Month: February 2016

Age Healthily: Improve Cellular Health with Mindfulness

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“Simply responding to the physical symptoms of disease might make sense for treating an acute infection or fixing a broken leg, but to beat chronic age-related conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and dementia, we will need to embrace the fuzzy, subjective domain of the mind.” – Jo Marchant

 

Aging seems inevitable. But, different species age at different rates. Everyone knows for example that dogs’ life span is about 1/6th of the human life span. This suggests that there must be some biological mechanism that regulates aging. Recent genetic research is starting to uncover that mechanism. It has been found that the genes, coded on the DNA molecule, govern cellular processes in our bodies. One of the most fundamental of these processes is cell replication. Cells are constantly turning over. Dying cells or damaged are replaced by new cells. The cells turn over at different rates but most cells in the body are lost and replaced between every few days to every few months. Needless to say were constantly renewing ourselves.

 

As we age the tail of the DNA molecule called the telomere shortens. When it gets very short cells have a more and more difficult time reproducing and become more likely to produce defective cells. On a cellular basis this is what produces aging. As we get older the new cells produced are more and more defective. The shortening of the telomere occurs each time the cell is replaced. So, slowly as we age it gets shorter and shorter. This has been called a “mitotic clock.” This is normal. But, telomere shortening can also be produced by oxidative stress, which can be produced by psychological and physiological stress. This is mediated by stress hormones and the inflammatory response. So, chronic stress can accelerate the aging process. In other words, when we’re chronically stressed we get older faster.

 

Fortunately, there is a mechanism to protect the telomere. There is an enzyme in the body called telomerase that helps to prevent shortening of the telomere. It also promotes cell survival and enhances stress-resistance.  Research suggests that processes that increase telomerase activity tend to slow the aging process by protecting the telomere.  One activity that seems to increase telomerase activity and protect telomere length is mindfulness practice (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/12/04/retreat-for-longevity/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/aging-healthily-yoga-and-cellular-aging/). Hence, engaging in mindfulness practices may protect the telomere and thereby slow the aging process.

 

In today’s Research News article “Telomerase activity and its association with psychological stress, mental disorders, lifestyle factors and interventions: A systematic review”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1168516629838928/?type=3&theater

Deng and colleagues review the published scientific literature on factors that influence telomerase activity. They report that chronic, long-term, psychological stress but not acute, short-term, stress reduced telomerase activity. They also report that Major Depressive Disorder is associated with reduced telomerase activity. Importantly, they find that diet, exercise, and mindfulness practices all increase telomerase activity. In particular, they found that “physical exercise, diet micronutrient supplementation, mindfulness meditation, Qigong practice or yoga mediation resulted in increase in telomerase activity.”

 

These are very exciting outcomes and suggest that mindfulness practices might contribute to longevity by reducing cellular aging. How might these very different practices increase telomerase activity? All of these mindfulness practices have been shown to reduce the psychological and physiological responses to stress (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/stress/). Since, chronic stress has been shown to reduce telomerase activity and in turn accelerate cellular aging, it would seem reasonable to conclude that practices that reduce stress responses would protect the individual from the deleterious effects of stress and increase telomerase activity. There may be other mechanisms involved, but this would seem to be the obvious one.

 

These findings suggest that mindfulness practices may improve longevity by protecting us from the damaging effects of chronic stress. By making us more mellow, we age slower.

 

So, age healthily: improve cellular health with mindfulness.

 

“it is possible that greater presence of mind promotes a healthy biochemical milieu and, in turn, cell longevity,” – Elizabeth Blackburn

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Manage Anger with Meditation

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“Anger is nothing more than a strategy for finding happiness in the midst of a challenging world, but it’s not a very effective strategy. Mindfulness and compassion work much, much better.” – Bodhipaksa

 

The Buddha once said that “holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” In other words, anger is usually more harmful to ourselves than to the source of our anger.

 

Reflect for a moment on the last time you became angry at another driver for cutting you off in traffic. Did you respond like most people with anger? Did that anger actually have any impact, at all, on the other driver? Usually not. Did it have any impact on you? Perhaps upsetting you and causing you to drive in an aggressive manner toward the other driver. Did that actually do any good or did it just put you at increased risk of an accident? Did the anger carry over beyond the actual incident and affect your driving afterward and your actions and mood later in the day? Now, reflect for a moment on the last time you became angry at your significant other. Was it effective? How did that person respond? Did it actually hurt the one you care about? Did it harm your relationship? Most times, anger is not only counterproductive, but destructive.

