Well-Being

I Meditated Every Day for a Month to Get My Anxious Mind to STFU

Could 30 days of meditating be the secret to obliterating stress?

by Mary Squillace | COMMENT

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It was my favorite part of yoga: savasana — or as I liked to think of it, "supervised napping." A soft, pleasing song played from the speakers in the front of the studio, and the smell of lavender permeated the air, as my limber teacher instructed the class to relax our bodies and quiet our minds.

I took some deep breaths. "I'm relaxing," I told myself, hoping that thinking it will make it true. But soon, my mind wandered to my to-do list. Then, I began to ponder the likelihood of North Korea nuking LA. Before I knew it, I was tabulating my monthly expenses, until my yoga teacher called the class back to attention. By this time my shoulders were knotted with tension, and I had so many thoughts rattling in my head, I could hardly hear the instructor's final send-off.

This had become my reality lately. Between balancing day-to-day stresses, living in an age where each New York Times news alert is more distressing than the last and tackling some big life changes (namely pregnancy and a move), I found myself so sidetracked by my whirring mind, that I'd often arrive at work with little memory of my commute, and my default physical state involved a racing heart and a clenched jaw.

Clearly, I needed help. So like any good millennial raised on a steady media diet of 30-day challenges, I decided that I would take up meditating for a month to see if I could calm my brain.

Image via Westend61/Getty

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