Month: January 2017

Improve Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) with Mindfulness

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Improve Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Dealing with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) isn’t easy, but the stress (and the symptoms) involved may be lessened with mindfulness meditation.” – Andrew Weil

 

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the most common functional gastrointestinal (GI) disorder with worldwide prevalence rates ranging from 9–23%. In the U.S. the rates generally in the area of 10–15% affecting between 25 and 45 million people. IBS is not life threatening but it is very uncomfortable producing changes in bowel movement patterns, bloating and excess gas, and pain in the lower belly. It is also a major source of absenteeism both at work and in school. IBS is also associated with a marked reduction in the individual’s health quality of life, with disruption of the physical, psychological and social routines of the individuals. At present, there are no known cures for IBS and treatments involve symptomatic relief, often with fairly radical dietary changes.

 

It has been shown that meditation and yoga can help relieve IBS symptoms but there is a need for more research, particularly of the long-term effectiveness of mindfulness on the symptoms of IBS. In today’s Research News article “Long Term Effects of Mindfulness on Quality of life in Irritable Bowel Syndrome.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1457490580941530/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4752522/

Zomorrodi and colleagues recruited adult (average age = 34) participants who had been diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). They randomly assigned them to either receive treatment as usual or treatment as usual combined with an 8-week, once a week for 2 hours, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. The participants were measured for health quality of life before, and after treatment and were followed-up 2 months later.

 

They found that the MBSR group had a clinically significant (25%) improvement in their health-related quality of life that was sustained at the 2-month follow-up whereas the treatment as usual group showed no improvement. Hence mindfulness training improves the physical, psychological and social impact of IBS on the lives of the patients. These results are important as they show a sustained, relatively long-term improvement produced by MBSR treatment.  Many studies only report improvements measured immediately after treatment. A treatment that is effective only as long as it is being actively administered is of limited usefulness, while one that lasts well beyond the actual time of treatment is much more valuable.

 

It is not known exactly how mindfulness training improve the health-related quality of life in IBS patients. It can be speculated, however, that the training, by focusing the patient on the present moment reduces the worry and catastrophizing about the future that usually accompanies disease. This would allow the patient to focus only on their current physical state and not amplify the symptoms with worry. In addition, mindfulness training is known to reduce the psychological and physiological responses to stress. Stress is well known to exacerbate disease states. So, stress reduction would tend to improve the symptoms of IBS and improve the health-related quality of life.

 

So, improve irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) with mindfulness.

 

“compared to the control group, participants in the mindfulness training group improved on IBS-related quality of life and gastrointestinal-specific anxiety, depression, and general functioning.” – Mindful

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

 

Study Summary

Zomorrodi, S., Rasoulzadeh Tabatabaie, S. K., Azadfallah, P., Ebrahimidaryani, N., & Arbabi, M. (2015). Long Term Effects of Mindfulness on Quality of life in Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry, 10(2), 100–105.

 

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the long-term effects of mindfulness-based therapy on improving life quality of patients with irritable bowel syndrome.

Method: This was an experimental study including 24 patients (12 from each group) with IBS syndrome were selected based on the ROMEIII criteria and were randomly placed in the test and control groups. In both groups, the scales of the IBS-QOL34 Questionnaire were applied as assessment tool. Experiment group was subjected to the MFT (mindfulness-based therapy), while the control group received no intervention. After the two-month follow up, both groups were once again evaluated through the IBS-QOL34 scales.

Results: There is not significant difference between trial and control group in starting of the study in demographic and quality of life status. The findings of covariance analysis revealed that the difference between the experiment and the control groups at follow-up was significant (p = 0.01). The results showed that the MFT has long-term effects on the life quality of patients suffering from IBS.

Conclusion: The MFT could be considered as a new, effective and stable method in psychotherapy, particularly in psychosomatic disorders such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4752522/

 

Improve Neural Regulation of Negative Emotions with Mindfulness

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Improve Neural Regulation of Negative Emotions with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Meditation might help depression, stress and anxiety but it’s not a ‘positive thinking’ tool that pretends everything is fine when it isn’t. It’s a way of being able to be with things as they are, in pain or in grief. It’s a way of being able to experience those inevitable parts of life, without your brain running away with its thoughts and making things worse, or pushing them away and resisting them.  It’s a way of being happy when we are happy, and to be fully present with our happiness, without holding onto that feeling too tightly because we fear the alternative.  And that’s where true peace lives.” – Ruth Rosselson

 

We’re very emotional creatures. Without emotion, life is flat and uninteresting. They are so important to us that they affect mostly everything that we do and say and can even be determinants of life or death. Anger, fear, and hate can lead to murderous consequences. Anxiety and depression can lead to suicide. At the same time love, joy, and happiness can make life worth living. Our emotions also affect us physically with positive emotions associated with health, well-being, and longevity and negative emotions associated with stress, disease, and shorter life spans.

 

There is a prevalent popular notion that to effectively deal with negative emotions such as grief and sadness, they have to be fully expressed and experienced. This is in general true as repression of powerful emotions can have long-term negative consequences. But, overexpressing emotions such that they become a focus of worry and rumination also has negative consequences. So, the key to dealing with powerful negative emotions is the middle way, to allow their expression, but then letting them go and moving on. A method to enhance this middle way is mindfulness. It has been shown to improve emotion regulation. People either spontaneously high in mindfulness or trained in mindfulness are better able to be completely in touch with their emotions and feel them completely, while being able to respond to them more appropriately and adaptively. In other words, mindful people are better able to experience yet control emotions. 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.

 

Mindfulness appears to act on emotions by producing relatively permanent changes to the nervous system, increasing the activity, size, and connectivity of some structures while decreasing it for others in a process known as neuroplasticity. So, mindfulness practice appears to affect emotion regulation by producing neuroplastic changes to the structures of the nervous system that underlie emotion. In today’s Research News article “Minding One’s Emotions: Mindfulness Training Alters the Neural Expression of Sadness.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1456402104383711/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5017873/

Farb and colleagues investigate the nervous system’s response to a negative emotion, sadness, in people trained in mindfulness. They recruited participants and randomly assigned them to either receive an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program or to a wait-list control group. Before and after training the participants were measured for anxiety, depression, and symptoms of psychopathology. Following training the participants had sadness induced by having them watch 3-min film clips from sad vs. neutral movies. They watched the movies while their brains were scanned with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (f-MRI).