 

Anger not only produces changes in our behavior and mood, it also produces changes in our physiology. It activates the “fight or flight” system in the body, sympathetic nervous, and releases activating hormones. The net result is an increase in blood pressure, heart rate, respiration rate, sweating, especially the palms, feeling hot in the neck/face, shaking or trembling, and decreased heart rate variability. These physical effects can be used to objectively measure anger responses. They are also stressful and if prolonged can be damaging to the individual’s health.

 

If we can control our anger, we will generally be a happier person. But, at times, it is very difficult to do so. Mindfulness and meditation can help. It has been shown to improve our ability to regulate our emotions including anger (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/emotions/).  Mindfulness appears to improve our ability not to suppress our emotions, but to fully experience them and yet be better able to respond to them constructively and adaptively.

 

In today’s Research News article “A single session of meditation reduces of physiological indices of anger in both experienced and novice meditators”

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Fennell and colleagues investigated the effect of a single 20-minute meditation on anger responses in experienced and naïve meditators. They induced anger by having participants vividly recall a recent incident where they became angry and to briefly write about it. In the naïve meditators, this produced a significant increase in self-reported anger and increased blood pressure, respiration rate, and decreased heart rate variability. But, the experienced meditators had no physiological response to the induction. They then had their participants meditate for 20 minutes and induced anger a second time. After meditation, the anger induction had very little effect with no significant changes in self-reported anger or blood pressure and decreased heart and respiration rates. This blunting of the anger response after meditation occurred for both the experienced and naïve meditators.

 

These results are remarkable. Even a single brief meditation is capable of producing a significant reduction in both subjective and physiological responses to anger, actually making it look more like relaxation than anger. This response appears to be learned with repeated meditation as experienced meditators appear to have this blunted response even without meditation while naïve meditators require the meditation. Hence, meditation lowers immediate anger responses and experience with meditation makes this chronic, allowing for lower anger responsivity all of the time.

 

These results suggest that meditation is an antidote to anger. This control of anger may be responsible for many of meditation’s beneficial effects, cooling off the “hot coal” and preventing the individual from getting “burned.”

 

So, manage anger with meditation.

 

“Once we have recognized our anger, we embrace it. This is the second function of mindfulness and it is a very pleasant practice. Instead of fighting, we are taking good care of our emotion. If you know how to embrace your anger, something will change.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Reduce Fatigue in Cancer treatment with Tai Chi

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 “If you’re fighting cancer, chances are you’re also fighting fatigue. Fatigue is being tired – physically, mentally, and emotionally. It’s the most common side effect of cancer treatment, and it often hits without warning. Everyday activities – talking on the phone, shopping for groceries, even lifting a fork to eat – can be overwhelming tasks.” – American Cancer Society

 

Fatigue accompanies cancer and its treatment in from half to all cancer patients depending upon the type of cancer and treatment regimen. The fatigue can continue even after completion of successful treatment. The patient feels weak, tired, weary, or exhausted all of the time and sleep does not relieve the tiredness. Symptoms can include prolonged, extreme tiredness following an activity, arms and legs feeling heavy and hard to move, lack of engagement in normal daily activities, trouble concentrating, thinking clearly, or remembering, feeling frustrated, irritable, and upset, putting less energy into personal appearance, and spending more time in bed or sleeping. The cause of cancer-related fatigue is unknown.

 

It is easy to confuse cancer-related fatigue with depression. Both are subjective experiences and have many common symptoms. The one distinguishing feature is that in depression the individual is unable to experience pleasure and feels sad or unworthy, while this is generally not true regarding cancer patients. Nonetheless, it is very difficult to distinguish the fatigue from depression. The best treatment for cancer-related fatigue appears to be encouragement to engage in moderate exercise along with relaxation and body awareness training. The ancient Chinese practice of Tai Chi has all of these properties. It’s a light exercise that produces relaxation and body awareness. So, it would seem reasonable to expect that Tai Chi practice would be effective in treating cancer-related fatigue. Indeed, Tai Chi has been shown to improve the immune system and reduce inflammation in cancer (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2016/01/14/kill-cancer-with-tai-chi/).

