The Mental Exercise that Calms the Mind and Refocuses the Brain

What are you doing to combat the stress in your life?

How are you dealing with the high pressure of our modern fast-paced life—or are you dealing at all?

So many people suffer from high levels of anxiety, stress, depression, and mental fatigue as a result of their busy, hectic lives filled with what can feel like endless hours of work, social media, grim news, dark world events, and the cares and responsibilities we all carry.

But did you know that one simple mental exercise can do wonders to calm your mind and refocus your brain?

That’s what we’ll take a closer look at in this blog post. By the end, you’ll be fully armed with the game-changing technique that will banish your stress and worries and improve your cognitive function.

The Highly Potent Mental Exercise for a Healthier Brain: Guided Imagery

What is Guided Imagery?

Guided imagery is a relaxation technique involving the creation of positive or uplifting mental pictures and scenes [1].

Also called visualization or guided meditation, it’s a technique commonly used by psychotherapists to great effect. However, it’s a technique that can be self-taught and easily put into practice even without medical expertise. And as the science proves, it’s highly effective for banishing anxiety, reducing stress, and enhancing focus.

The Science Behind Guided Imagery

Guided imagery works to calm your mind and body on a number of levels.

To begin with, through the deep breathing techniques that typically accompany guided imagery, you can slow your heart rate, lower your blood pressure, and activate your parasympathetic nervous system which triggers your internal “rest and repair” mechanisms.

The guided imagery is also excellent for clearing stressful thoughts and worries from your mind. When you’re focused on the peaceful, beautiful, or uplifting scene or image you’re picturing, you leave no mental space for stressful thoughts. It’s a highly effective way to regain control over anxieties that could otherwise cause your mind to spin out.

A lot of research has gone into examining just how well guided imagery works. According to the data, guided imagery can have an impressive number of benefits, including:

• Reducing preoperative anxiety and post-operative pain [2]

• Improving hypertension, particularly in pregnant women [3]

• Lowering blood cortisol levels (an indicator of stress), especially around stressful circumstances, such as surgery [4]

• Reducing the pain caused by chronic and acute illnesses [5]

• Managing pain following medical and surgical procedures, even without the use of medications [6]

• Lowering overall stress levels and improving mood [7]

• Combatting and controlling anxiety and mood disorders [8]

• Helping people successfully quit smoking [9]

• Fighting depression [10]

• Improving sleep quality and decreasing insomnia risks [11]

• Combatting sleep disorders and disruptions [12]

• Enhance focus and concentration, particularly among children with ADHD [13]

Based on all that research, it’s pretty clear to see that guided imagery can be highly effective for improving your life in every way. From pain management to stress reduction, anxiety control to improving your mood, the science has proven that it works.

A Closer Look at Guided Imagery

The actual imagery itself isn’t very important; what really matters is that you follow the steps and use the images and the relaxation techniques to calm your mind and body.

That being said, there are a few things that can help you improve the efficiency of this guided meditation so you get the best results for the time and effort you invest into the practice.

What to Focus On in Your Guided Meditations

The one piece of advice that every expert will give you is that you should focus on a scene that makes you happy and improves your mood.

• For some people, that will be someplace tropical: a beach, a jungle waterfall, or a rainforest filled with wildlife.

• For others, it will be a mountain they climbed or have always wanted to climb, with views of the world spread out all around them.

• Some people will absolutely love envisioning themselves surrounded by water—for example, on a lake or in the middle of the ocean. But the water will be calm and soothing, a comfort rather than a danger.

• Some will want to envision internal imagery, such as their body fighting off some infection plaguing them or some tension in their muscles slowly relaxing and the pain easing.

• For many, guided imagery is used to visualize future successes: winning a big game, closing a critical deal, even a future in which you have successfully quit smoking or drinking.

What matters is that you have something to focus on, an image or picture to hold in your mind. That is what will make the guided meditation effective and keep you grounded in the image rather than drowning in your worries or anxieties.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Guided Imagery

If you want to give it a try yourself, here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Get somewhere comfortable

Sit on a comfortable chair or lie down in your bed. Being physically comfortable is crucial for allowing your mind to relax and staying focused on the image rather than any aches, pains, or physical sensations.

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Step 2: Close your eyes

Closing your eyes blocks out the world around you and makes it easier to focus on the mental image you are trying to conjure.

Note: Some people like to keep their eyes open to focus on a specific image, such as a printed photo of a pastoral scene, mountaintop, or beach. If that works for you, use it.

Step 3: Breathe

Slow, deep breaths are a critical component of guided meditation. Deep breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system and puts your body into a relaxed state. It will lower your cortisol and adrenaline levels and shut off your body’s stress response that keeps your mind in a state of overactivity.

Step 4: Picture your desired image

Go to that “happy place” in your mind, be it the beach, a mountaintop, a beautiful forest, or the middle of the ocean. Start off just focusing on the big-picture details until you feel yourself beginning to become grounded in the scene.

Step 5: Pay attention to smaller details

As you settle into the mental image, start paying attention to the smaller details:

• the singing of birds

• the noises of the forest

• the wind rushing across your face on the mountaintop

• the sound of the waves crashing on the beach

• the warmth of the sun on your face

• the colors and sensations around you

The more you focus on the minute details, the more you will become drawn into the scene and the more real it will feel.

Step 6: Stay in the moment as long as you can

You can set yourself a timer or you can linger in the image for as long as feels comfortable to you. Typically, 10 to 15 minutes is enough to calm your mind and body, but you can meditate for as little as 5 minutes or as much as an hour and enjoy the physiological and psychological benefits.

Step 7: Return to the present

Open your eyes and slowly return to your surroundings. Give yourself a minute or two to come out of the mental image. Focus on the sensations in your body just like you did on the image you conjured. A slow return to normal will help you become more conscious of your mind and body in reality and keep you calm and grounded as you go about your day.

Wrapping Up

Guided meditation can be a game-changer for your mind and body.

As the science proves, it can combat pain, decreasing anxiety, improve your mood, and help you focus.

By spending just a few minutes every day following the steps we shared above, you can combat the stressors and worries that threaten to interfere with your happy, healthy, balanced life.

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