 

They found that MBSR produced significant decreases in anxiety, depression, and in symptoms of psychopathology that were not apparent in the wait-list control group. Watching the sad movie clips, the sadness induction, produced a significant increase in sadness and in the activity in the brain structures associated with the Default Mode Network (DMN) that normally gets activated by self-reflective and ruminating thinking. Significantly, they found that the group who received MBSR training had a significantly lower neural response in the DMN to the sadness induction. This occurred in spite of the fact that the sadness induction produced equivalent increases in sadness in both groups. At the same time, the MBSR group showed a greater activation of the visceral and somatosensory areas of the cortex.

 

These findings suggest that mindfulness training improves mental health by altering the neural response to negative emotional states, in this case sadness. The fact that the responses of the visceral and somatosensory areas were heightened in the mindfulness trained participants suggests that they felt the emotional state more deeply. At the same time, the reduced activation of the Default Mode Network (DMN) in the mindfulness trained participants suggests that sadness produced less self-reflection, worry, and rumination. This suggests that the brain better regulates the response to the emotions after mindfulness training. Hence the finding suggest that mindfulness training improves the brain’s emotion regulation processes and thereby reduces anxiety, depression and the symptoms of psychopathology.

 

So, improve neural regulation of negative emotions with mindfulness.

 

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it – always.”- Mahatma Gandhi

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

 

Study Summary

Farb, N. A. S., Anderson, A. K., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D., & Segal, Z. V. (2010). Minding One’s Emotions: Mindfulness Training Alters the Neural Expression of Sadness. Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 10(1), 25–33. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0017151

 

Abstract

Recovery from emotional challenge and increased tolerance of negative affect are both hallmarks of mental health. Mindfulness training (MT) has been shown to facilitate these outcomes, yet little is known about its mechanisms of action. The present study employed functional MRI (fMRI) to compare neural reactivity to sadness provocation in participants completing 8 weeks of MT and waitlisted controls. Sadness resulted in widespread recruitment of regions associated with self-referential processes along the cortical midline. Despite equivalent self-reported sadness, MT participants demonstrated a distinct neural response, with greater right-lateralized recruitment, including visceral and somatosensory areas associated with body sensation. The greater somatic recruitment observed in the MT group during evoked sadness was associated with decreased depression scores. Restoring balance between affective and sensory neural networks—supporting conceptual and body based representations of emotion— could be one path through which mindfulness reduces vulnerability to dysphoric reactivity.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5017873/

 

Improve Epilepsy with Mindfulness

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Improve Epilepsy with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“We found benefits of short-term psychotherapy on patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. Mindfulness therapy was associated with greater benefits than social support alone in quality of life, mood, seizure frequency, and verbal memory.” – Venus Tang

 

Epilepsy, also known as seizure disorder, is a chronic disorder that includes a wide variety of neurological dysfunctions with the common property of unpredictable seizures of the brain. The seizures can vary widely from individual to individual in intensity, duration, frequency and parts of the brain affected. Epilepsy occurs to about 4% of the population sometime during their lifetime with about 150,000 new cases each year in the U.S. The first order treatment for Epilepsy is anti-seizure drugs which are effective for about 70% of the cases. These drugs can produce mild side effects of feeling tired, stomach upset or discomfort, dizziness, or blurred vision. In some cases, surgery is called for, removing the portion of the brain where the seizures originate.

 

The 30% of epilepsy sufferers who do not respond to drugs are not only afflicted with uncontrollable seizures but also have high rates of anxiety and depression, poor quality of life, and cognitive problems. These secondary symptoms may actually worsen the epilepsy. Hence, there is a need to find safe and effective treatments for drug resistant epilepsy. Mindfulness training has been shown to produces changes in the brain and has been shown to be effective in treating anxiety, depression, and cognitive problems. So, it is possible that mindfulness training may help with drug resistant epilepsy.

 

In today’s Research News article “Pay Attention: Mindfulness in Epilepsy.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1455665217790733/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4988075/

Koubeissi provides a commentary on a study by Tang et. al “Mindfulness-Based Therapy for Drug-Resistant Epilepsy: An Assessor-Blinded Randomized Trial.” In this study, they recruited patients with drug resistant epilepsy and randomly assigned them to receive either social support or mindfulness-based therapy. Treatment occurred every other week for a total of four sessions. They found that the patients treated with mindfulness-based therapy had significantly greater reductions in depression, anxiety, and seizure frequency, and improvements in delayed memory. Importantly, these patients also reported a clinically significant increase in quality of life. Hence, they found that only four sessions of mindfulness-based therapy were very effective in improving the symptoms of drug resistant epilepsy.

 

Koubeissi commented on the importance of the finding of improved quality of life, with the mindfulness-based therapy group showing significant clinical improvement. He claims that this is what is most important to the patients. He attributes the improvements to the ability of mindfulness to improve anxiety, depression, and cognitive problems. By focusing attention on the present moment, mindfulness interrupts the past and future based thinking that results in fear, anxiety, worry, and catastrophizing. He concludes that these reductions relax the patient, allowing them to simply focus on the present symptoms and thereby prevent the exacerbation of the epilepsy. In other words, he concludes that mindfulness doesn’t directly improve epilepsy. Rather, it does so indirectly by preventing the amplification of the symptoms by anxiety and depression.

 

So, improve epilepsy with mindfulness.