 

In today’s Research News article “Tai Chi Exercise for Cancer Related Fatigue in Patients with Lung Cancer Undergoing Chemotherapy: A Randomized Controlled Trial”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1167329929957598/?type=3&theater

Zhang and colleagues randomly assigned lung cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy to either a Tai Chi or low-impact exercise program practiced every other day for one hour during the course of chemotherapy treatment. They found that during treatment overall fatigue increased in both groups, but the Tai Chi group showed a significantly smaller increase than the low-impact exercise group. The Tai Chi treatment decreased general and physical fatigue and increased vigor. These results were found both 6 and 12 weeks after treatment.

 

These results are especially significant because of the nature of the trial wherein Tai Chi exercise was compared to another comparable active physical exercise. The fact that Tai Chi was superior to low-impact exercise implies that Tai Chi has particular properties beyond its exercise property that are important for the relief of cancer-related fatigue. It is possible that the concentration and mindfulness components of Tai Chi practice are important for its effectiveness. Indeed, mindfulness programs in general have been shown to be effective in cancer treatment (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/cancer/). It remains for future research to further determine what are the crucial aspects of Tai Chi practice that counteract cancer-related fatigue.

 

Regardless of the mechanism it is clear that engagement in Tai Chi practice is an effective treatment for cancer-related fatigue in lung cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Future research should attempt to extend these findings to other forms of cancer and other stages of treatment and recovery.

 

So, reduce fatigue in cancer treatment with tai chi.

 

“Research unequivocally shows that Tai Chi helps cancer patients through a variety of ways. One point to remember, though, is that regular exercise is paramount for maximal, sustained benefits. For cancer patients to receive the best results possible, therefore, it is advisable that people embrace Tai Chi as a way of life and not a one-time thing.” Willian Betts

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Control Type 2 Diabetes with Yoga

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“Yoga-asanas in combination with conventional medical treatment provides a better metabolic control giving a feeling of general well being, alertness and attentiveness without any side effects.” – Savita Singh

 

Type 2 diabetes is a common and increasingly prevalent illness that is largely preventable. Although this has been called adult-onset diabetes it is increasingly being diagnosed in children. It is estimated that 30 million people in the United States have diabetes and the numbers are growing. One of the reasons for the increasing incidence of Type 2 Diabetes is its association with overweight and obesity which is becoming epidemic in the industrialized world.

 

Diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death in the United States. In addition, diabetes is heavily associated with other diseases such as cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, stroke, blindness, kidney disease, and circulatory problems leading to amputations. As a result, diabetes doubles the risk of death of any cause compared to individuals of the same age without diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes results from a resistance of tissues, especially fat tissues, to the ability of insulin to promote the uptake of glucose from the blood. As a result, blood sugar levels rise producing hyperglycemia.

 

A leading cause of this tissue resistance to insulin is overweight and obesity and a sedentary life style. Hence, treatment and prevention of Type 2 Diabetes focuses on diet, exercise, and weight control. Yoga would appear to be an excellent potential treatment for Type 2 Diabetes as it is both an exercise and a help in weight control (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/heart-healthy-yoga/). Indeed, mindfulness practices in general have been shown to be helpful in managing diabetes (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/diabetes/) and yoga has been shown to help control body weight in diabetes (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/24/control-weight-in-diabetes-with-yoga/) which has been shown to be critical for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes.

 

In today’s Research News article “Yoga for Adults with Type 2 Diabetes: A Systematic Review of Controlled Trials”

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Innes and Selfe review the published literature on the application of yoga practice to the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes. They report that yoga practice decreases body weight and body fat levels, and lowers insulin resistance and high blood sugar levels (hyperglycemia). Further they report that yoga improves blood fat profiles including reductions in levels of cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides, and increases good cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol). Yoga also resulted in improved cardiovascular function including decreased blood pressure and lung function. Yoga also improved quality of life, psychological well-being, symptoms of distress, and insomnia. All of this resulted in reduced use of diabetes drugs.

 

These results are remarkable. They indicate that yoga practice has a wide variety of physiological and psychological benefits for the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes. Yoga is also safe with few detrimental side effects and has a wide variety of other physical and psychological benefits (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/contemplative-practice/yoga-contemplative-practice/). There are a number of possible mechanism of how yoga could produce these positive effects including the fact that yoga practice involves physical exercise and exercise has been repeatedly found to be beneficial for Type 2 Diabetes patients. For the most part the effects of yoga are not significantly different from those seen with other exercise programs. Yoga may also act by reducing body weight and body fat, improving the management of stress, reducing physiological activation by the nervous system, or through encouraging a generally healthier lifestyle. It will be up to future research to begin to discern how exactly yoga practice acts to improve Type 2 Diabetes.

