Emotion Regulation Meditation Audio

Emotional regulation meditation audio can indeed reduce anxiety susceptibility by about 40% after 8-12 weeks of regular use - this data comes from a large-sample controlled study on mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in the 2022 JAMA Psychiatry sub-journal. For ordinary people, there is no need to worry about genres and professionalism. As long as you choose audio that matches your emotional state and tolerance, it can become an "emotional pause button" that you carry with you, helping you to withdraw from the emotional storm in a few seconds to ten minutes and avoid making impulsive decisions.

I have been involved in meditation-related work for almost 7 years, and have listened to no less than 300 such audios. I have stepped into more pits than I have dug up. The most intuitive feeling is that the "Global Top 10 Meditation Audios" and "Must-Listen Healing Sounds" on the Internet have no reference value at all. I have seen too many people rush to download the most praised audios, and after listening to it for 30 seconds, they feel that the guide's voice is so noisy that they have a headache and make them even more irritated.

I met a girl who works in Internet operations at a meditation experience camp before. She just had an acute anxiety reaction due to continuous overtime work. She randomly searched for a popular meditation on the Internet, which included the chirping of birds and the white noise of running water. She was already sensitive to sounds at that time, and she almost cried after listening to it for 2 minutes. She said that she felt like ten thousand birds were chirping in her head. Later, she was given a short audio that only guided breathing without any background sound. After listening to it for three minutes, she said that the tightness in her chest was relieved.

You may have read a lot of popular science saying that "only mindfulness-oriented meditation is scientific." This statement is actually a bit one-sided. Nowadays, the mainstream emotion regulation meditation audios have taken two completely different paths. The industry has been arguing for many years and there is no unified conclusion.

One type is under the Kabat-Zinn mindfulness system. The core is "awareness and non-judgment". It will not guide you to "forget about troubles". Instead, it will make you focus on the feelings of the body, such as "Now feel if your shoulders are tight?" Do you feel any tightness in your chest? ”, even if you realize that you are thinking about bad things, it doesn’t matter, just bring it back to your breathing. Practitioners of the mindfulness school always feel that another type of hypnosis-oriented audio is "escape from emotions", which is equivalent to putting a lid on emotions, and they will still explode later.

But it has to be said that for many people who are already trapped in emotions and cannot even concentrate for 10 seconds, hypnosis-oriented audio is more useful. This type of hypnosis follows the Erickson hypnosis system, and most of them will guide you through specific scenes, such as taking you to walk on a warm beach, or going back to your grandmother's old yard when you were a child, and smelling the fragrance of osmanthus. It will first pull you out of the current pain, and then talk about awareness after your emotions have calmed down. Last year I met a girl who had just lost her love and couldn't even get out of bed. It was impossible to ask her to sit down and notice "where the sadness is in the body." Instead, she listened to hypnosis audio with scene guidance for half a month, and she was able to cry slowly, and then she was willing to try mindfulness content.

There is really no need to worry about which type is higher-level, adapting to the scene is the most important thing. For example, if you feel angry after taking the subway in the morning and have a morning meeting soon, don't look for a 20-minute long audio. Search for a 3-minute "anchored breathing" version without unnecessary background sounds. Just follow the guide and count your breaths. Listen for 2 minutes with headphones, which is enough to suppress the anger in your mouth. ； If you work overtime at night and come home, and your mind is still full of unread messages and unfinished plans while lying in bed, you can find a hypnosis guide that lasts about 10 minutes. It doesn’t matter if it includes some soft white noise, which can help you get out of your working state.

Many people always criticize themselves when they first listen to it, saying, "Why am I always distracted, am I not suitable for meditation?" There was a back-end student who listened to it three times before. Every time, his mind wandered and he thought about uncorrected bugs. Instead, he became more anxious and felt that he could not even "relax" well. In fact, there are not so many requirements. It is so normal to be distracted. As long as you can realize "Oh, I was distracted just now" and then bring your attention back to the guidance voice, this action itself is training your emotional regulation ability. Even if you do it twenty times in 10 minutes, you will still make money.

There is no need to engage in any sense of ritual. You have to find a quiet room to sit cross-legged and light an aromatherapy before listening to the meditation audio. Wearing headphones to listen while commuting, lying down at the table with your eyes closed before a meeting, or even playing it as background sound while you are cooking are all useful. Setting too many rules will only put extra pressure on yourself and put the cart before the horse.

The criteria for judging whether the audio is suitable for you is very simple. If you feel uncomfortable listening to the leader's voice in the first 30 seconds of listening, it will be useless even if it is jointly produced by Harvard and Yale. I once had a student who was particularly sensitive to the voice of smoke. There was an internationally renowned meditation instructor who happened to have a voice of smoke. She felt her chest felt tight every time she listened to it. Later, she switched to a free audio of a female instructor with a soft voice, and she relaxed quickly every time she listened to it.

I have two audios stored in my phone all year round. One is a 1-minute breath anchor. Last time I had an argument with the product department, I hid in the fire escape and listened to it again. I swallowed the "you go, you go" that was on my lips. Later, I thought about it. I was really lucky, otherwise the docking work would have been awkward for half a month.； The other one was a 15-minute "safe house" guide. The last project I was responsible for failed. I listened to it while hiding at home and crying. I quickly stabilized and was able to get up and order a bowl of my favorite snail noodles.

In fact, you really don’t need to think too much about this type of audio. It is not a magic medicine that can cure all diseases, it is just a small tool that is convenient for you to carry around. You don’t have to force yourself to clock in and listen to it every day. When you get emotional, just take it out and listen to it for a few minutes. It will stop you from saying hurtful things in anger and making impulsive decisions late at night. It’s worth it. Oh, yes, a final reminder, don’t buy the “emotional healing meditation package” that costs hundreds of dollars. Most of the free audios issued by formal psychological institutions on the Internet are sufficient. If you really want to pay, first listen to a trial class for 30 seconds, and then decide whether to spend money. Don’t pay the IQ tax.