It’s difficult to manage stress. Yet it’s possible to learn to become more aware of stressful situations and deal with them effectively before they escalate into a full scale episode. One form of meditation that I’ve found to be very effective in dealing with life’s challenges is mindfulness or insight meditation.

With insight meditation, the frustrations, stress, disappointments, anger, or other negative emotions that affect the mind and body negatively can be handled more effectively and simply. Setbacks can also be managed without causing the stress that so often leads to health conditions. In a way, you could think of insight meditation as a non-physical medicine that can help in meeting challenging situations with peace and grace.

When you begin to practice insight meditation, you find you are becoming more aware of your environment. You become more sensitive in perceiving the moment. By focusing more on the moment, you gradually learn to accept situations that are stressful as best you can, rather than avoid them. As you become aware of the internal state of your mind and emotions, you open yourself to being more accepting of these challenges without so much resistance.

With practice, you can train your mind to achieve a more tranquil state that is less affected by external forces. You aid the mind in developing the strength that comes from the consistent practice of cultivating more of a state of peacefulness.

The world sets a hectic pace, generally leaving people too busy with little or no time for meditating. But you can build a practice that becomes a habit to rely on in odd moments, beginning with setting aside a specific time, in a quiet place where you can be comfortable and undisturbed. Then it becomes easier to remind yourself, wherever you are, to simply choose to become still and observe yourself.

To begin, make yourself ready by simply sitting in an upright position, either in a chair or on the floor, and with or without your legs crossed. Just focus on your breathing, or on other physical and mental processes. This is designed to help you become aware of your present inner state: your feelings, emotions and thought patterns.

Always watch your breath; imagine that you’re breathing in spirit and when you exhale, you’re expressing spirit. Concentrate on the air as it passes in through your nose, down through your air passages, and into your lungs. Then reverse your attention when you breathe out; watch it as it leaves the lungs, flows up the air passages, and then slowly out through your nose. Focusing on your breath in this way can help you accomplish a sense of quiet peace. You’ll find your concentration beginning to shift away from challenges or other circumstances and becoming focused instead on whatever is your objective: on peace or some abstract or concrete thought, perhaps the contemplation of absolute reality.

This allows you to focus on your actions and thoughts, on your present situation, whatever it is, without judgment. This technique doesn’t encourage you to evaluate or think of your past actions, nor on the uncertainties of the future. Rather, it trains your mind to no longer be distracted by thoughts, feelings or emotions, or any on any external disturbances. You begin to relax your mind in a more focused way.

You can practice insight meditation informally through methods such as those just described, or perhaps more formally. Formal insight meditation can incorporate yogic breath and asanas, or physical poses, to help you become more aware and in better control of your breathing patterns while you’re physically moving. On the other hand, when you simply observe and begin to appreciate every life experience as it presents itself, you’re using an informal insight meditation.

The strategy in insight meditation, then, is introspection. You receive clear images of your inner thoughts and feelings. You achieve clear focused thought and balanced emotions while train your mind to perceive situations and more effectively.

While you may not get to say goodbye to all your problems using the insight meditation method, you can choose to deal with everything, even the happier moments, in a more balanced and healthy way!

For those wishing to deepen their understanding of Insight Meditation, I recommend Joseph Goldstein’s Abiding in Mindfulness Vol. 1 on the body, and Vol. 2 on feeling, the mind & dhamma. Here’s an offer to save 20% and shipping when you purchase both Volumes.

Also for your study is a full-length video (72 minutes) of Jon Kabat-Zinn leading a session on Insight or Mindfulness Meditation at Google. Jon is Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He teaches mindfulness meditation as a technique to help people cope with stress, anxiety, pain and illness. In this video, which is a full presentation and not simply a commercial like so many other internet videos you can easily find on this subject, he discusses mindfulness, leads a full mindfulness meditation session, and follows up by answering Google staff members’ questions.