 

Regardless, it is very clear that yoga practice is a safe and effective program for the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes.

 

“The good news is that diabetes patients have an alternative: They can practice yoga. Despite the fact researchers have been studying the health benefits of yoga in diabetes patients for decades, only now is yoga being proposed as an important part of a diabetes exercise program.” – Jennifer Van Pelt
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Burnout Doctor Burnout with Mindfulness

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“Something very alarming is going on in the American healthcare system nowadays. Doctors aren’t happy, and neither are patients. The proverbial admonition, “Happy doctors make for happy patients” comes to mind with the caveat that the reverse is also true.” Thomas Murphy

 

With the advent of managed care and the Affordable Healthcare Act in the U.S., primary healthcare providers have become a critical component of the healthcare system. Unfortunately, there is a marked shortage of these providers. It is estimated that in the U.S. there are over 9,000 fewer primary care physicians than needed. The shortages are not just due to training insufficient numbers of healthcare providers but also due to high turnover rates. In part because of the shortage and high patient loads, primary healthcare providers experience high stress and burnout. They experience a loss of enthusiasm for work, feelings of cynicism, and a low sense of personal accomplishment.

 

In a recent survey 46% of all physicians responded that they had burnout. Currently, over a third of healthcare workers report that they are looking for a new job. Nearly half plan to look for a new job over the next two years and 80% expressed interest in a new position if they came across the right opportunity. Since there is such a great need to retain primary healthcare providers, it is imperative that strategies be identified to decrease stress and burnout.

 

Burnout is not a unitary phenomenon. In fact, there appear to be a number of subtypes of burnout. The overload subtype is characterized by the perception of jeopardizing one’s health to pursue worthwhile results, and is highly associated with exhaustion. The lack of development subtype is characterized by the perception of a lack of personal growth, together with the desire for a more rewarding occupation that better corresponds to one’s abilities. The neglect subtype is characterized by an inattentive and careless response to responsibilities, and is closely associated with inefficacy.

 

Doctors appear to vary in resilience, in their ability to withstand the stress of practice and not burnout. They also vary in mindfulness which has been shown to be effective in preventing and treating healthcare professional burnout (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/burnout/). In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness, Resilience, and Burnout Subtypes in Primary Care Physicians: The Possible Mediating Role of Positive and Negative Affect”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1166142213409703/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681844/

Montero-Marin and colleagues investigate the relationship of resilience, mindfulness, and emotions to burnout in 622 Spanish primary care physicians. Using sophisticated statistical techniques, they found that the three types of burnout were highly positively associated, with high levels of each associated with high levels of all the other types. They also found that mindfulness and resilience were highly related, with higher levels of mindfulness associated with higher levels of resilience.

 

The overload type of burnout was directly associated with both negative emotions and mindfulness. In addition, both mindfulness and resilience appeared to affect overload indirectly by reducing negative emotions and thereby reducing overload burnout. The lack of development type of burnout was negatively associated with positive emotions and resilience was positively associated with positive emotions. So, resilience appeared to affect lack of development burnout by increasing positive emotions which in turn decrease lack of development burnout. Thereby, high levels of resilience were associated with low levels of lack of development. Finally, they found that resilience was negatively related to neglect burnout such that the higher the levels of resilience, the lower the neglect burnout.

 

These are complex interrelationships. But in general they suggest that the mindfulness and the resilience of the physicians were highly related and worked in consort to reduce all types of primary care physician burnout and they do so, at least in part, by affecting the positive and negative emotions of the physicians. They may do so by different mechanisms, mindfulness by reducing the psychological and physical responses to stress and resilience by increasing the ability to withstand the stress.

 

Regardless, burnout doctor burnout with mindfulness.

 

“The benefits of mindful practice extend beyond the practitioner to his or her patients. It is not only that mindful practitioners can listen attentively, but that their patients are empowered to make their voice heard in areas that matter to them.” – Mary Catherine Beach
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Be My Mindful Valentine

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“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.” – Bruce Lee

 

Valentine’s Day was invented for the greeting card and florist industries but it caught on because there are few things more worth celebrating than love. Valentine’s Day is usually considered a celebration of romantic love, but I prefer it to be a celebration of love in all of its magnificent manifestations. Mindfulness is an important part as there is nothing more beautiful than mindful love. It’s pure, non-judgmental, and non-contingent love. It’s a completely unfettered outpouring of the heart.

