Let Spirituality Help You through Tough Times

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“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.” ― Albert Einstein

 

Bad things happen even to good people. These negative life events and the distress that comes with them can damage mental health unless the individual has a means to cope with the distress. Religion/spirituality is often used as a refuge during challenging times. Does it actually help? There is some evidence that it does. It has been shown that spirituality works with mindfulness to relieve depression (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/does-spirituality-account-for-mindfulness-anti-depressive-effects/) and can improve end of life (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/spirituality-improves-end-of-life/).

 

In today’s Research News article “The effect of spirituality and religious attendance on the relationship between psychological distress and negative life events”

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157065/

Kidwai and colleagues investigated this very question. They studied the relationship between attendance at religious services, spirituality, and distress in an urban population. They found that people who were high on spirituality were less likely to be distressed following negative events as compared to those who were low on spirituality. They also found that high levels of spirituality were associated with attendance at religious services and that religious attendance was associated with lower distress. So, spirituality seemed to work indirectly on distress through increasing religious attendance that in turn reduced distress.

 

It appears that spiritual/religious coping is a powerful coping mechanisms that has the potential to buffer the damaging effects of negative life events on psychological functioning. There are a number of processes that could account for this. But, from the results it appears that religious attendance is primary and spirituality works by encouraging religious attendance.

 

It is possible that religious attendance provides social support when traversing difficult life situations. The common belief system connects individuals and promotes support and understanding during problems. In fact, this is precisely what Kidwai and colleagues found. Religious attendance was associated with higher social support which in turn was associated with lower distress. Hence, religious attendance can go a long way toward relieving distress directly and also by recruiting social support.

 

Regardless of the mechanism it is clear that spirituality and religious attendance can be helpful to the individual in difficult times.

 

So, be spiritual to help get you through life’s challenges.

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

 

 

Look Inside

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The following story was used as a teaching by the great Sufi teacher, Nasrudin.

His friend, Mansour, comes to visit him and sees Nasruddin on his hands and knees, crawling on the sidewalk under the street lamp, obviously searching for something, appearing frustrated.

 Concerned for his friend, Mansour asks, “Nasruddin, what are you looking for? Did you lose something?”

 “Yes, Mansour. I lost the key to my house, and I’m trying to find it, but I can’t.”

 “Let me help you,” responds Mansour. Mansour joins his friend, kneels down on his hands and knees, and begins to crawl on the sidewalk under the street lamp, searching.

 After a time, having looked everywhere on and around the sidewalk, neither Nasruddin nor Mansour can find the lost key. Puzzled, Mansour asks his friend to recall his steps when he last had the key, “Nasruddin, where did you lose the key? When did you last have it?”

 “I lost the key in my house,” Nasruddin responds.

 “In your house?” repeats the astonished Mansour. “Then why are we looking for the key here, outside on the sidewalk under this street lamp?”

 Without hesitation, Nasruddin explains, “Because there is more light here . . . !”

 The great teaching contained in this story is that we are constantly looking for what is important to us outside of ourselves. It is easier to see outside and so this is where we look for happiness, truth, understanding, and love. We believe that we will be happy when and if we can obtain something, be it a promotion, raise, or new position, an object such as a new car or house, or an experience such as a travel or a vacation. We believe that we will find the understanding and love that we seek with a new relationship, or once we change a significant person. We believe that we will find the truth by following a particular religion or spiritual teacher, or by studying what great thinkers and scientists have discovered.

All of these things can be beneficial, good, and useful. But, after a while after obtaining them we discover that they were not the answer. They may have been briefly satisfying, but that satisfaction did not last. So we seek something else outside of ourselves leading to the same outcome. So we try again on what psychologist’s term the hedonic treadmill. It’s amazing that many people never realize that this strategy is simply not working.

The problem all along has been that we’re looking in the wrong place. Like Nasrudin we are searching outside when the key can only be found inside. We can only find happiness, truth, understanding, and love within ourselves. Contemplative practice is the means for internal exploration. It allows us to carefully view our mental and emotional landscape seeking the keys.

With practice we can begin to see that happiness is a choice that we can make. It’s everywhere around us and in us if we only appreciate life for what it is and cease to fight against it. If we accept things as they are and then look deeply at them we will see the splendor and glory of life as it transpires moment to moment.

The more we engage in contemplative practice and the deeper we go, the more the mind begins to quiet. Once settled, we can begin to see that the love we’ve been seeking is already there within us. When we learn to love ourselves first we will see that others love us but it has to be viewed through a compassionate understanding of the emotional upheavals within them. Eventually we may even have the revelation to see that love is the substance of the universe.

