There was once a time in my life when I was constantly anxious and overwhelmed with stress. This time was my junior year of high school. There wasn't one thing about that year that didn't agitate me; between SAT prep, keeping my grades up, taking my driver's license test, thinking about colleges and preparing to apply to schools, I had my fair share of stress.

I won't go on and on about how much this stress and anxiety affected my life. However, I will say that, at certain times, my anxiety was so crippling that I didn't feel like myself anymore. My body started acting differently; just to name a few symptoms, I was shaking more often, had a hard time sleeping, and barely had an appetite.

I told my school nurse about my troubles whenever I felt overwhelmed by my emotions while on campus. She told me that I should start to meditate and listen to relaxing music. Even though I told her I would try it, my immediate thought was that it wouldn't work. Yoga and meditation always used to sound so overrated to me; I thought that the only people who could benefit from them were professional yogis.

However, as I felt more and more rattled by my stress, I told my doctor about what was going on. She also told me that a really good course of action would be to try to start meditating. She said that it would take some getting used to, and that, like most things, better results and performance come with more and more practice. She told me that a type of meditation that would probably benefit me the most was called 'mindfulness'.

I started to research how to meditate for beginners and the benefits of meditation. Even though my doctor told me the general idea of mindfulness, I made sure to research it as well. I found a bunch of articles and video tutorials online about meditating and the practice of mindfulness, as well as many YouTube videos of guided meditations and calming music.

The most simple way I can explain mindfulness is: grounding yourself and your mindset in the present, disregarding any worries or thoughts that aren't concerning the current moment. When we start to stress out and have anxiety, we feel attacked because we are thinking about things that have happened in the past or things that we are worried about happening in the future. This is not living in the present.

Being mindful is all about being aware of your surroundings as they are in the present moment. A really popular exercise that I started using, and still use to this day, is a technique in which you acknowledge the things around you. Very simply, you take mental notes of five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. You can obviously modify this as you practice it, but the general idea remains the same: being conscious of your present surroundings.

All meditation requires patience and practice. I find that I get more out of meditating when I practice it daily, even on the days where I feel secure in myself. If you only meditate when you feel in desperate need for peace, your body won't be as quick to calm itself. It is when meditation is practiced repeatedly, during anxiety and calmness, that your body begins to train itself to self-calm when meeting situations that induce stress and anxiety.

It's unreasonable to assume that as soon as you start meditating that your stress and anxiety will disappear from your life completely and forever. Even though anxiety doesn't disrupt my life like it used to, there are still times where I get stressed out and nervous. Everyone is bound to get flustered or aggravated by something that is a cause of anxiety or stress.

Meditation, and even just getting into the habit of listening to relaxing music on a somewhat regular basis, is such a valuable thing you can give to your body and mind. In my experience, I'm able to easily and quickly shake off any anxiety or stress that I encounter because of meditation. There is no way that I would be able to quickly calm myself down after getting flustered about all the tests I have coming up if it wasn't for my body getting used to meditation.

It only takes a few minutes a day to train your body to meditate and practice mindfulness. If you don't have the time to completely push aside what you have to do, you can always put on some spa music from Spotify or YouTube. I listen to a yoga music playlist while doing my homework and studying to keep me calm and focused; I swear by its results.

I promise that however anxious or stressed you may feel, you are going to get through whatever is making you feel this way. Keep in mind that your thoughts can be changed and disregarded as easily as they're formed. Most importantly, know that thoughts about the past or future have no power over you; always be present, take it one step at a time, and live in the moment!