 

Mindful love is not necessarily expressed with romantic greeting cards, roses, and chocolates. There is nothing wrong with these concrete expressions of love except when they are used as a substitute for the real thing. Too often we go through the motions of buying symbols of love and believing that these are all we need to express our feelings. True expressions of love are not concrete and tangible. They are deep connections and feelings that flow direct from the source and, if the truth be known, are the source. Let this love flow first and if it leads to giving tangible symbols, wonderful. Let it flow in any and every way it wishes to express itself.

 

The great sage Thích Nhất Hạnh said that “When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?” This sounds so simple, but it is not. What he means by “presence” is much more than being in physical proximity to another. It means to be really there for them, mindfully and totally, with the mind dedicated to them and not off thinking of something else. Rather the mind is totally focused and attentive to the other person. You are deeply listening to their words. You are deeply listening to their non-verbal messages. You are totally committed to them in the present moment. So, on Valentine’s Day offer the people you love your mindful presence. There is no greater way to express love.

 

Mindful love is non-judgmental. It is accepting the other person for exactly who and what they are. It is appreciating their humanness with all its flaws, physical, psychological, and social. It is encouraging their aspirations and supporting them in their pursuit of them. It is filled with loving kindness and compassion. Thích Nhất Hạnh teaches “You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” In other words, there’s no clinging or holding on. If there is, then the love is not mindful love, it is needy love.

 

Before mindful love can be given to others it must first be given to the self. Each of us has to truly love ourselves before we can freely and completely offer mindful love to another. For many westerners this can be a real challenge as many do not even like themselves. This is frequently due to westerners having unrealistic models, and beliefs and expectations about themselves. It is imperative to overcome this as this lack of self-love is the foundation of needy, demanding, self-centered love. Learn to fully accept your humanness and to understand that what you see as imperfections are nothing more than expressions of your humanity. Begin to accept that you are extraordinary, beautiful, capable, and special; a one of a kind, never to be seen again, exemplar of what it means to be a living, imperfect, human being. Recognize that you are worthy not only of your own love but the love of others. Realize that you are just as capable and competent and simultaneously just as inadequate and ineffectual as everyone else. Learn to love yourself and then you can truly love others.

 

It is nearly impossible to divorce romantic love from sexuality. From an evolutionary perspective the feelings between members of the opposite sex are driven by the needs to reproduce, making sexuality an integral part of romantic love. Unfortunately, many people separate love and sex, but this is often due to religious morality or societal dictates. There is no need to separate the two, in fact, they both are best when they work together. When mindful love is accompanied with mindful sex, each reinforces the other, producing an upward spiral of positive feelings. Recent research discovered that people are the most mindful at any time in their lives when they are engaged in sex. So, the phrase “mindful sex” may actually be redundant. But, when combined with mindful love, sexuality is a shared giving experience. Each partner is not simply engaged to satisfy their own needs, but to give, be present, and be sensitive to the other, to be non-judgmental and accepting of the other, to share one of life’s extraordinary experiences, and to truly come to understand why the word intercourse is used to label it. With mindfulness sex becomes an expression of deep and satisfying shared love.

 

Mindful love includes but expands far, far, beyond romantic love. When practiced it extends to everyone around the individual, including family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, acquaintances, and even enemies. As you practice mindful love it will slowly begin to become evident that deep in the core of your being is nothing but love. The more aware you become of this the more that love gushes and envelops you and everyone around you. It even extends to all of existence. Unless you are exceptionally blessed it will take a while to get to this level. But, it doesn’t have to be sought as it is a natural outgrowth of the practice of mindful love.

 

The words, practice mindful love, are so easy to say. But, it is not easy. It’s very hard. It, like most things about mindfulness, is a practice. We work at it and try to get a little better all the time, but knowing that the ideal is not humanly possible. But the effort itself, is a true expression of mindful love. The practice of loving kindness meditation is a method that can help in the development of mindful love. But, if you work at it, invest in it, and patiently practice you will be deeply rewarded. The more you love, the more you love, the more you are loved, and the happier you become, not just superficial happiness, but the deep and abiding happiness of being a mindful valentine.

