By Jillian Lavender
Meditation is a powerful tool to settle your mind and reset your system. The good news is it’s easy. If you can think, you can meditate.
Not so long ago, meditation was a word that conjured up images of robes, long hair and lots of beads. Not anymore. An extensive body of research verifies the importance of this ancient technique to reset the mind and body.
All sorts of people meditate. They carve out a little time each day to sit and close the eyes. The deep rest positively impacts health, energy and emotional resilience.
Stress is a universal human experience
Living in this rapidly changing world means we’re all subjected to demands we weren’t dealing with even a few decades ago. As we scramble to keep up, the mind is often left in a state of overload.
How you respond to these demands will determine how much you’re affected by stress. The question is not whether you will experience stress in your life. You will. Stress is a universal human experience. If you live a ‘normal’ life you will experience stress and fatigue.
In my teaching and lecturing on meditation, I speak a lot about stress and the effect it has on emotional and physical wellbeing. Often, I’m asked, ‘What’s the best way to manage stress?’ I quickly respond: ‘I’m not into managing stress. I’m into eliminating stress.’
The answer is not how to avoid or simply cope. Attempting to merely manage stress implies that it’s something we have to learn to live with. This is not my starting point. You don’t have to constantly be in a reactive state, living with chronic tension and tiredness. There is a way to get ahead of the game and have a tool that allows you to release stress faster than you gain it.
What is stress?
Whenever the body is faced with an emergency, put under pressure or threatened, it goes into a stress reaction. This is known as the ‘fight-or-flight response’. In that moment of demand the body preps for a binary response – either escape or do battle.
The fight-or-flight response is governed by the sympathetic nervous system. Immediately the heart rate speeds up and blood pressure rises. Breathing picks up, the pupils of the eyes dilate, muscles begin to tense and the skin starts to perspire. The adrenal glands enlarge and start to secrete cortisol. Blood glucose levels increase. The body is on high alert and begins diverting resources towards survival.
The brain changes its activity and shunts a lot of computing power to other functions. This means the body’s self-healing mechanisms are put on hold. For example, combating viruses is not important when you’re fighting or fleeing. So macrophage production stops. Similarly, T-cell production is important in killing cancer cells. However, when you’re stressed this is no longer the top priority.
Historically, this response was essential when faced with an acute life-threatening emergency. Thankfully today we’re rarely in such extreme physical danger. However, the nature of modern life triggers a cycle of chronic stress reactivity. It might be driving your car in traffic, dealing with a tricky customer, or falling out with someone at work. These day-to-day situations can result in a state of permanent overload. Clearly this isn’t good for us.
The power of a daily reset
The nature of modern living guarantees you will get stressed. But there’s a big difference between getting stressed and staying stressed. The crucial question is how quickly can you reset and recover?
Homeostasis is a scientific term. It describes the tendency of a biological structure to maintain equilibrium. How quickly and effectively can you return your system to a state of homeostatic balance?
Knowing how to reset is empowering. Because it is possible to reverse the impact of stress and trauma. Deep rest is the state that allows for this recovery and reset.
There are many different ways to gain a sense of equilibrium. However there are three factors that will have the greatest impact on your ability to come back to balance.
Firstly, how deeply can you settle your nervous system? Secondly, how quickly can you do this? And lastly, how consistently can you make it happen?
Meditation is a tool to deliver on all of three of these.
How does meditation help reduce stress?
Meditation works by doing the opposite of what happens when we get stressed.
When the body rests it automatically dissolves accumulated tensions and returns to balance.
Meditation brings deep rest to the system on a daily basis. Within a few minutes of meditation you can be resting deeper than sleep.
I teach a particular style called Vedic Meditation. It is a simple mental technique practiced sitting comfortably with the eyes closed and the back supported. You silently think to yourself a simple sound that we call a mantra. As you think the mantra it draws the mind to a more settled state. As thinking becomes quieter, the body begins to rest very deeply. After about 20 minutes you slowly come out of the meditation feeling mentally clear, emotionally balanced and physically rested. We typically practice Vedic Meditation twice each day – before breakfast and before dinner.
The whole process is easy and straightforward. You don’t have to change your lifestyle. There’s no need to take on a belief system or adopt a new philosophy on life. There’s no chanting, no beads, no background music and no internet connection required. You can meditate on a train, on the sofa or at the office – anywhere you can safely sit and close the eyes.
This is a technique for everyone. You don’t have to sit around for hours every day or withdraw to a forest retreat for a week. In fact, the opposite: by taking a few minutes for a daily reset you engage in life with more energy and clarity.
Conclusion
In a world that feels increasingly agitated, finding ways to rest and reset is one of the most important things we can do. Because resetting is good for you. Good for your health, your focus, your emotional state and your decision making.
Meditation is a practical and powerful tool to dissolve stress and come back to balance. And when done properly it works. It isn’t weird. Scientific evidence backs it up. Anyone can do it. It will positively change the way you feel and perform.
About the Author
Jillian Lavander is co-founder of the London Meditation Centre and New York Meditation Centre. Her new book Do Reset: Meditate. Move Beyond Thinking has been shortlisted for a Business Book Award 2026.
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