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Improve Bipolar Disorder with Few Adverse Complications with Mindfulness

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Improve Bipolar Disorder with Few Adverse Complications with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“[Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy] in [bipolar disorder] is associated with improvements in cognitive functioning and emotional regulation, reduction in symptoms of anxiety depression and mania symptoms.” – Sanja Bojic

 

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depressive disorder, is a mood disorder characterized by alternating states of extreme depression, relative normalcy, and extreme euphoria (mania). The symptoms of depression and mania are so severe that the individual is debilitated and unable to conduct their normal daily lives. The depression is so severe that suicide occurs in about 1% of cases of bipolar disorder. There are great individual differences in bipolar disorder. The extreme mood swings can last for a few days to months and can occur only once or reoccur frequently.

 

Bipolar disorder affects about 1% of the population throughout the world at any time. But about 3% to 10% of the population may experience it sometime during their lives. It is usually treated with drugs. But these medications are not always effective and can have difficult side effects. This disorder has generally been found to be very difficult to treat with psychotherapy. Hence, there is a great need for alternative treatments.

 

Mindfulness practices and treatments have been shown to be effective for major mental disorders, including  depression and anxiety disorders and to improve the regulation of emotions.  Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) was specifically developed to treat depression. MBCT involves mindfulness training, containing sitting, walking and body scan meditations, and cognitive therapy that attempts to teach patients to distinguish between thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and behaviors, and to recognize irrational thinking styles and how they affect behavior. But whether MBCT may produce adverse events that may worsen bipolar disorder has not been well investigated.

 

In today’s Research News article “Adverse or therapeutic? A mixed-methods study investigating adverse effects of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy in bipolar disorder.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8568103/ ) Hanssen and colleagues recruited patients who were diagnosed with bipolar disorder and provided them with 8 weekly 2.5-hour group sessions of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) along with home practice. The patients completed weekly self-reports of adverse events; “any meditation related-effects that occurred during the course of MBCT, which patients indicated as having a negative valence or negative impact on daily functioning”. Patients who reported adverse events received structured interviews regarding the events.

 

They found that 38% of the patients reported at least one adverse event. These included in order of frequency reported self-related doubts, depression, anxiety, agitation, re-experiencing of traumatic affect, derealization, distrust, mania, depersonalization, unusual bodily sensations, and visual hallucinations. Over the course of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) treatment the number of patients reporting adverse events declined and the number of adverse events per patient declined. There were no serious adverse events leading to hospitalization or permanent damage. More than half of the patients found the adverse events challenging but thought that they were actually a beneficial part of their therapeutic process and the development of mindfulness skills.

 

This is important research as adverse events during mindfulness training even in normal individuals can produce adverse events. In seriously mentally ill individuals like those with bipolar disorder adverse event are quite common. So, understanding the nature and consequences of these events is important in calculating the risk-reward of engaging in therapy. It appears that even in these seriously mentally ill patients that the adverse events are generally mild and perceived as aiding in the therapeutic process. This suggests that the risks of therapy for these patients are small and the potential rewards great.

 

So, improve bipolar disorder with few adverse complications with mindfulness.

 

“medication can help people with bipolar disorder in the short term, and that meditation is helpful in promoting a more balanced mood over a longer period of time.” – Anthony Watt

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are available on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Hanssen, I., Scheepbouwer, V., Huijbers, M., Regeer, E., Lochmann van Bennekom, M., Kupka, R., & Speckens, A. (2021). Adverse or therapeutic? A mixed-methods study investigating adverse effects of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy in bipolar disorder. PloS one, 16(11), e0259167. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259167

 

Abstract

Background

Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) are widely used in clinical and non-clinical populations, but little attention has been given to potential adverse effects (AEs).

Aims

This study aimed to gain insight in the prevalence and course of AEs during Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for patients with bipolar disorder (BD).

Method

The current mixed-methods study was conducted as part of a RCT on (cost-) effectiveness of MBCT in 144 patients with BD (Trial registered on 25th of April 2018, ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03507647). During MBCT, occurrence of AEs was monitored prospectively, systematically, and actively (n = 72). Patients who reported AEs were invited for semi-structured interviews after completing MBCT (n = 29). Interviews were analysed with directed content analysis, using an existing framework by Lindahl et al.

Results

AEs were reported by 29 patients, in seven of whom the experiences could not be attributed to MBCT during the interview. AEs were reported most frequently up to week 3 and declined afterwards. Baseline anxiety appeared to be a risk factor for developing AEs. Seven existing domains of AEs were observed: cognitive, perceptual, affective, somatic, conative, sense of self, and social. Influencing factors were subdivided into predisposing, precipitating, perpetuating, and mitigating factors. With hindsight, more than half of patients considered the reported AEs as therapeutic rather than harmful.