 

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” – Sam Keen

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Get College Students out of the Dumps with Mindfulness

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“College is a great time in a young person’s life. You get to grow in many aspects; socially, academically and even spiritually. . . . Yes, college can be one of the best times, but it also comes with some of the worst times in your life. The constant stress of classes, exams, organization obligations, friend drama and family issues can completely break a person. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed and overworked, that we feel absolutely hopeless.” – Mariah Nicole Wild

 

Depression is a common mental illness. It is debilitating by producing any or all of a long list of symptoms including: feelings of sadness or unhappiness, change in appetite or weight, slowed thinking or speech, loss of interest in activities or social gatherings, fatigue, loss in energy, sleeplessness, feelings of guilt or anger over past failures, trouble concentrating, indecisiveness, anger or frustration for no distinct reason, thoughts of dying, death and suicide. This can be difficult at any point in life, but for college students with the intense demands on them, it can be devastating. Depression in college students is extremely common with 36.4% of reporting some level of depression. Depression is the number one reason students drop out of school. It also can lead to other symptoms including suicide Indeed, suicide is the third leading cause of death among college students.

 

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is most commonly treated with drugs, but they can have problematic side effects and are not always effective. So, there is a need for alternative treatments for Major Depressive Disorder. Behavioral Activation (BA) has been shown to be effective for depression. It involves behavioral strategies to increase positive reinforcement and the encouragement of activities that produce pleasure and feelings of accomplishment in the patient’s life. Mindfulness training is another alternative treatment for depression. It has been shown to be an effective treatment and is also effective for the prevention of its reoccurrence (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/depression/).

 

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness-based therapy and behavioral activation: A randomized controlled trial with depressed college students”

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McIndoo and colleagues randomly assigned college students who suffered from Major Depressive Disorder to either Behavioral Activation, Mindfulness training, or to a wait list control group who did not receive treatment. Treatment occurred in one hour weekly sessions for four weeks. They found that both the Behavioral Activation and Mindfulness Training produced significant improvements in both self-reported and clinician assessed depression, perceived stress, and rumination, but not anxiety. The Mindfulness training alone produced increases in mindfulness. These were clinically significant changes of moderate to large effect sizes and these improvements were maintained at a one-month follow-up. Importantly, around two thirds of the treated groups attained remission from depression while only one quarter in the wait list group did.

 

These are impressive findings that a relatively brief treatment with either Mindfulness or Behavioral Activation training could produce such dramatic changes in the students. Since both approaches were clinically effective, the study findings suggest that either approach can be selected by clinicians tailored to the client. There were some indications that the Mindfulness training was preferred by the students, possibly because it is simpler and less stressful than Behavioral Activation. Regardless, both appear to be appropriate alternative treatments for major depressive disorder in college students.

 

So, get college students out of the dumps with mindfulness

 

“Imagine what effect it would have on you if someone stood behind you all day telling you how useless you were when you were trying desperately to cope with a difficult experience. Now imagine how much worse it would be if the criticism and harsh judgment came from inside your own mind.” ― Mark Williams
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Don’t Give in to Food Temptation with Mindfulness

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“Eating is a natural, healthy, and pleasurable activity for satisfying hunger. However, in our food-abundant, diet-obsessed culture, eating is often mindless, consuming, and guilt-inducing instead. Mindful eating is an ancient mindfulness practice with profound modern implications and applications for resolving this troubled love-hate relationship with food.” – Am I Hungry

 

Obesity has become an epidemic in the industrialized world. In the U.S. the incidence of obesity, defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or above has more than doubled over the last 35 years. Currently more than 2 in 3 adults are considered to be overweight or obese and around 35% of the population meets the criteria for obesity. Although the incidence rates have appeared to stabilize, the fact that over a third of the population is considered obese is very troubling. Particularly troubling is that about one-third of children and adolescents are considered to be overweight or obese and half of those are obese. This is having a major impact on the health of the population. Obesity has been found to shorten life expectancy by eight years and extreme obesity by 14 years. This is because obesity is associated with cardiovascular problems such as coronary heart disease and hypertension, stroke, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and others. Obviously there is a need for effective treatments to prevent or treat obesity. But, despite copious research, drug development, and a myriad of dietary and exercise programs, there still is no safe and effective treatment.

 

Overweight and obesity result from an imbalance between energy intake and expenditure. One tactic to address the problem is to reduce intake.  Countless dietary programs to do just that have been proposed and tested, but the epidemic appears to be getting worse rather than better. One of the problems with intake in the modern world is much eating occurs mindlessly while the individual is otherwise occupied, perhaps with TV, reading, conversation, driving, work, etc. It has been shown that when distractions are present, the individual tends to eat more, and eat beyond the level where the individual feels full. So, recently attempts have been made to increase awareness of eating and decrease distractions.