 

“One of the scariest things about being epileptic is that you develop this fear of having a seizure in public. I started practicing mindful breathing in order to cope with this anxiety, and it’s especially helpful if I’m somewhere crowded or loud.” – Mango Helath

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

 

Study Summary

Koubeissi, M. (2016). Pay Attention: Mindfulness in Epilepsy. Epilepsy Currents, 16(4), 245–246. http://doi.org/10.5698/1535-7511-16.4.245

 

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based therapy (MT) and social support (SS) in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. METHODS: We performed an assessor-blinded randomized control trial. Sixty patients with drug-resistant epilepsy were randomly allocated to MT or SS (30 per group). Each group received 4 biweekly intervention sessions. The primary outcome was the change in the total score of the Patient-Weighted Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory (QOLIE-31-P). Secondary outcomes included seizure frequency, mood symptoms, and neurocognitive functions. The assessors were blinded to the patient’s intervention grouping. Results were analyzed using general linear model with repeated measure. RESULTS: Following intervention, both the MT (n=30) and SS (n=30) groups had an improved total QOLIE-31-P, with an improvement of +6.23 for MT (95% confidence interval [CI] +4.22 to +10.40) and +3.30 for SS (95% CI +1.03 to +5.58). Significantly more patients in the MT group had a clinically important improvement in QOLIE-31-P (+11.8 or above) compared to those who received SS (11 patients vs. 4 patients). Significantly greater reduction in depressive and anxiety symptoms, seizure frequency, and improvement in delayed memory was observed in the MT group compared with the SS group. CONCLUSIONS: We found benefits of short-term psychotherapy on patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. Mindfulness therapy was associated with greater benefits than SS alone in quality of life, mood, seizure frequency, and verbal memory. CLASSIFICATION OF EVIDENCE: This study provides Class II evidence that mindfulness-based therapy significantly improves quality of life in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4988075/

 

The Power of Retreat 7 – The Middle Way

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. (What are the two?) There is addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there is addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata (the Perfect One) has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana.”  – Siddhārtha  Gautama

 

This essay is the 7th of a continuing series of essays about the experience of silent meditation retreats. Click on the numbers to follow the links to the prior essays, titled “The Power of Retreat 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6”. This essay is written as I return from a 5-day silent personal retreat at a beautiful retreat site located in Big Sur, California. In a sense, I was on vacation as everything was taken care of for me; beds made, towels and linens provided, and all meals prepared for me. All I had to do was show up, meditate, relax, do yoga, soak in a hot spring, and contemplate. I was terribly spoiled!

 

But retreat can also be very difficult. I have a life-long habit of trying too hard. In American culture, that is not considered a fault, but in the contemplative life it often is. The Buddha taught the middle way as the proper approach. He tried the extremes from the excess in the life of a prince to the opposite excess in the life of an ascetic. He found after years of futile effort that neither worked in ending suffering. But, when he rejected both and compromised, exerting effort but not too much, he found success and attained enlightenment. So, he taught his followers the middle way.

 

The Buddha likened the spiritual path to a stringed musical instrument. If no effort is exerted the string is slack and does not produce music. If too much effort is exerted, the string is tightened too much and breaks. Only when the string is tightened moderately does it produce beautiful music. He taught this middle way of moderation in all things to achieve success in all phases of life but particularly in spiritual endeavors.

 

I discovered that this wisdom also pertains to engagement in retreat. Some retreats are extremely rigorous, with meditation for hours a day for weeks, months, or even years. A teacher of mine refers to them as “Buddha Boot Camp.” For some, this may be an effective method. Indeed, the 12th century sage Milarepa attained enlightenment after meditating day and night for twelve years. For most people this is, for practical reasons, impossible. But, even rigorous limited modern day retreats I have found that I am simply unable to do this. The physical rigors create great pain and suffering and I do not find this to be conducive to deep meditation. Many teachers believe that this is necessary to attain a breakthrough, but others disagree and there are some reasons to believe that it might be dangerous for some. So, what is the correct path?

 

The modern sage Thich Nhat Hahn visited the San Francisco Zen Center; a center noted for its rigor. After his visit, he was asked by the leader how the Center could improve. He stated that first he would sleep later, and that they shouldn’t be so grim and dour, and should smile much more. What he was pointing to is the middle way; being less strict and rigorous and practicing with greater joy; keeping the body and spirit at a moderate level that allows for the practice to be relaxed and joyful.

 

I learned this lesson during this most recent retreat. It was a personal retreat with no one but myself setting the schedule of activities. The first couple of days it was raining hard, so I took the opportunity to meditate frequently and for extended periods; as it turns out too frequently and too long. After two days, I was physically and mentally exhausted. Meditation became painful and unproductive. I decided to take the afternoon and evening of the third day off. I simply rested, maintaining silence, but read a novel. Many teachers would reprimand me from breaking from the focus on silent meditation. But, as it turned out, it worked wonderfully. The next day I was refreshed, the pain was gone and my level of concentration was wonderful.

 

I scaled back on the frequency and duration of the meditation and rested more often and for longer times. There was no more novel reading or time off. I had learned the middle way as the way to practice in retreat. Previously on a formal retreat with scheduled meditations, I would scoff at participants who would skip a scheduled meditation or a dharma talk and believed that they were wasting a valuable opportunity. Now I see that I was being unfairly judgmental. I now realize that they were being wise, tailoring the retreat to their own level of energy and physical endurance. They were keeping the practice within the middle way.

 

Psychological research has demonstrated that there is an optimum level of motivation for any task and it is not at the extremes, but in the middle. The research has also demonstrated that what the optimum level is varies from person to person. For some, a low level works best, while for others only very high levels produce optimum results. For most, somewhere in the middle is best. It is up to each of us to find our own optimum level and practice accordingly. I found mine on this personal retreat and once I practiced at this level, the results were good. The Buddha taught to judge an activity, not by its nature, but by the results it produces. Clearly, following my own middle way had positive results for me.

 

So, in your practice and on retreat practice the middle way, finding the level of effort what works for you. Don’t string yourself too loosely or too tightly and play beautiful spiritual music on retreat.

 

“We are looking for happiness and running after it in such a way that creates anger, fear and discrimination. So, when you attend a retreat, you have a chance to look at the deep roots of this pollution of the collective energy that is unwholesome.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

Improve Mental Health with Spirituality

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“As we learn more and more about the connections between the mind and body, it becomes clear that spirituality, religion and faith can help some individuals live well with mental health conditions. Some individuals and families turn to faith in times of crisis to help in their recovery while others find that spiritual practices help them continue to manage their mental health.” – National Alliance on Mental Health

 

Psychological well-being is sometimes thought of as a lack of mental illness. But, it is more than just a lack of something. It is a positive set of characteristics that lead to happy, well-adjusted life. These include the ability to be aware of and accept one’s strengths and weaknesses, to have goals that give meaning to life, to truly believe that your potential capabilities are going to be realized, to have close and valuable relations with others, the ability to effectively manage life issues especially daily issues, and the ability to follow personal principles even when opposed to society.

