Mediation is a very popular coping skill and way to regulate emotions. Meditating helps you gain a new perspective on stressful situations. Meditation also reduces negative emotions and increase self awareness. This coping strategy can aid in increasing patience and tolerance. On a more scientific level, meditation can create more gray matter in the brain. Having more gray matter in the hippocampus can lead to more positive emotions and long lasting emotional stability. It can also help one focus better.
A few types of meditation:
- Guided meditation: meditation session conducted with verbal instruction from a teacher
- Moving meditation: quieting the mind and giving direct undivided attention to what you are doing
- Sensory meditation: involves focusing the mind on sights, tastes, sounds, and other physical stimuli.
It is important to determine what kind of meditation works for you, which may include utilizing more than one type of meditation. Sometimes you may not have a quiet room to sit in and may have to deploy a different meditation strategy.