What are the benefits of mindfulness meditation?

Psychotherapists have turned to mindfulness meditation as an important element in the treatment of a number of problems, including depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, couples' conflicts, anxiety disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Some experts believe that it works, in part, by helping people to accept their experiences—including painful emotions—rather than react to them with aversion and avoidance. It's become increasingly common for mindfulness meditation to be combined with psychotherapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy. This development makes good sense, since both meditation and cognitive behavioral therapy share the common goal of helping people gain perspective on irrational, maladaptive, and self-defeating thoughts.

One goal of mindfulness meditation is to encourage personal change -- much the same goal as psychotherapy. During mindfulness meditation, you acknowledge distracting thoughts and sensations that may occur. People with low moods or anxiety often are struggling against something -- resisting sadness, fear, loss, or pain. Recognizing and accepting your feelings and thoughts opens the door to examining how they interact. Once you understand that, you can change negative patterns.

Mindfulness offers other benefits, as well. One goal is to enhance your pleasure in simple everyday experiences -- soaking in natural beauty or enjoying a deliciously ripe peach, perhaps. By slowing down experiences and learning to focus on the here and now, many people who practice mindfulness find that they are less likely to get caught up in worries about the future or regrets over the past.

Increasingly, mindfulness meditation is being combined with psychotherapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). This makes good sense, since both meditation and cognitive therapy share the common goal of helping people move away from self-defeating thoughts .

If mindfulness meditation appeals to you, ask a therapist about how best to use it. Going to a class or listening to a meditation tape may be a good first step.

People suffering from conditions in which chronic stress appears to play a major role may benefit from mindfulness meditation. Rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and asthma all may have a chronic inflammatory component directly related to psychological stress. Mindfulness-based stress reduction was originally developed to help patients suffering with chronic, unrelenting pain, and involved focusing on breathing, body sensations and mental state when engaged in sitting, walking or yoga. Until recently, there was little science to support the specific benefits of mindfulness meditation.

A recent study looked at mindfulness meditation versus another stress-reduction approach that was designed to enhance health without mindfulness as a component, using techniques like nutrition, physical activity, and music therapy. So for example mindfulness meditation while walking was compared to “just walking.” The researchers induced inflammatory reactions in participants by using capsaicin cream, and other techniques to induce psychological stress. Then the two treatment methods were compared.

The results showed that using mindfulness meditation appeared to have an enhanced therapeutic effect on inflammatory conditions, compared to the other therapies used in the study. Researchers caution that it’s not a cure-all but mindfulness meditation can help as part of a therapeutic formulary for certain diseases and conditions.