 

Religion and spirituality have been promulgated as solutions to the challenges of life both in a transcendent sense and in a practical sense. What evidence is there that these claims are in fact true? The transcendent claims are untestable with the scientific method. But, the practical claims are amenable to scientific analysis. There have been a number of studies of the influence of religiosity and spirituality on the physical and psychological well-being of practitioners mostly showing positive benefits, with spirituality encouraging personal growth and mental health. Research from this body of work has shown that spirituality and religiosity serve as protective factors against a variety of psychiatric conditions, including depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, suicide, burnout, eating disorders, substance-related disorders and addiction recovery. But there is a need for more research into the influence of spirituality on mental health.

 

In today’s Research News article “Phenotypic Dimensions of Spirituality: Implications for Mental Health in China, India, and the United States.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1445184095505512/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5082226/

McClintock and colleagues examine the spirituality and mental health of a very large cross-cultural sample in China, India, and the United States. Participants completed 14 validated scales of spirituality and religiosity and 3 different scales of mental health. It took approximately 2 hours for the participants to complete all of the measures. The answers on all of the spirituality measures were lumped together and analyzed with sophisticated statistical techniques to uncover the underlying common factors of spirituality.

 

The analysis uncovered “five dimensions of universal spiritual experience, specifically: love, in the fabric of relationships and as a sacred reality; unifying interconnectedness, as a sense of energetic oneness with other beings in the universe; altruism, as a commitment beyond the self with care and service; contemplative practice, such as meditation, prayer, yoga, or qigong; and religious and spiritual reflection and commitment, as a life well-examined.” The five factors were labelled as Religious and Spiritual Reflection and Commitment, Contemplative Practice, Unifying Interconnectedness, Love, and Altruism.

 

The five factors were then examined to observe their relationships with mental health. McClintock and colleagues found that there were some cultural differences but universally, high levels of Love, Interconnectedness, and Altruism were associated with lower levels of mental health problems. That is the more the individuals expressed the spiritual characteristics of love, altruism, and a sense of interconnectedness with everything and everyone, the greater their mental health. Hence, these results clearly suggest that across diverse cultures containing diverse religious and spiritual practices, that spirituality is associated with positive psychological health.

 

It has to be acknowledged that this study was correlational and as such can only uncover relationships. It cannot determine causation. Hence, it cannot be concluded that spirituality causes improvements in mental health. It is equally likely that good mental health produces a greater likelihood of spirituality or that some other factor, such as family upbringing is responsible for both the levels of spirituality and mental health. It will remain for manipulative research in the future to determine the nature of the causal connections.

 

“Spirituality can help people maintain good mental health. It can help them cope with everyday stress and can keep them grounded. Tolerant and inclusive spiritual communities can provide valuable support and friendship. There is some evidence of links between spirituality and improvements in people’s mental health, although researchers do not know exactly how this works.” – Mental Health Foundation

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

 

Study Summary

McClintock, C. H., Lau, E., & Miller, L. (2016). Phenotypic Dimensions of Spirituality: Implications for Mental Health in China, India, and the United States. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1600. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01600

 

Abstract

While the field of empirical study on religion and spirituality in relation to mental health has rapidly expanded over the past decade, little is known about underlying dimensions of spirituality cross-culturally conceived. We aimed to bridge this gap by inductively deriving potential universal dimensions of spirituality through a large-scale, multi-national data collection, and examining the relationships of these dimensions with common psychiatric conditions. Five-thousand five-hundred and twelve participants from China, India, and the United States completed a two-hour online survey consisting of wide-ranging measures of the lived experience of spirituality, as well as clinical assessments. A series of inductive Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and cross-validating Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM) were conducted to derive common underlying dimensions of spirituality. Logistic regression analyses were then conducted with each dimension to predict depression, suicidal ideation, generalized anxiety, and substance-related disorders. Preliminary EFA results were consistently supported by ESEM findings. Analyses of 40 spirituality measures revealed five invariant factors across countries which were interpreted as five dimensions of universal spiritual experience, specifically: love, in the fabric of relationships and as a sacred reality; unifying interconnectedness, as a sense of energetic oneness with other beings in the universe; altruism, as a commitment beyond the self with care and service; contemplative practice, such as meditation, prayer, yoga, or qigong; and religious and spiritual reflection and commitment, as a life well-examined. Love, interconnectedness, and altruism were associated with less risk of psychopathology for all countries. Religious and spiritual reflection and commitment and contemplative practice were associated with less risk in India and the United States but associated with greater risk in China. Education was directly associated with dimensions of spiritual awareness in India and China but inversely associated with dimensions in the United States. Findings support the notion that spirituality is a universal phenomenon with potentially universal dimensions. These aspects of spirituality may each offer protective effects against psychiatric symptoms and disorders and suggest new directions for treatment.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5082226/

Improve Mental Health with Mindfulness

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is designed to help people who suffer repeated bouts of depression and chronic unhappiness. It combines the ideas of cognitive therapy with meditative practices and attitudes based on the cultivation of mindfulness. The heart of this work lies in becoming acquainted with the modes of mind that often characterize mood disorders while simultaneously learning to develop a new relationship to them.” – MBCT.com

 

About one out of every five people suffers from a mental disorder. In the U.S. that amounts to over 44 million people. For the U.S. adults about 1.1% live with schizophrenia, 2.6% with bipolar disorder.  6.9% with major depression, 18.1% with anxiety disorders, and 3% with substance use disorders. This places a tremendous burden on the individual, their families, and the health care system. Obviously there is a critical need to find safe, effective, and affordable treatments for these disorders.

 

Mindfulness training has been shown to be helpful in treating many of these disorders, including schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. One form of therapy that includes mindfulness training is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). It was developed specifically to treat depression and has been found to reduce depression alone or in combination with antidepressive drugs. MBCT involves mindfulness training, containing sitting and walking meditation and body scan, and cognitive therapy to alter how the patient relates to the thought processes that often underlie and exacerbate depression. It has proved so effective for depression that it has also begun to be applied to a variety of other mental disorders.