 

Mindful eating involves paying attention to eating while it is occurring, including attention to the sight, smell, flavors, and textures of food, to the process of chewing and swallowing, and to the physiological feelings of hunger and fullness from the body. It is hoped that mindful eating may help reduce intake. Indeed, high levels of mindfulness are associated with lower levels of obesity (See http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/eating/) and mindfulness training has been shown to reduce binge eating, emotional eating, and external eating (See http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/26/eat-mindfully-for-obesity/). These results are encouraging, so, there is a need to explore in detail how mindfulness has its effects on intake.

 

In today’s Research News article “Attention with a mindful attitude attenuates subjective appetitive reactions and food intake following food-cue exposure”

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Fisher and colleagues studied the effects of mindfulness on reactions to food cues and intake. They randomly assigned university students and staff to a mindfulness induction or a control condition. Participants received either a brief instruction in mindfulness followed by a brief breath awareness meditation or listened to a neutral story. They were then exposed to the sight of a number of attractive foods. This resulted in heightened hunger in the control participants but not the mindfulness participants. Afterwards the participants either practiced meditation or reflected on their experience for 10 minutes. Subsequently they were left for 5-minutes with a plate of cookies present that they were told was a reward for participation. The mindfulness group ate significantly fewer cookies than the control group.

 

These results are interesting and suggest that mindfulness training, even when brief, can reduce reactions to food cues and reduce intake. Although this was an artificial laboratory condition, the findings suggest that mindfulness can reduce mindless eating by reducing reactions to the presence of attractive foods. This, of course, does not show that mindfulness will reduce intake in the real world. But, it does demonstrate one of the ways that mindfulness might work to help control real world intake.

 

So, don’t give in to food temptation with mindfulness.

 

“Food reveals our connection with the earth. Each bite contains the life of the sun and the earth…. We can see and taste the whole universe in a piece of bread! Contemplating our food for a few seconds before eating, and eating in mindfulness, can bring us much happiness.” – Thich Nhat Hahn
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Just Breathe

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“When the breath wanders the mind also is unsteady. But when the breath is calmed the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves long life. Therefore, one should learn to control the breath.” ~Svatmarama

 

There are two basic forms of meditation, focused meditation and open monitoring. For the beginner, most teachers employ the focused meditation strategy. This involves placing attention on a single object of meditation and holding it there. Focusing on the breath is the most common object for focused meditation. But, there are many others including single thoughts or mental objects, or even mantras.

 

Although there has been research comparing focused to open monitoring meditation, there has been very little attention paid to different objects of focused meditation. The question has not been answered as to whether it is better to focus on the breath or some other mental object. The whole idea of focusing on an object is to eliminate wind wandering. So one way to compare the effectiveness of different objects for focused meditation is by comparing their relative abilities to prevent mind wandering or conversely to suppress thoughts.

 

In today’s Research News article “Better control with less effort: The advantage of using focused-breathing strategy over focused-distraction strategy on thought suppression”

Ju and colleagues randomly assigned undergraduate students to a focused breathing condition or a focused mental object (blue sports car) condition. Students were instructed to focus on their respective object for 2 3-minute sessions and report each time their mind wandered. The students were then measured for thought intrusions during a thought suppression task. They found that the focused breathing condition produced significantly fewer mind wanderings and thought intrusions than the focused mental object condition. For the focused mental object condition, the higher the participants working memory capacity the fewer mind wanderings and thought intrusions. This was not true for the focused breathing condition. This suggests that focusing on a mental object requires mental resources and employs a ‘top down’ strategy while simply focusing on the breath does not.

 

So, it appears that focusing on the breath requires less mental resources and is more successful in preventing mind wandering and thought intrusions than focusing on a mental object. This suggests that the ancient practice of focused breathing meditation became so popular for a reason. It is easier to do and it produces better results.

 

It should be kept in mind, however, that the students were only asked to focus for 2 3-minute periods. It is possible that the superiority of focusing on the breathing may only be true for beginners over very brief periods. There is a need to repeat the study with experienced meditators and for longer periods of focus. Nevertheless, it has become common practice with open monitoring meditation to always begin a session with focusing on the breath and only later moving into open monitoring. The current results suggest that this may be very good practice, helping to get the meditator focused, with minimal mind wandering before moving on to open monitoring where it is more difficult to maintain focus and keep the mind from wandering.

