High on stress but pressed for time and feeling overwhelmed? Wondering how you’re going to get it all done? Wishing you could just sit and relax? We hear you. Try this 5-minute meditation themed around acceptance and experience calm, now!

5-minute meditation for acceptance and stress relief

Why is acceptance one of the best stress reducers?

Practicing acceptance allows you to release stress rather than generate it. It might feel like the opposite of what you want to do, but acceptance is an effective strategy for feeling happier and more relaxed.

When we accept a person or a situation that we find challenging, we are able to let go of the resistance that creates stress and tension. There’s a lot of truth in the saying that “what we resist, persists.”

Life presents a number of stressful situations​. Perhaps you’re stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way home after a stressful meeting and your babysitter just called you to cancel an hour before you could reach home. Or your boss just told you to finish the report that you are working on by end of the day. Sound familiar? 

How to avoid stressing out? Accept and breathe!

Instead of saying to yourself “I don’t want to be stressed,” we can say, “I accept that I am really stressed and I am feeling angry at my babysitter and boss”. 

Acceptance reduces stress because it helps you manage your emotions. The source of stress is not just the situation or person you think is stressing you out, it’s the emotion that the situation or person is stirring in you. If you deny or resist those distressing emotions, or ignore them, then you can amplify stress. It helps to be in charge of your emotions, rather than your emotions being in charge of you. Then you can drop stress. And acceptance is a fast route to get there.

Even a recent study suggests that practicing acceptance helps reduce our stress more than simple mindful awareness. 

Acceptance is not passivity, it is perspective. It is a choice.

I’m not saying you should be passive or never make an effort to avoid or change something that is bothering you or that you don’t like. Practicing acceptance works more to give you space where you can proactively respond to the situation rather than react to it. This helps to lower your stress levels. Acceptance puts you in the driver’s seat. Resistance puts the other person or situation in control of yourself. Practicing acceptance is often what allows you to be ready and able to make a necessary change. Accepting the reality of a hard situation allows you to be open. This allows your own in-built compassion and wisdom to flow and equips you with strength and poise to deal with the situation gracefully. 

Remember that stress is an unavoidable part of life, but feeling stressed and suffering is optional.

How does meditation practice help with acceptance?

You may say that practicing acceptance is not easy. I agree with you. That is where breathing and meditation can help.

Is meditating for 5-minutes enough? What it can do for me?

If your life is too busy at the moment to meditate for longer then you can begin with a five-minute guided meditation practice. Many meditators have reported that even just five minutes of meditation a day helps to 

• clear their mind

• improve their mood and mindfulness

• boost brain function, reduce stress

• slow down the aging process

• support a healthy metabolism

Some days you may have more time to meditate, and other days you may have less. Some days your mind may wander more while other days you may experience a greater sense of peace. Really, the busier we are, the more we need to make time for these moments of stillness and peace.

If you are new to meditation, this Meditation for Beginners guide will be super useful to you. It has lots of practical tips and will help you get started with meditation. 

Learn SKY Breath Meditation with a trained meditation teacher

SKY Breath Meditation is a short 10-minute practice that uses a  powerful and transformative combination of breathwork and meditation. SKY practitioners report:

• A reduction in stress hormone levels by 56.6% within two weeks

• 21% increase in life satisfaction within one week

• Significant increase in optimism levels in four weeks

If you would like to know more about SKY, do join us for a free introductory session. A trained meditation teacher will facilitate the session for you and would also answer any questions you have about SKY. You can join it at your convenience from the comfort of your own home. Click the image below to sign up!