 

In today’s Research News article “Effects of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on mental disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials..” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1444323605591561/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5030069/

Galante and colleagues review the published research literature on the effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for a variety of mental disorders. They found 11 published randomized controlled trials 10 of which compared MBCT to treatment as usual. There were only a sufficient number of studies to perform a meta-analysis for depression, depression relapse rates, and anxiety. They found that overall the research has demonstrated significant treatment effects for MBCT for the reduction in anxiety and depression. Importantly, MBCT had long-term beneficial effects as evidenced by a significant lowering of the relapse rates from depression on average by 40%.

 

These are important findings that strongly support the application of MBCT for the treatment of depression and anxiety disorders. The effects were not only robust but lasting, still being significantly better then treatment as usual a year after the end of treatment. It is unfortunate that there were not a greater number of studies of the effectiveness of MBCT for other mental disorders. This underscores the need for more research into the application of MBCT to disorders other than anxiety and depression. It has such powerful and lasting effects on anxiety and depression that it would be predicted that it would also be effective for other disorders.

 

It is not known exactly how MBCT relieves anxiety and depression. But, it can be speculated that MBCT, by shifting attention away from the past or future to the present moment, interrupts the kinds of thinking that are characteristic of and support anxiety and depression. These include rumination about past events, worry about future events, and catastrophizing about potential future events. Mindfulness has been shown to interrupt rumination, worry, and catastrophizing and focus the individual on what is transpiring in the present. By interrupting these forms of thinking that support anxiety and depression, shifting attention to the present moment where situations are actually manageable, mindfulness may disrupt depression. MBCT also improves the ability to see thoughts as objects of awareness and not something personal. This may be the most important change to improve anxiety and depression. This changes the relationship of the patients with their thoughts, making them less personal and thereby easier to cope with and change.

 

So, improve mental health with mindfulness.

 

“People at risk for depression are dealing with a lot of negative thoughts, feelings and beliefs about themselves and this can easily slide into a depressive relapse MBCT helps them to recognize that’s happening, engage with it in a different way and respond to it with equanimity and compassion.” – Willem Kuyken

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

 

Study Summary

Galante, J., Iribarren, S. J., & Pearce, P. F. (2013). Effects of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on mental disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Journal of Research in Nursing : JRN, 18(2), 133–155. http://doi.org/10.1177/1744987112466087

 

Key points for policy, practice and research

  • Patients with recurrent depression (three episodes or more) treated with additive MBCT have on average 40% fewer relapses at one year of follow-up compared to patients undergoing treatment as usual.
  • Improvements in depression and anxiety with additive MBCT were significant at one year of follow-up but unstable in sensitivity analyses.
  • More studies with active control groups and long-term follow-ups are needed to better understand the specific effects of MBCT.
  • Depression is a symptom that is present in many conditions. More high quality RCTs are needed to evaluate MBCT in populations with varying depression severity as well as diagnosis with multiple co-morbidities.

Abstract

Objective: Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is a programme developed to prevent depression relapse, but has been applied for other disorders. Our objective was to systematically review and meta-analyse the evidence on the effectiveness and safety of MBCT for the treatment of mental disorders.

Methods: Searches were completed in CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, PsychINFO, and PsycEXTRA in March 2011 using a search strategy with the terms ‘mindfulness-based cognitive therapy’, ‘mindfulness’, and ‘randomised controlled trials’ without time restrictions. Selection criteria of having a randomised controlled trial design, including patients diagnosed with mental disorders, using MBCT according to the authors who developed MBCT and providing outcomes that included changes in mental health were used to assess 608 reports. Two reviewers applied the pre-determined selection criteria and extracted the data into structured tables. Meta-analyses and sensitivity analyses were completed.

Results:Eleven studies were included. Most of them evaluated depression and compared additive MBCT against usual treatment. After 1 year of follow-up MBCT reduced the rate of relapse in patients with three or more previous episodes of depression by 40% (5 studies, relative risk [95% confidence interval]: 0.61 [0.48, 0.79]). Other meta-analysed outcomes were depression and anxiety, both with significant results but unstable in sensitivity analyses. Methodological quality of the reports was moderate.

Conclusion: Based on this review and meta-analyses, MBCT is an effective intervention for patients with three or more previous episodes of major depression.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5030069/

 

 

Decrease Distress from Hearing Voices with Mindfulness

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“The mindfulness-based psychoeducation group reported significantly greater improvements in psychiatric symptoms, psychosocial functioning, insight into illness/treatment and duration of readmissions to hospital.” – Wai Chien

 

Hearing voices (auditory hallucinations) is seen as a prime symptom of psychosis and is considered a first rank symptom of schizophrenia. Neuroimaging has demonstrated that the voices that people hear are experienced as if there were a real person talking to them with the same brain areas becoming active during voice hearing as during listening to actual speech. So, it would appear that voice hearers are actually experiencing voices.

 

Hearing voices, however, is not always indicative of psychosis. Around 2% – 4% of the population reports hearing voices. But, only about a third of voice hearers are considered psychotic. On the other hand, about two thirds of voice hearers are quite healthy and function well. They cope effectively with the voices they’re hearing, do not receive the diagnosis of psychosis, and do not require psychiatric care. The differences between people with psychoses and healthy people who hear voices, is not in the form but the content of the heard speech. Non-psychotic individuals hear voices both inside and outside their head just like the psychotic patients but either the content is positive or the individual feels positive about the voice or that they are in control of it. By contrast the psychotic patients are frightened of the voices, the voices are more malevolent, and they feel less control over them.

 

Mindfulness has been shown to be negatively related to the distress felt by the individual about hearing voices, such that the higher the level of mindfulness, the lower the level of distress. But, it has not been demonstrated that increasing mindfulness with training can produce decreases in distress. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been shown repeatedly to help relieve the symptoms of psychosis. So, it would seem reasonable to test the ability of a mindfulness based form of CBT to relieve the distress produced by hearing voices.