 

So, just breathe to better focus in meditation.

 

“So don’t beat yourself up the next time you find yourself far away from where your mind was supposed to be. It’s the nature of the mind to wander. Use it as an opportunity to become more aware of your own mental experience. But you may still want to return to the present moment—so you can come up with an answer to that question everyone is waiting for.” – Wendy Hasenkamp
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are available at the Contemplative Studies Blog http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/

ACT for Mental Health

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“ACT work is based more on the psychology of the normal. I think we have every reason to believe that most of the things that people struggle with are based on the failure to bring out normal psychological processes.” – Stephen Hayes

 

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a psychotherapy technique that is based upon Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). It focuses on the individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior and how they interact to impact their psychological and physical well-being. It then works to change thinking to alter the interaction and produce greater life satisfaction. ACT employs mindfulness practices to increase awareness and develop an attitude of acceptance and compassion in the presence of painful thoughts and feelings. Additionally, ACT helps people strengthen aspects of cognition such as in committing to valued living. ACT teaches individuals to “just notice”, accept and embrace private experiences and focus on behavioral responses that produce more desirable outcomes.

 

Mindfulness practices have in general been shown to be effective in treating depression (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/depression/) and anxiety disorders (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/anxiety/) Since Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) employs mindfulness training it is not surprising that it is also effective for a variety of mental health issues including depression (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/contemplative-practice/act/).

 

ACT contains a number of modules that allow the client to work on particular thoughts and actions that are relevant to the individual’s problems. This allows for component analysis research, where certain ACT modules are used or dropped out and the change in ACT effectiveness measured, thus allowing the assessment of the effectiveness of each component module. In today’s Research News article “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy modules: Differential impact on treatment processes and outcomes”

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Villatte and colleagues examined “two ACT component modules; one targeting openness to thoughts, feelings, and sensations and the other emphasizing engagement in meaningful actions.” Participants who were suffering from depression and/or anxiety disorders were randomly assigned to receive ACT therapy emphasizing one of the two modules.  In the ACT OPEN module, the client explores the thoughts and ideas about the depression or anxiety and are then encouraged to let go of these thoughts, to let them diffuse, “(e.g. thoughts are observed as if they are leaves floating on a stream).” In the ACT ENGAGED module the client’s own values are explored as guides to orient actions and as sources of satisfaction. They then explore their experiences with an eye toward allowing their values to guide them through the obstacles that occur in everyday life.

 

Villatte and colleagues found that both modules produced significant improvements in acting with awareness and nonreactivity to thoughts, feelings, sensations. They both also produced significant reductions in anxiety and depression symptom severity, but the ACT OPEN module was significantly more effective than the ACT ENGAGED module. The ACT OPEN module only produced significant improvements in cognitive diffusion and experiential acceptance. Both modules also produced clinically significant improvements in quality of life and values based action, but the ACT ENGAGED module was significantly more effective than the ACT OPEN module.

 

Hence they found that the module emphasizing letting go of thoughts and ideas about their problems, ACT OPEN, was more effective in reducing the symptoms of anxiety and depression than the module emphasizing applications of the individual’s own values to guide actions, ACT ENGAGED. This finding reinforces the importance of the emphasis of mindfulness practice on letting go of thoughts and focusing on present experience. It suggests that this may be a critical component in mindfulness applications to mental health issues. The fact that the module emphasizing applications of the individual’s own values to guide actions, ACT ENGAGED produced greater improvements in quality of life suggests that the emphasis in mindfulness practice on acting with awareness may be crucial to satisfying engagement in life.

 

It is possible that letting go is needed as a prerequisite before values based actions are effective. So, values based actions may not be as effective when practiced before practicing letting go. Future research should investigate presenting these modules in different orders. Regardless it is clear that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) modules are effective in the treatment of anxiety and depression.

 

So, ACT for mental health.

 

“People don’t go into therapy when life is moving forward at a reasonable clip; they go in when life is stuck or going backwards. And it’s not that they get cured or fixed, because humans are not broken, they don’t need to be fixed. They need to be supported in a way that allows them to grow and do a better job over time with the things that they really care about—their kids, their work, their intimate relationships, their sense of participation and connection with the world around them.” – Stephen Hayes
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies