Meditation can help anyone stay calm, during stressful moments or everyday occurrences.

It’s almost impossible to live stress-free nowadays. According to Science Alert, we’re in the midst of an anxiety epidemic in America, with people worrying over an assortment of truly stressful things, such as global warming, coronavirus and a deeply stressful political climate. Then there’s also traditional sources of anxiety, like finances, health, and family. If meditation is incorporated in our lives, it could provide some breathing room for everyone affected.

While meditation won’t get rid of any of your problems, research shows that it can significantly help you manage stress and anxiety. While your sources of stress will still be there, meditation will give you more tools to handle these situations.

Here are 5 types of meditation that can help you relax:

Mindful meditation

Mindful meditation is very popular and it’s all about increasing your awareness and connection to the present moment. The Mayo Clinic says that it’s a practice that encourages you to experience the moment of meditation and to focus on your breaths, the feel of your clothes and your feet touching the floor. This practice can be conducted anywhere and it encourages your mind not to wander.

Daily 5 minute guided meditation

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While meditating in moments of stress works, one thing that works even better is to make ourselves more calm from the get go. This can only be achieved by meditating everyday, even if it’s just for a couple of minutes. Use a guided app or a YouTube video and develop a routine that you can stick to, either by meditating in the morning or before you go to bed.

Mantra meditation 

Mantra meditation revolves around finding a calming word or phrase and holding onto it during times of stress, mentally repeating it until your other thoughts are drowned out. You can start off by saying the world out loud and then by repeating it only with your lips until you’ve internalized it. Thoughts will recur when first starting this process, just ignore them and focus on your word.

16 count resetting breath

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“If you can safely do so, close your eyes and focus on whatever is currently driving you nuts — in this case, probably your kid. Then breathe in for four seconds, hold your breath for four seconds, audibly exhale for four seconds, and breathe in for another four,” explains the Huffington Post. This practice encourages you to focus on your breathing and not on whatever it is that’s stressing you out, breaking the stress pattern and allowing you to act with less emotion.

Three breath hug

When fighting with a child, a friend or a partner, one trick that many people swear by is to hug them mid-meltdown, which is very weird but it’s easy to see why it’d work. While you’re hugging, take three deep breaths. As therapist Shonda Moralis explained to the Huffington Post, “It can be really calming in the middle of a meltdown.”