 

In today’s Research News article “Group mindfulness-based intervention for distressing voices: A pragmatic randomised controlled trial.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1443292212361367/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4967452/

Chadwick and colleagues recruited participants who had reported hearing voices at least over the last year. The participants were randomly assigned to receive either treatment as usual or a Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) program administered in a group format, weekly for 1.5 hours over 12 weeks. Before and after therapy and 6 months later the participants were measured for auditory hallucinations, anxiety, depression, and psychological distress. They found that the participants who received MBCT had significantly lower depression levels after treatment and 6 months later. In addition, the therapy produced a significant decrease in the distress felt about hearing voices and the participants perceived ability to control the voices.

 

These are interesting results that replicate the frequent finding that MBCT is effective in reducing depression. In addition, MBCT did not affect the severity of the voices heard. Rather it changed how people felt about the voices reducing how distressful they were to the individual and how well they felt that they could control them. So, MBCT doesn’t cause the voices to be heard differently, rather it simply helps the individuals to suffer less from the voices they hear. Being in the present moment may allow the voice hearer to feel more in control and to simply hear the voices without associating them with past or future problems making them much less distressful.

 

So, decrease distress from hearing voices with mindfulness.

 

“mindfulness with individuals with psychosis can facilitate a decrease in overall symptoms, and can promote a reduction in subjective distress and the believability of symptoms. Mindfulness has also been shown to provide participants with a sense of calm and relaxation, while also instilling a sense of power over their experience. Thus, mindfulness-based treatment interventions may be an effective adjunctive treatment approach for individuals with psychotic illnesses.” – Kolina Delgado

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

 

Study Summary

Chadwick, P., Strauss, C., Jones, A.-M., Kingdon, D., Ellett, L., Dannahy, L., & Hayward, M. (2016). Group mindfulness-based intervention for distressing voices: A pragmatic randomised controlled trial. Schizophrenia Research, 175(1-3), 168–173. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2016.04.001

 

Abstract

Group Person-Based Cognitive Therapy (PBCT) integrates cognitive therapy and mindfulness to target distinct sources of distress in psychosis. The present study presents data from the first randomised controlled trial investigating group PBCT in people distressed by hearing voices. One-hundred and eight participants were randomised to receive either group PBCT and Treatment As Usual (TAU) or TAU only. While there was no significant effect on the primary outcome, a measure of general psychological distress, results showed significant between-group post-intervention benefits in voice-related distress, perceived controllability of voices and recovery. Participants in the PBCT group reported significantly lower post-treatment levels of depression, with this effect maintained at six-month follow-up. Findings suggest PBCT delivered over 12 weeks effectively impacts key dimensions of the voice hearing experience, supports meaningful behaviour change, and has lasting effects on mood.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4967452/

 

 

Reduce Anxiety and Depression in Hospice with Yoga

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“What yoga has to offer people who are dying is acceptance, not just of death, but also of all the difficult feelings that come with it.” – Molly Kenny

 

Depression is very common in the elderly. The elderly cope with increasing loss of friends and family, deteriorating health, as well as concerns regarding finances on fixed incomes. All of these are legitimate sources of worry. But, no matter how reasonable, the increased worry and anxiety add extra stress that can impact on the elderly’s already deteriorating physical and psychological health. For those nearing the endo of life, emotions become amplified. The knowledge that death is imminent—and the awareness that it is unavoidable—understandably brings intense anxiety and fear. For the elderly in hospice care these issues become amplified. So, clearly ameliorating the depression and anxiety could be highly beneficial to the well-being of the elderly in general and especially those in hospice care.

 

Yoga practice has been shown to have a myriad of psychological and physical health benefits. These include relief of anxiety and depression and yoga has been shown to be safe and effective when applied to the elderly. So, it would seem reasonable to assess the effectiveness of yoga practice for the anxiety and depression present in the elderly in hospice care. In today’s Research News article “Effect of a 12-week yoga therapy program on mental health status in elderly women inmates of a hospice.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1442506282439960/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

http://www.ijoy.org.in/article.asp?issn=0973-6131;year=2017;volume=10;issue=1;spage=24;epage=28;aulast=Ramanathan

Ramanathan and colleagues recruited elderly women in hospice care and randomly assigned them to either a wait-list control group or a yoga practice group. The yoga practice was especially designed for the frail elderly and was carried out in the hospice in a group for 60 min, twice weekly for a period of 12 weeks. The practice included a simple warm-up, breath-body movement coordination practices, static stretching postures, breathing techniques, and relaxation. Before and after the 12-week practice the patients completed self-report measures of anxiety, depression, and self-esteem.

 

They found that the yoga practice produced a significant improvement in the women’s well-being. In particular there was a significant decrease in psychological and somatic anxiety and depression and an increase in self-esteem in the yoga group in comparison to the control group. These are exciting results and indicate that yoga practice is a safe and effective treatment for the anxiety, depression, and self-esteem of women in hospice. This suggests that yoga practice reduces the psychological suffering near the end of life. The increases in self-esteem were particularly large and striking, suggesting that engaging in yoga markedly improved how the women felt about themselves.

 

It should be mentioned that there was not an active control group. So, there is no way of determining if any light exercise could produce similar improvements or if the benefits accrue solely to those engaged in yoga practice. Yoga practice has been shown to decrease aging and improve longevity in older people. An interesting question for future research is to determine if yoga practice might improve longevity in women in hospice. Regardless, reduce anxiety and depression in hospice with yoga.

 

“Yoga is about bringing peace of mind and acceptance through breath and movement. Hospice is about comfort and support at the end of life.  Even when a patient cannot stand or get out of bed, small movements and special breathing techniques can lead to deeper relaxation.” – Sara Culan

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

 

Study Summary

Ramanathan M, Bhavanani AB, Trakroo M. Effect of a 12-week yoga therapy program on mental health status in elderly women inmates of a hospice. Int J Yoga [serial online] 2017 [cited 2016 Nov 23];10:24-8. Available from: http://www.ijoy.org.in/text.asp?2017/10/1/24/186156

 

