when you notice you’re feeling stressed out. If you are moved to do a longer meditation, then do it either in the morning or evening. In a longer setting, continue counting down on the exhale.

Example: Inhale deep into your belly below the belly button. Exhale and count to five. Inhale. Exhale and count to five. Inhale. Exhale and count to five. And so on. The amount of counting you do on the exhale can be random, but should pick up where you left off on the last breath.