There is no
doubt that stress plays a major role in all of our lives. Stress can
actually have a major impact and our body's reaction to it is not necessarily
always a bad thing. If you think about our development as a species, we use
stress and the 'fight or flight' response to ward off predators to stay
alive. Of course, when the predators are a fear of losing a job or
failing a test of some sort, that same mechanism of dealing with stress can be
a problem. That's why relaxation techniques like meditation can
help. According to a report in the International Journal of
Psychophysiology, meditation might help protect college students against stress
and improve their ability to learn. It makes sense and during the formal
study, students who meditated showed positive results on brain studies
including greater breadth of planning, thinking, and perception of the
environment.