Aim and Objectives: This study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of yoga on the mental health status of elderly women inmates residing in a hospice in Puducherry.
Materials and Methods: Forty elderly women were randomly divided into yoga and wait-listed control group. A yoga therapy program of 60 min was given twice a week for 12 weeks. This protocol was specially designed for senior citizens, keeping in mind their health status and physical limitations that included simple warm-up and breath-body movement coordination practices (jathis and kriyas), static stretching postures (asanas), breathing techniques (pranayamas), and relaxation. Hamilton anxiety scale for measuring anxiety, Hamilton rating scale for depression, and Rosenberg self-esteem scale to measure self-esteem were administered to both groups before and after the 12-week study period. Data were assessed for normality, and appropriate parametric and nonparametric statistical methods were applied for intra- and inter-group comparisons.
Results: Overall, intra- and inter-group comparison of prepost data showed statistically significant (P < 0.001) differences for all three parameters. There was an overall improvement in the scores indicating decreased levels of depression and anxiety coupled with an increase in the level of self-esteem after the yoga therapy program.
Discussion: The influence of yoga in the reduction of depression and anxiety scores and improvement in self-esteem scores in elderly women subjects is evident from this study. As reported in earlier studies, this may be attributed to changes in central neurotransmitters such as gamma-aminobutyric-acid coupled with increased parasympathetic tone and decreased sympatho-adrenal activity.
Conclusion: It is recommended that yoga should be a part of health-care facilities for elderly as it can enhance the quality of life by improving their overall mental health status. It could provide a healthy and positive alternative from depressing negative thoughts, and give them a sense of purpose and hope.

http://www.ijoy.org.in/article.asp?issn=0973-6131;year=2017;volume=10;issue=1;spage=24;epage=28;aulast=Ramanathan

Improve Seeing Others as Like the Self with Loving Kindness Meditation

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Loving-kindness meditation does far more than produce momentary good feelings. . . . this type of meditation increased people’s experiences of positive emotions. . . . it actually puts people on “trajectories of growth,” leaving them better able to ward off depression and “become ever more satisfied with life.”” – Christine Carter

 

Humans are social animals. This is a great asset for the species as the effort of the individual is amplified by cooperation. In primitive times, this cooperation was essential for survival. But in modern times it is also essential, not for survival but rather for making a living and for the happiness of the individual. This ability to cooperate is so essential to human flourishing that it is built deep into our DNA and is reflected in the structure of the human nervous system. Empathy and compassion are essential for appropriate social engagement and cooperation. In order for these abilities to emerge and strengthen, individuals must be able to see that other people are very much like themselves.

 

Unfortunately, there is very little understanding of the factors that lead to and improve empathy and compassion. One method that appears to be able to increase these capacities is Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM). It has been shown to amplify positive emotions, altruism, and compassion. This suggests that LKM may reduce the perceived difference between the self and other people. This is difficult to study, however, as these capacities are not easily measured and require length, indirect, paper and pencil, tests for assessment.

 

An alternative assessment technique is to measure the electrical response of the brain (electroencephalogram, EEG) as an indicator of empathy and compassion. This can be done by investigating differences in the brains processing of stimuli related to the self, relative to those related to other people. Upon presentation of these stimuli differences in the brain’s response can be seen called the evoked potential (ERP). The P300 response in the evoked potential (ERP) occurs between 3 to 6-tenths of a second following the stimulus presentation. It is a positive change that is maximally measured over the central frontal lobe. The P300 response has been associated with self-processing. It is larger in response to stimuli such as one’s own name, face, or information about the person’s history. So, the P300 response is often used as a measure of the processing of information about the self, with the larger the positive change the greater the self-processing.

 

In today’s Research News article “Decentering the self? Preliminary evidence for changes in self- vs. other related processing as a long-term outcome of loving-kindness meditation.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1441662135857708/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01785/full?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Psychology-w48-2016

Trautwein and colleagues employ the P300 response in the evoked potential (ERP) in response to pictures of the self or a close friend to investigate the effectiveness of Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) to improve empathy and compassion in humans. They recruited adult long-term practitioners of LKM and a group of age, gender, handedness, and education matched non-meditators. The participants were asked to press a button every time a picture of either themselves of their friend was presented amid a series of other stimuli. This occurred on 20% of the time. They measured performed this task while wearing scalp electrodes to measure the EEG and the P300 response to these stimuli was recorded.

 

They found that, as expected, the LKM practitioners reported experiencing more compassionate love for strangers and all of humanity than control participants. They also found that, as expected, the P300 response in the parietal lobe of the brain was greater to the picture of the self than the friend. As a measure of the degree to which the participant viewed the self and other as similar, they measured the difference in the ERP response to the self vs. friend picture. They found that the smaller the difference between the self vs. friend P300 response the greater the levels of self-reported compassion. Importantly, they also found that the greater the amount of LKM practice the smaller the difference in the P300 response to self and friend.

 

These results are interesting and suggest that Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) improves empathy and compassion by altering the brain’s response to self vs. others. In this way, individuals perceive other people as more like themselves, making them more compassionate and empathetic. It should be noted, however, that there was not a comparison group of meditators who did not practice LKM. So, it cannot be concluded that the effects were due to LKM practice specifically. It could be that any form of meditation practice would have similar effects. But, it is clear that meditation alters the brain’s response to self vs. others.

 

So, improve seeing others as like the self with Loving Kindness Meditation.

 

“The practice of LKM led to shifts in people’s daily experiences of a wide range of positive emotions, including love, joy, gratitude, contentment, hope, pride, interest, amusement, and awe. These shifts in positive emotions took time to appear and were not large in magnitude, but over the course of 9 weeks, they were linked to increases in a variety of personal resources, including mindful attention, self-acceptance, positive relationships with others, and good physical health…They enabled people to become more satisfied with their lives and to experience fewer symptoms of depression.”  – Barbara Fredrickson

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

 

Study Summary

Fynn-Mathis Trautwein, José Raúl Naranjo, and Stefan Schmidt Decentering the self? Preliminary evidence for changes in self- vs. other related processing as a long-term outcome of loving-kindness meditation. Front. Psychol., 21 November 2016 | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01785

 

