Relieve Anxiety following Surgery with Meditation
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“Mindfulness trains you to view your thoughts differently. You learn to recognize and stop “mental time travel” — worrying about the future and ruminating about the past. Instead of following a worrying thought down the path of all possible negative outcomes, you learn to recognize it for what it is — one thought — and then let it go. This trains your brain to be less anxious.” – Deane Alban
It’s a normal human response to become anxious when confronted with highly stressful or frightening situations, such as undergoing heart surgery. Being overly anxious, however, can interfere with coping and recovery after surgery. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that mindfulness counteracts anxiety and mindfulness training is an effective treatment for a variety of forms of anxiety. Mindfulness training has been shown to be effective for anxiety disorders in general and in relieving test anxiety and social anxiety. It has yet to be demonstrated that mindfulness training can relieve the anxiety preceding and following major surgery.
In today’s Research News article “.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5408519/, Kiran and colleagues examine the ability of meditation training to relieve anxiety before and after coronary artery bypass grafting. They recruited patients (average age of 55 years) who were scheduled to undergo coronary artery bypass grafting for coronary artery disease and randomly assigned them to either receive meditation training or counseling about the surgical procedure. The mindfulness training occurred upon admission to the hospital and consisted of three instructional sessions on Rajyoga meditation and 3 10-minute meditations per day, once before breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Meditation continued daily prior to and following surgery. Prior to training anxiety was measured with a self-report and on the day of surgery and 2 and 5 days later anxiety and plasma cortisol levels (to measure stress responding) were measured.
They found that before training and right before surgery the groups did not differ in anxiety levels. But, on the 2nd day after surgery the meditation group was significantly less anxious than the control group and on the 5th postoperative day the difference was even greater. Before surgery plasma cortisol levels did not differ between groups but the meditation group had a significantly smaller increase in cortisol immediately after surgery and a return to the normal range on the 5th postoperative day. Hence, meditation appears to lower postsurgical anxiety and stress levels. This may promote faster recovery from the procedure. It is interesting that such a simple and short-term mindfulness intervention can have such a large effect on anxiety and stress responding.
Anxiety is a fear of potential future negative events. It is dependent upon future oriented thought processes. Mindfulness training may counteract this by focusing the individual on the present moment. Since, there are no negative events there in the present moment, anxiety dissipates. In addition, mindfulness training improves the individual’s ability to see the negative future projections as they arise in the mind and recognize that they are not based in present reality. This can lead to reduced anxiety.
So, relieve anxiety following surgery with meditation.
“We have a bad habit of gathering up dramatic feelings and situations, clutching them to us as if they were prized possessions. We feel we are entitled to our ownership of this anxiety, and we believe we must hold onto it in order to keep ourselves emotionally safe. It takes a little courage, but meditation can help us see and nurture our internal strength, so we can separate ourselves from drama and achieve anxiety relief.” – Ram Das
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Kiran, U., Ladha, S., Makhija, N., Kapoor, P. M., Choudhury, M., Das, S., … Airan, B. (2017). The Role of Rajyoga Meditation for Modulation of Anxiety and Serum Cortisol in Patients Undergoing Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery: A Prospective Randomized Control Study. Annals of Cardiac Anaesthesia, 20(2), 158–162. http://doi.org/10.4103/aca.ACA_32_17
Abstract
Introduction:
Rajyoga meditation is a form of mind body intervention that is promoted by the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University. This form of meditation can be easily performed without rituals or mantras and can be practiced anywhere at any time. The practice of Rajyoga meditation can have beneficial effects on modulating anxiety and cortisol level in patients undergoing major cardiac surgery.
Materials and Methods:
A prospective randomized control study was carried out in a single tertiary care center. One hundred and fifty patients undergoing elective coronary artery bypass surgery were enrolled in the study. The patients were randomized in two groups namely, Group 1 (Rajyoga group) and Group 2 (Control Group). Anxiety was measured on a visual analog scale 1–10 before the start of Rajyoga training or patient counseling (T1), on the morning of the day of surgery (T2), on the 2nd postoperative day (T3), and on the 5th postoperative day (T4). The serum cortisol level was measured in the morning of the day of surgery (T1), on the 2nd postoperative day (T2) and on the 5th postoperative day (T3), respectively.
Results:
In the study, it was seen that the anxiety level of the patients before the surgery (T1) and on the day of surgery (T2) were comparable between the two groups. However on the 2nd postoperative day (T3), the patients who underwent Rajyoga training had lower anxiety level in comparison to the control group (3.12 ± 1.45 vs. 6.12 ± 0.14, P < 0.05) and on the 5th postoperative day (T4) it was seen that Rajyoga practice had resulted in significant decline in anxiety level (0.69 ± 1.1 vs. 5.6 ± 1.38, P < 0.05). The serum cortisol level was also favorably modulated by the practice of Rajyoga meditation.
Conclusion:
Mindbody intervention is found to effective in reducing the anxiety of the patients and modulating the cortisol level in patients undergoing wellknown stressful surgery like coronary artery bypass surgery.