Paying attention to stressful thoughts may help you reduce them.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction is a strategy that involves becoming more self-aware of stress-provoking thoughts, accepting them without judgment or resistance, and allowing yourself the ability to process them (23Trusted Source).
Training yourself to be aware of your thoughts, breathing, heart rate, and other signs of tension helps you recognize stress when it begins (23Trusted Source).
By focusing on awareness of your mental and physical state, you can become an objective observer of your stressful thoughts, instead of a victim of them (24Trusted Source).
Recognizing stressful thoughts allows you to formulate a conscious and deliberate reaction to them. For example, a study involving 43 women in a mindfulness-based program showed the ability to describe and articulate stress was linked to a lower cortisol response (25Trusted Source).
Other studies have also shown lowered cortisol levels after regularly practicing mindfulness (26Trusted Source, 27Trusted Source, 28Trusted Source).
Therefore, try adding mindfulness-based practice to your daily routine for better stress management and reduced cortisol levels.
SUMMARYPracticing mindfulness can help you identify stressful thoughts and better manage them. Mindfulness-based practices such as meditation may help you reduce stress and lead to lower cortisol levels.