Research in social neuroscience provides increasing evidence that self and other are interconnected, both on a conceptual and on an affective representational level. Moreover, the ability to recognize the other as “like the self” is thought to be essential for social phenomena like empathy and compassion. Meditation practices such as loving-kindness meditation (LKM) have been found to enhance these capacities. Therefore, we investigated whether LKM is associated to an increased integration of self–other-representations. As an indicator, we assessed the P300 event-related potential elicited by oddball stimuli of the self-face and a close other’s face in 12 long-term practitioners of LKM and 12 matched controls. In line with previous studies, the self elicited larger P300 amplitudes than close other. This effect was reduced in the meditation sample at parietal but not frontal midline sites. Within this group, smaller differences between self- and other-related P300 were associated with increasing meditation practice. Across groups, smaller P300 differences correlated with self-reported compassion. In meditators, we also investigated the effect of a short LKM compared to a control priming procedure in order to test whether the state induction would additionally modulate self- vs. other-related P300. However, no effect of the priming conditions was observed. Overall, our findings provide preliminary evidence that prolonged meditation practice may modulate self- vs. other-related processing, accompanied by an increase in compassion. Further evidence is needed, however, to show if this is a direct outcome of loving-kindness meditation.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01785/full?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Psychology-w48-2016

 

Meditation Improves Well-Being but How You Meditate Can Make a Difference

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“science confirms the experience of millions of practitioners: meditation will keep you healthy, help prevent multiple diseases, make you happier, and improve your performance in basically any task, physical or mental.” – Giovanni Dienstmann

 

Meditation training has been shown to improve health and well-being. It has also been found to be effective for a large array of medical and psychiatric conditions, either stand-alone or in combination with more traditional therapies. As a result, meditation training has been called the third wave of therapies. One problem with understanding meditation effects is that there are, a wide variety of meditation techniques and it is not known which work best for improving different conditions.

 

Four types of meditation are the most commonly used practices for research purposes. In body scan meditation, the individual focuses on the feelings and sensations of specific parts of the body, systematically moving attention from one area to another. Loving kindness meditation is designed to develop kindness and compassion to oneself and others. The individual systematically pictures different individuals from self, to close friends, to enemies and wishes them happiness, well-being, safety, peace, and ease of well-being. In focused attention meditation, the individual practices paying attention to a single meditation object, learns to filter out distracting stimuli, including thoughts, and learns to stay focused on the present moment, filtering out thoughts centered around the past or future. On the other hand, in open monitoring meditation, the individual opens up awareness to everything that’s being experienced regardless of its origin. These include bodily sensations, external stimuli, and even thoughts. The meditator just observes these stimuli and lets them arise, and fall away without paying them any further attention.

 

These techniques have common properties of restful focused attention, but there are large differences. These differences are likely to produce different effects on the practitioner. In today’s Research News article “Phenomenological Fingerprints of Four Meditations: Differential State Changes in Affect, Mind-Wandering, Meta-Cognition, and Interoception Before and After Daily Practice Across 9 Months of Training.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1440840735939848/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-016-0594-9

Kok and Singer examine the similarities and differences between the effects of body scan meditation, loving kindness meditation, focused attention meditation, and open monitoring meditation. They recruited normal adults aged between 20 to 55 and randomly assigned them to three different orders of conditions in a complex research design. Training in each meditation type was conducted for 13 weeks, including a 3-day retreat at the beginning. The participants reported daily on their feeling states, contents of thought, meta-cognition, and 2 minutes of free writing about their thoughts and feelings.

 

All four meditation practices contain a component of focused breathing meditation, so it’s effects can’t be separated from the other three types. They found that all four meditation practices, consistent with the published literature, produced significant increases in positive feelings, focus on the present moment, and body awareness and decreases in mind wandering.

 

There were also considerable differences in the effects of the meditation practices. Body scan meditation, not surprisingly, produced the greatest increase in body awareness and the greatest decrease in thoughts about past, future, and others, and negative thoughts, in other words less mind wandering. Loving kindness meditation produced the greatest increase in positive thoughts and warm feelings about self and others. Open monitoring meditation produced the greatest increase in thought awareness and decrease in distraction by thoughts. These outcomes are consistent with the targeted contents of the practices.

 

It appears that all meditation types have very positive consequences for the practitioner and at the same time each has its own strengths. These strengths then can be taken advantage of to affect targeted issues for the practitioner. If the problem with the individual is a lack of body awareness then body scan meditation is called for, if it’s negative feelings about self and others, then loving kindness meditation would be best, while if it’s with meta-cognition such as awareness of thoughts, then open monitoring meditation should be the choice. In this way meditation practice, can have even greater benefit for the individual.

 

Regardless, improve well-being with meditation.

 

“If you have a few minutes in the morning or evening (or both), rather than turning on your phone or going online, see what happens if you try quieting down your mind, or at least paying attention to your thoughts and letting them go without reacting to them. If the research is right, just a few minutes of meditation may make a big difference.” – Alice Walton

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

 

Study Summary

Kok, B.E. & Singer, T. Phenomenological Fingerprints of Four Meditations: Differential State Changes in Affect, Mind-Wandering, Meta-Cognition, and Interoception Before and After Daily Practice Across 9 Months of Training. Mindfulness (2016). doi:10.1007/s12671-016-0594-9

 

Abstract

Despite increasing interest in the effects of mental training practices such as meditation, there is much ambiguity regarding whether and to what extent the various types of mental practice have differential effects on psychological change. To address this gap, we compare the effects of four common meditation practices on measures of state change in affect, mind-wandering, meta-cognition, and interoception. In the context of a 9-month mental training program called the ReSource Project, 229 mid-life adults (mean age 41) provided daily reports before and after meditation practice. Participants received training in the following three successive modules: the first module (presence) included breathing meditation and body scan, the second (affect) included loving-kindness meditation, and the third (perspective) included observing-thought meditation. Using multilevel modeling, we found that body scan led to the greatest state increase in interoceptive awareness and the greatest decrease in thought content, loving-kindness meditation led to the greatest increase in feelings of warmth and positive thoughts about others, and observing-thought meditation led to the greatest increase in meta-cognitive awareness. All practices, including breathing meditation, increased positivity of affect, energy, and present focus and decreased thought distraction. Complementary network analysis of intervariate relationships revealed distinct phenomenological clusters of psychological change congruent with the content of each practice. These findings together suggest that although different meditation practices may have common beneficial effects, each practice can also be characterized by a distinct short-term psychological fingerprint, the latter having important implications for the use of meditative practices in different intervention contexts and with different populations.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-016-0594-9