Conclusions

Although the occurrence of AEs in MBCT for patients with BD is not rare, even in this population with severe mental illness they were not serious or had lasting bad effects. In fact, most of them were seen by the patients as being part of a therapeutic process, although some patients only experienced AEs as negative.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8568103/

 

Reduce Risky Driving with Mindfulness

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Reduce Risky Driving with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Distraction mitigation techniques like mindfulness are looming as essential to save lives on our roads especially among young drivers who have high rates of addiction to technology, and who overestimate their ability to multitask and underestimate the dangers of driver distraction.” – Kristie Young

 

Driving is one of the riskiest behaviors that we engage in even though we believe it to be safe. Nearly 17,000 people in the U.S. die in automobile accidents each year. Beyond the inherent danger of driving, risk is markedly increased by risky decisions while driving. These include speeding, drunk driving, distracted driving, impulsive or aggressive driving, and emotional driving. Mindfulness may be helpful as mindfulness increases attention and emotion regulation and decreases impulsivity and aggression. But there has been little research on the effectiveness of mindfulness training in reducing risky driving.

 

In today’s Research News article “Repeat Traffic Offenders Improve Their Performance in Risky Driving Situations and Have Fewer Accidents Following a Mindfulness-Based Intervention.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.567278/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1547234_69_Psycho_20210204_arts_A ) Baltruschat and colleagues recruited online adult drivers and obtained self-report records of traffic violations. They identified repeat offenders as drivers who reported multiple instances of risky driving and randomly separated them into a mindfulness and control groups. The mindfulness group met for 3 hours once a week for 5 weeks and received mindfulness training modelled after the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. All participants were measured before and after training for emotion regulation, cognitive emotion regulation, and risky driving behavior in a driving simulator when confronted with high-risk scenarios.

 

They found that after training the mindfulness trained repeat offenders had significantly better driving performance in the simulator and fewer simulated accidents resulting from high-risk simulation scenarios than either the non-trained repeat offenders or non-repeat offenders. There were no significant differences found in emotion regulation.

 

These are interesting results. But it must be recognized that the driving simulator is an artificial environment and the risk scenarios did not involve real risk. So, it is not clear that the present results predict driving behavior in the real world. There are a number of possible explanations for the improvement in driving behavior produced by mindfulness training. The lack of significant effects on emotion regulation in the present study was surprising but may indicate that improvement in the individual’s ability to work with their emotions is not how mindfulness improves driving. It remains for future research to investigate other possible mechanisms such as impulsivity, aggression, or attentional effects.

 

Regardless, mindfulness training appears to reduce risk taking behavior and may produce better drivers. Such training, incorporated into traditional driver training courses, may reduce accident rates and deaths on the roads. Future research should investigate this possibility.

 

So, reduce risky driving with mindfulness.

 

“individuals who engage in mindfulness are less likely to text and drive; a crucial statistic seeing as the National Safety Council reports that cell phone use while driving kills more than 3,000 people each year.” – SBG-TV

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

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

 

Study Summary

 

Baltruschat S, Mas-Cuesta L, Cándido A, Maldonado A, Verdejo-Lucas C, Catena-Verdejo E and Catena A (2021) Repeat Traffic Offenders Improve Their Performance in Risky Driving Situations and Have Fewer Accidents Following a Mindfulness-Based Intervention. Front. Psychol. 11:567278. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.567278

 

ABSTRACT

Risky decision-making is highly influenced by emotions and can lead to fatal consequences. Attempts to reduce risk-taking include the use of mindfulness-based interventions (MBI), which have shown promising results for both emotion regulation (ER) and risk-taking. However, it is still unclear whether improved emotion regulation is the mechanism responsible for reduced risk-taking. In the present study, we explore the effect of a 5-week MBI on risky driving in a group of repeat traffic offenders by comparing them with non-repeat offenders and repeat offenders without training. We evaluated the driving behavior of the participants through a driving simulation, and self-reported emotion regulation, both before and after the intervention. At baseline, poor emotion regulation was related to a more unstable driving behavior, and speeding. The group that received mindfulness training showed improved performance during risky driving situations and had fewer accidents, although their overall driving behavior remained largely unchanged. The observed trend toward improved emotion regulation was not significant. We discuss whether other effects of MBI – such as self-regulation of attention – could underlie the observed reduction in risky driving in the initial stages. Nonetheless, our findings still confirm the close relationship between emotion regulation skills and risky driving.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.567278/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1547234_69_Psycho_20210204_arts_A