Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness Meditation has been present in cultures, societies and spiritual teachings for thousands of years. Mindfulness is a form of meditation that focuses awareness on breathing and encourages positive attitudes to achieve a healthy balanced mental state. [Mosby’s medical dictionary] The benefits of meditation have mostly been anecdotal. However, in recent decades, meditation has been studied which has led to a better understanding of the effects on the mind. Meditation can have many positive results, such as helping treat depression and anxiety, reducing the need for medications associated with these troubling disorders, and improving daily life through practicing mindfulness mediation.

I was stricken with a bout of depression and anxiety

in the past two months, I had no clue of why I was feeling so melancholy and utterly empty inside. It seemed like I had everything I had ever wanted in life, a wonderful girlfriend, lots of birthday money, and I was getting along much better with my mother who in the past I didn’t have the best relationship with. But my feelings of intense grief and hopelessness persisted to consume me without reason. Slowly I seemed to be losing my sanity, going some days without eating anything whatsoever and getting little to no sleep at night. Plagued with thoughts from the earlier day at school (even though I had a seemingly great day from an outside perspective). I had no idea whatsoever why I was going through this turbulence of negative emotion. Until one day I had the rational idea that if I wanted to feel any better I would have to try to find a way to do so. I began researching Buddhist practices and began practicing mindfulness meditation, the first time I tried it, I felt a wave of calmness and found clarity in my emotional state which I hadn’t felt in weeks. This is when I began to discover how mindfulness meditation could have an extremely positive effect on people struggling with serious forms of mental illness.
Researchers from Cambridge University [headspace], Exeter University and Oxford University have all studied the benefits of meditation in treating depression and anxiety [Psychology Today].

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy [MBCT] is an eight-week systematic plan of therapy courses that teach clients the art of mindfulness meditation. They gain the ability to rethink themselves, apart from their thoughts and feelings, which are the main cause of their problems. Instead they focus on modifying their mental state (body and mind) through breathing and meditation. The Cambridge group conducted a randomised control study, in which they found that the group practising MBCT had more positive results than the control group (the group treated with anti-depressants) as 64% did not relapse from their depression after the follow up, whereas the control group only had a 22% rate without relapse. Other results showed that the group practicing mindfulness meditation was 3 times more likely to avoid relapse. Not only is the relapse rate much lower with MBCT, but also there are no harmful side effects associated with it, as it is practicing the art of mindfulness meditation paired with gentle therapy questions. Mindfulness meditation directly deals with modifying the negative emotions and thoughts of an individual, where medications cause chemical changes in the brain that is generally not healthy [APA]. The triggers of depression and anxiety are imbedded in the brain of the sufferers,

mindfulness meditation empowers them to address these imbedded fears or negative thoughts and see how they do not have an overpowering effect on their lives and state of being. There are currently 6.8 million Americans on anti-anxiety medications [Chopra]. Another study by the Massachusetts medical school taught mindfulness meditation to a group of people experiencing clinical levels of anxiety, results discovered mindfulness meditation had a 90% rate of helping with anxiety, making them experience significantly less anxiety and improving their disorder. [Headspace] Meditation can provide drastic improvements on anxiety and depression for these patients, and can also take quite a toll on their mental states as I have personally experienced… They can have these drastic improvements without the need for medication, which can have plenty of negative side effects, improving their quality of life and getting them out of these old patterns of thinking which are the causes of anxiety and depression.

Anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication can cause a number of negative side effects on the people taking them.

Claire Morgan, a 35-year-old biologist, “self-described optimist”, was struggling with her finances, and her relationship with her boyfriend was having troubles. She than starting experiencing unusual symptoms, out of nowhere she began feeling very agitated; she couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t sleep at night and felt shaky, common signs of depression and anxiety. After six weeks she went to visit her doctor and he immediately diagnosed depression and anxiety. She wasn’t sure about it, since she was experiencing other symptoms like diarrhea, weight loss and vomiting. He prescribed her an antidepressant. This only made her feel worse; she developed the shakes as well as suicidal thoughts. Her general practitioner changed the medication three weeks later, and after mentioning her suicidal thoughts to her doctor she was put under the supervision of a mental health team. Six weeks later she was put on another anti-depressant, also a tranquillizer and an anti-psychotic. Claire now sleeping 14 hours a day and not being able to work, she had to live off of her boyfriend’s earnings. 'I was zombified, but still felt the anxiety and the terror, and that didn't seem right. However, my doctor simply increased my dose.' After six straining months of seemingly endless miserableness the doctor knew it wasn’t working. The doctor suggested to Claire electric shock therapy, she

said no way. And decided to come off her medication, she said it was even worse than being on them [daily mail]. So what if people like Claire stopped taking these drugs that made everything so much worse from how she was actually feeling in the beginning, and started to practice the art of mindfulness meditation? I’m guessing that everything would be so much better for someone like Claire. Anti-depressants and anti- anxiety medications are only slightly effective at even treating depression and anxiety, and with so much negative side effects is it even worth it? Some Anti-depressants can make you suicidal, with the rate of suicidal thoughts in children are 3 times higher than placebo given (something that tricks your brain into thinking it has an effect, when in reality your mind is fixing itself) [healy]. Anti-anxiety drugs can cause hallucinations, delusional thinking, confusion, aggression, violence, irritability, depression and suicidal thinking as well. They are also one of the most difficult drugs to withdrawal from. [cchrit] 21-28% of patients on Prozac (anti-depressant)had experienced insomnia, agitation and anxiety, and the higher the dose the higher the rates of these side effects [beasly]. And compared to all of these side effects would you really be able to endure taking these things daily for months or even years? Making your mind, which is supposed to be the crown of your existence dull and “zombified”. While mindfulness meditation, which has no side effects, can still be more effective than some of these drugs. Wouldn’t you rather practice mindfulness meditation than resort to taking pills after pills of drugs that can make things so much worse for years on end, And instead practice mindfulness meditation, I know I definitely would.

Now that I’m done talking about the somewhat tedious mindfulness based cognitive therapy and mindfulness meditation in helping with depression and anxiety, the benefits of mindfulness-based meditation in everyday life are actually quite astonishing. Meditation can actually have a huge impact on how good music sounds, it improves our focus and engagement in music making everything sound more clear and crystal, and as music is one of the best things in life, bringing satisfaction, nostalgia, and an immense pleasure to your ears, meditation can even make one of the best things in our contemporary world even better. [Chan, huffingtonpost] It can also strengthen our immune system, making us more happy and healthy and free from sicknesses, which can plague our body with a rupture of negative feelings that most of us resent, from a study done by doctor Richie Davidson in 2003 at the center for investigating healthy minds, he found a short-term mindfulness-training program developed a stronger immune system when injected with a flu virus. [mindbodygreen] and there are also studies showing that doctors who were trained in mindfulness meditation perform better at their jobs, making them more understanding, less judgemental, more self-aware be Mindfulness meditation has also been linked to better grades in college students, researchers found that students performed better on the GRE and also had huge improvements in their working memory, making you more attentive, able to retain more information and lead to better grades! So why would you not want to practice mindfulness meditation, also