Could Mindfulness Help Me?
What is mindfulness and why should I care?
(This post is adapted from a paper I wrote in grad school so the writing is a little academic but all the information included here is useful. to the average person interested in mindfulness)
“Mindfulness” can be defined as a sustained and deliberate moment-to-moment attention to one’s current and ongoing thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations (Grossman, Niemann, Schmidt, & Walach, 2004). The person is also asked to avoid engaging in any evaluation or judgment of those thoughts and feelings (Kabat-Zinn, 2007). This is believed to contribute to a sense of detachment from one’s negative thoughts, lending to a more objective evaluation of them rather than immediately endorsing them as fact, and preventing the increasingly negative spiral of thoughts and emotions which may occur (Teasdale et al., 2000).
Mindfulness–Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) provides systematic training in mindfulness meditation which may then be applied as a self-regulation approach to controlling emotional responses and reducing stress (Bishop, 2002). MBSR teaches individuals to bring the mindfulness they experience in meditation to stressful situations in their lives so they may respond to the situation purposefully instead of reacting “mindlessly” or automatically (Bishop). MBSR has been employed in the treatment of individuals with a wide range of issues including chronic illnesses and psychiatric disorders (Bishop; Grossman et al., 2004).
People who practiced meditation have been found to be more aware and accepting of their thoughts and feelings, and are more capable of managing and altering their experiences of emotion as well as their actions. Meditators experience more pleasant emotions, vitality, life satisfaction, self-esteem, optimism, self-actualization, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Such individuals are less likely to dwell on unpleasant things, be self-conscious, or be socially anxious, with lower anxiety, depression, and moodiness.
Mindfulness has been incorporated into interventions for a variety of issues. In correctional facilities, MBSR courses have been demonstrated to help reduce hostility and mood disturbance and increase self-esteem among inmates (Samuelson, Carmody, Kabat-Zinn, & Bratt, 2007). Participation in a mindfulness-based stress reduction treatment has been associated with decreased dropout from a substance abuse program (Marcus et al., 2009). Experienced meditators have a higher tolerance for pain (Grant & Rainville, 2009). A mindfulness meditation-based stress reduction intervention even significantly accelerated the success of phototherapy treatments for clearing psoriasis (Kabat-Zinn et al., 1998).
A meta-analysis investigated MBSR interventions among prison, nonclinical, and clinical samples, including individuals suffering from stress, depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, various types of cancer, coronary artery diseases, chronic pain, obesity and binge eating disorder, and psychiatric illnesses (Grossman et al., 2004). Both mental health (i.e., psychological wellbeing and symptoms, depression, anxiety, sleep, quality of life, or perception of pain) and physical health (i.e., medical symptoms) were evaluated. The use of MBSR was effective across these many varied concerns for those who stuck with it (e.g., daily practice for six weeks or more). There seem to be some exceptions, such as those who have been traumatized. However, in general, mindfulness training appears to enhance coping with distress and disability, as well as more serious conditions, as evidenced by consistent and relatively strong effect sizes found among very diverse samples.