I’ll assume you’re reading this with a sceptical, cautionary attitude. It will allow me to be extra careful while explaining the reasons for, and against, taking up a regular practice of meditation.
As you may be well aware, the topic of meditation for mental health is rising. I assume partly because of the in-vogue nature and general trendiness. Instagram fit-chicks, bloggers etc, have been raving about their 20-minutes per day Headspace subscription, promising it as a panacea for all the negative thoughts that cloud your mind. This is probably why you’re sceptical. Great, another superfood. Time to ride this one out and wait for the next hot health craze. But, there’s another angle to view the rising popularity of meditation, a scientific one.
We can forget about the fact that meditation has been practiced in eastern cultures for over 2,500 years. People have been cutting off foreskins for thousands of years. Tradition doesn’t make something powerful or more worthy to take part.
Instead, let’s focus on the fact that thousands of studies have now been published surrounding meditation and their possible uses. A word of caution, just because a study was published, doesn’t mean it’s any good. In 2009, only around 4% of the studies done on meditation are actually randomised controlled trials (RCT) [5]. Meaning they exclude the placebo effect, or people feeling better normally as time goes on. Filtering out everything else, we are left with hundreds of legitimate scientific papers that show an improvement in mental health related to depression and anxiety symptoms.
How big of an effect are we talking here?
About the same as taking anti-depressant medications. Which are, generally, mild-to-moderate improvements [2]. Fairly underwhelming it may seem, but the quality is in the consistent improvements to your life that meditation can offer. After you take a possibly prolonged treatment on medications, in the end you are most likely to be in the same place as you were when you first got a prescription. After learning meditation, however, you will not simply un-learn the lessons you absorb from your daily practice. Meditation and its benefits stay with you as long as you practice, maybe even after you cease the daily habit. And it’s free.
How does it actually work?
By strengthening the ability to separate one’s thoughts from their reality. We can see thoughts for what they are: transient phenomena that aren’t always true. We learn to distance ourselves from negative thoughts, through consistent repetition in our daily practice. Meditation permits a sense of calm, non-reactive and non-judgemental state of awareness to our thoughts and feelings.
This improves the lives of those living with depression and anxiety. Often, negative thoughts will cycle over and over in their minds. Thoughts along the lines of; ‘you are worthless’, ‘nobody likes you’, ‘you’re just going to mess this up’, ‘what if I say something stupid?’, will constantly repeat, a process known as rumination. This creates great amounts of mental discomfort and pain, as well as promoting a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. They think the thoughts, they act out the way they feel, they see the results, their thoughts are confirmed. The process goes on.
Meditation will teach you, through constant hard work and practice, that these thoughts are just thoughts. They are not real, nor do they define you. You will finally be able to dislodge yourself from the Mary-go-round of self-doubt and shame. The phenomena appear more like a movie on a screen than an actual reality.
Meditation will help you stay present in the moment.
Have you ever been driving your car, or walking down the street, and suddenly realised that you have no memory of what happened on your journey? Like being on auto-pilot, our minds will wander in the same way. The more time your mind is spent in this auto-pilot mode, the worse we generally feel. Meditation keeps us more in the present moment because we practice focusing our attention over and over. During meditation, most of the practice is simply focusing the attention on a certain sensation, such as the breath. The mind wanders off, we notice, we bring it back. Like lifting weights, the muscle of the mind strengthens every time you pull your attention back to the present moment.
Reduced stress.
Busy work/life schedules, social media, status anxiety, advertising. There are many distractions to keep us thinking, reacting and worrying. When was the last time you made the time to just let it all go, and focus on something so natural, so easy going? Nothing to notify you, no emails, no demands. Taking a break to shift the body from a stressed out ‘fight-or-flight’ mode of doing, into a ‘rest-and-digest’ mode of being. The benefits are far reaching; improving almost all chronic health problems, such as depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, chronic pain, even assisting in cancer treatments and improving quality of life [1,2,3,4,6].
Participating in meditation requires no spiritual or religious attachment. You are simply examining what is happening in the mind, and the body, right now. The more you do this, the better your chances of overcoming negative mental affects. Meditation should not be used as a replacement for serious medical treatments, instead, it functions as an excellent adjunct therapy. No side-effects, no large medical fees. If you’re looking for a way to improve your mental health, you may not have to look very far outwards for a solution. The solution that meditation suggests is that your answers exist within. All you’ll need is a mind and the ability to notice what is happening right now.
Starting for 10 minutes per day, 6 days a week is a simple way to get started. Once a habit is formed, working up to 20-45 minutes per day and 6 days a week are the recommendations used in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) [7].
References
1. Gotink, R; Chu, P; Busschbach, J; Benson, H; Fricchione, G; Hunink, M. (2015). Standardised mindfulness-based interventions in healthcare: an overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of RCTs. PloS one, 10(4), e0124344.
2. Goyal, M; Singh, S; Sibinga, E; Gould, N; Rowland-Seymour, A; Sharma, R; ... & Ranasinghe, P. (2014). Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA internal medicine, 174(3), 357-368.
3. Jain, F; Walsh, R; Eisendrath, S; Christensen, S; Cahn, B; (2015). Critical analysis of the efficacy of meditation therapies for acute and subacute phase treatment of depressive disorders: a systematic review. Psychosomatics, 56(2), 140-152.
4. Khoury, B; Sharma, M; Rush, S; Fournier, C. (2015). Mindfulness-based stress reduction for healthy individuals: A meta-analysis. Journal of psychosomatic research, 78(6), 519-528.
5. Ospina, M. (2007). Meditation practices for health state of the research (No. 155). DIANE Publishing.
6. Strauss, C; Cavanagh, K; Oliver, A; Pettman, D. (2014). Mindfulness-based interventions for people diagnosed with a current episode of an anxiety or depressive disorder: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. PLOS one, 9(4), e96110.
7. Segal, Z; Williams, M; Teasdale, J. (2013) Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression. New York, NY: The Guildford Press
