“Rumination . . . becomes the fast track to feeling helpless. Specifically, it paralyzes your problem-solving skills. You become so preoccupied with the problem that you’re unable to push past the cycle of negative thoughts.” – Margarita Tartakovsky
Depression is epidemic. Major depressive disorder affects approximately 14.8 million American adults, or about 6.7 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older, in a given year, is more prevalent in women than in men, and as one in 33 children and one in eight adolescents have clinical depression. It can be fatal as about 2/3 of suicides are caused by depression. It makes lives miserable, not only the patients but also associates and loved ones, interferes with the conduct of normal everyday activities, and can come back repeatedly. Even after complete remission, 42% have a reoccurrence.
Depression can be a downward spiral where depressed people repeatedly think about their problems which, in turn, reinforces the depression making it worse and worse. This repetitive thinking is known as rumination. It is like a record that’s stuck and keeps repeating the same lyrics. It’s replaying a dispute with a loved one in the individual’s mind. It’s going over their past mistakes, again and again. Research has shown that rumination produces a variety of negative consequences, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, binge-drinking and binge-eating.
One of the keys to dealing with depression may be addressing these repetitive thoughts. In fact, rumination may be a major contributing factor to recurrent depression. Mindfulness has been demonstrated to reduce worry and rumination (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/stop-worrying/) and be effective for treating depression and preventing reoccurrence of depression (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/depression/). So, it is possible that mindfulness’ beneficial effects upon depression may be mediated by its effects on worry and rumination.
In today’s Research News article “Memory Specificity and Mindfulness Jointly Moderate the Effect of Reflective Pondering on Depressive Symptoms in Individuals with a History of Recurrent Depression”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4445381/
Brennan and colleagues studied adult patients with recurrent depression who had had at least three depressive episodes. They found that the more mindful the patients were the lower their depression and the lower their levels of brooding (rumination). They also found that high levels of using autobiographical memory along with low levels of mindfulness made depression worse in people who tended to think a lot. Hence high mindfulness may be protective against over thinking exacerbation of depression.
The results did not produce strong evidence that mindfulness is successful for depression by way of its effects on rumination. To a large extent each appeared to have independent effects on depression with mindfulness making it better and rumination making it worse. This may be the case for individuals with recurrent depression. More research is needed to see if it is also true for individuals with current depression or who are at-risk for depression.
Mindfulness can affect depression in a number of ways. It is known to improve emotion regulation, the ability to experience emotions and still react constructively to them. This can allow the individual to fully experience the feeling that they’re having but not overreact to them and let them dissipate. Mindfulness is also known to reduce physiological and psychological responses to stress and stress is known to be associated with depression. So, reducing it could lead to lower depression. Finally, mindfulness by focusing the individual on the present moment tends to decrease rumination about the past and worry about the future. So, there are many routes by which mindfulness may be effective for recurrent depression. But, it is clear that it is a safe and effective treatment for depression or to prevent reoccurrence of depression.
So, be mindful and stop making yourself depressed.
“Start living right here, in each present moment. When we stop dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, we’re open to rich sources of information we’ve been missing out on—information that can keep us out of the downward spiral and poised for a richer life.” ― Mark Williams
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies