Meditation is a big one. Related to that is learning how to think about things and forcing yourself to practice those ways of viewing things, which meditation improves your ability to do.
Meditation involves the process of clearing your mind of a lot of … let’s call it junk. If you don’t know the source of this junk, meditation is ineffective.
There is a process of locating the stressors in your life and either dealing with them or being at peace with them before you meditate. At this point meditation will be the most effective. Repeat the serenity phrase if needed.
And no, I never took structured classes. I was exposed to the research of the benefits and was like, well who am I to argue with science? I’ve seen some interesting contradicting research lately, but by and large a lot of the research suggests those Buddhists knew what they were talking about. You’d be starting at Phase 1 of this guide (the learning to watch step): http://www.dhammaloka.org.au/articles/item/576-the-basic-method-of-meditation.html
Incidentally I learned that even as an “athiest” (be careful using that word on here), I found a lot of benefit in Buddhism ways of reframing thinking (but there is a still a lot of nonsense accumulated over the years in Buddhism, which I ignore). I think meditation without those cognitive perspectives would be less effective.
This is untrue. There is no requirement for knowing the source of “the junk”, you might learn the source of the junk while meditating, or you might not. It’s irrelevant to mediation being effective in reducing stress.
to learn about how to frame your view of the world and what happens to you in it, I’d suggest reading:
Unbeatable Mind, Mark Divine (this guy is my Jesus)
The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday
Tao Te Ching
Bhagavad Gita
The last two are a little religion-ey but they express the essential view of non-attachment pretty well. At the end of the day, what you really need to make sure stress doesn’t negatively affect you is focused attention and nonattachment. once you figure out those frames of mind, stress will become your friend and you’ll see those situations for what they actually are – opportunities.