Using Meditation in Stress Management
A Brief Introduce of TM
I was introduced to a technique named Transcendental Meditation or TM to relief stress in workplace. In the last blog post, I have discussed the technique named Pomodoro technique and I was focusing on finding a good method suitable for an office environment to relieve stress.
I found a method named Transcendental Meditation in the book Management of Stress. David R. Frew claimed “ on basis of reduced oxygen consumption, heart rate, and changes in skin resistance, it was determined that the changes appeared to be in the direction of calmness, tranquility, or the reduction of the stress syndrome.”(Frew, 1977) In the other words, Transcendental Meditation will indeed make people clam and reduce the stress level which may reflected by the significant changes in their body. It is an effective method that could be applied in daily life to reducing the stress and increase the productivity.
Frew also claimed TM is a relatively simple method. He mentioned that “ meditators are told to practice TM for two twenty-minute periods daily. during these times, they are told to sit quietly in a relaxed position and to silently repeat their mantra.”(Frew, 1977) In this way, TM is an effortless technique which do not time consuming. The requirements and instructions of TM is simple and easy which is suitable for an office environment to use as a tool of stress management in workplace.
The practice of TM
I have tried this technique during the relax section within the Pomodoro sections. I found that during the 5 minute long transcendental meditation, it was easy to focus on in the first several minutes. And it did have some effect on clam myself down. However, I was often distracted by the task that I would do in the next section later on. Although I tried my best to settle down and conquer those negative mind related to pressures and stress, I still did not feel an obvious change towards this technique. Then I started to find an alternative meditation to the TM technique.
An Alternative Way — Guided Meditation
I tried a even much easier medication online, which is the guided meditation of mindfulness. I used a website named Clam, which is a website using nature sounds and instructions to help you do the daily meditation. Each section in the website is relatively short, most of them are only about 10 minutes long which is perfect for the relaxing period in the pomodoro. There is also a guided meditation section named 7 days of managing stress in the website which is suitable for the stress management. I felt so peaceful and clam when I came back to the tasks. I did not feel the anxiety that I had before the meditation. Also during the meditation, I can follow the instruction given by the narrator which makes me do the meditation step by step instead of thinking randomly by myself. I think this is a great way to relieve stress in workplace by taking few minutes doing a short section of guided meditation when you feel you are under great stress or anxiety.
Frew, D. (1977). Management of stress: Using TM at work. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
