By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“Meditation gives you the wherewithal to pause, observe how easily the mind can exaggerate the severity of a setback, and resist getting drawn back into the abyss.”— Richie Davidson
Mindfulness practice has been shown to produce improved emotion regulation. Practitioners demonstrate the ability to fully sense and experience emotions, but respond to them in more appropriate and adaptive ways. In other words, mindful people are better able to experience yet control emotions. This is a very important consequence of mindfulness. Humans are very emotional creatures and these emotions can be very pleasant, providing the spice of life. But, when they get extreme they can produce misery and even mental illness. The ability of mindfulness training to improve emotion regulation is thought to be the basis for a wide variety of benefits that mindfulness provides to mental health and the treatment of mental illness especially depression and anxiety disorders.
It has been shown that repeated writing about upsetting experiences (narrative disclosure) can be beneficial for the individual’s physical and mental health. This narrative disclosure is thought to produce benefits by interrupting experiential avoidance. That is, the process of writing about difficult experiences forces the individual to face them and stop avoiding dealing with the experiences and the emotions evoked by them. Hence, it is reasonable to further explore the roles of mindfulness and experiential avoidance in the effects of narrative disclosure on mental health.
In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness and Experiential Avoidance as Predictors and Outcomes of the Narrative Emotional Disclosure Task.” See:
or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4821161/
Moore and colleagues recruited college students and randomly assigned them to receive 3 daily 20-minute sessions of either writing about traumatic or upsetting events (narrative disclosure) or a neutral control condition of witting about their day. Before writing and 3 months afterwards both groups completed self-report scales of mindfulness, experiential avoidance, depression, psychological distress, and self-acceptance.
Contrary to expectations, they did not find any difference in mental health, mindfulness, or experiential avoidance as a result of narrative disclosure in comparison to control writing. But, they found that for both conditions, decreases in experiential avoidance were associated with decreases in both depression and psychological distress and increases in self-acceptance. On the other hand, for the narrative disclosure but not control condition, increases in mindfulness were associated with significant decreases in depression and psychological distress, and increases in self-acceptance. Hence, regardless of condition reduced experiential avoidance was associated with improved mental health. But, only within the narrative disclosure condition was increased mindfulness associated with improved mental health.
These are interesting results that defy simple interpretation. It is clear that regardless of writing condition low experiential avoidance contributes to mental health. So, facing up to and not avoiding troubling experiences contributes to mental health. In the case with mindfulness, however, the case is more complex. The results suggest that those individuals for whom narrative disclosure produces changes in mindfulness, there is a resultant improvement in mental health. It is interesting to note that within the control condition, high mindfulness at baseline was associated with improved mental health. So, it would appear, as has previously been demonstrated that mindfulness is associated with better mental health and that further increases in mindfulness produced by narrative disclosure results in further improvements in psychological well-being. So, being more mindful contributes to mental health and increasing mindfulness will further improve mental health.
So, increase mindfulness to improve mental health.
“Working with emotions during our meditation sessions sharpens our ability to recognize a feeling just as it begins, not 15 consequential actions later. We can then go on to develop a more balanced relationship with it—neither letting it overwhelm us so we lash out rashly nor ignoring it because we’re afraid or ashamed of it.” – Sharon Salzberg
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Moore, S. D., Brody, L. R., & Dierberger, A. E. (2009). Mindfulness and Experiential Avoidance as Predictors and Outcomes of the Narrative Emotional Disclosure Task. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 65(9), 971–988. http://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20600
Abstract
This randomized study examined whether narrative emotional disclosure improves mindfulness, experiential avoidance, and mental health, and how baseline levels of and changes in mindfulness and experiential avoidance relate to mental health. Participants (N = 233) wrote repeated traumatic (experimental condition) or unemotional daily events narratives (control condition). Regression analyses showed neither condition nor gender effects on mental health or experiential avoidance at a 1-month follow-up, although the control condition significantly increased in one component of mindfulness. Decreased experiential avoidance (across conditions) and increased mindfulness (in the experimental condition) significantly predicted improved mental health. Narrative disclosure thus did not improve outcomes measured here. However, increasing mindfulness when writing narratives with traumatic content, and decreasing experiential avoidance regardless of writing content, was associated with improved mental health.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4821161/