All of this can lead to understanding that life is to be experienced not opposed, that the truth of existence is always present inside us if we only allow ourselves to see it, that heaven is not a place but is everywhere, and that ultimate truth was there all along.

These revelations do not come easily. They require often years of dedicated practice. But, they are there. If we’re looking in the right place we can find them. If we’re looking outside, we’ll never find them. If we’re looking inside we’re on the right track. The keys are there.

 

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Go to College with Mindfulness

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Many people have fond memories of their college years. It is likely, however, that they forgot about the stress and angst of those years. The truth is that college is generally very stressful for most students, from the uncertainty of freshman year, to the social stresses of emerging adulthood, to the anxiety of launching into a career after senior year. Evidence for the difficulties of these years can be found in college counseling centers which are swamped with troubled students. In fact, it’s been estimated that half of all college students report significant levels of anxiety and depression.

To make matters worse, many college students do not get sufficient sleep. In one study only 11% of college students reported getting sufficient sleep while 73% reported sleep problems. In another study it was found that about 27% of college students have overt sleep disorders such as narcolepsy or insomnia. These sleep problems are associated with lower grades. Many students attempt to combat this problem with heavy use of legal and illegal stimulants which further disrupt sleep and produce other problematic side effects..

So, it is important to find a safe and effective way to reduce stress, depression and anxiety and promote sleep in college students. Mindfulness training has been shown to reduce anxiety and stress http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/29/get-your-calm-on/ and to reduce depression http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/04/get-out-of-the-dumps-with-loving-kindness-meditation/. In addition, it has been shown to improve sleep quality http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/mindfulness-is-a-snooze/. So, mindfulness training would appear to be well suited to deal with the problems of college students.

In today’s Research News article “A Randomized Controlled Trial of Koru: A Mindfulness Program for College Students and Other Emerging Adults”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1082437775113481/?type=1&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4016159/

Greeson and colleagues test the effectiveness of a mindful meditation program with college students. The found that the student who participated in four 75-min meditation training sessions reported lower perceived stress and fewer sleep problems while having higher levels of mindfulness and self-compassion. When the wait-list control group was later provided with the meditation training, they evidenced the same improvements.

The improved sleep quality was positively associated with increased levels of mindfulness and self-compassion. In turn, the improved self-compassion after meditation training involved increased kindness toward both themselves and humanity in general, and decreased self-judgment, social isolation, and a lower tendency to over-identify with their problems. All of these changes after meditation training had moderate to large effect sizes which suggests that the training effects are of sufficient magnitude to be clinically useful.

These are exciting findings. A simple, relatively brief training is shown to be a safe and effective method to address the stress, mood problems, and sleep disturbance occurring in college students. This, if implemented widely, could greatly improve both the college experience and academic performance.

So, go to college with mindfulness. It will produce even fonder memories of the college years.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Keep up Yoga Practice for Anxiety and Depression!

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“The medical literature tells us that the most effective ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and many more problems are through healthy diet and exercise. Our bodies have evolved to move, yet we now use the energy in oil instead of muscles to do our work.” – David Suzuki

Chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes are not only physically difficult but also very frequently associated with emotional challenges, being frequently accompanied by anxiety and depression. The presence of a chronic disease makes it three times more likely to have a major depression. About 15% of patients with diabetes are depressed while about 20% of patients with coronary heart disease evidence depression.

The comorbidity appears to be bidirectional. The presence of depression nearly doubled the likelihood that diabetes would occur and there is a 50% greater likelihood that a depressed individual will have a heart attack than matched individuals without depression. So, chronic disease tends to predict anxiety and depression and these psychological disorders tend to predict chronic disease.

Dealing with mental health issues with a background of chronic illness presents a complex picture for treatment. One option is yoga practice. It is known to have both physical and mental health benefits, so it would seem to be well suited to dealing with the combination of the two. In fact yoga has been found to reduce the symptoms of anxiety and stress http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/29/get-your-calm-on/ and improve distress tolerance http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/30/stop-emotional-eating-with-yoga/ as well as improving the immune response to combat disease http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/healthy-balance-through-yoga/. It can even help protect the brain from aging degeneration http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/age-healthily-protect-the-brain-with-yoga/.

In today’s Research News article “Influence of Intensity and Duration of Yoga on Anxiety and Depression Scores Associated with Chronic Illness”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1081979728492619/?type=1&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4512118/

Telles and colleagues test not only the effectiveness of yoga practice for anxiety and depression in chronically ill patients but also investigated the amounts of practice that are effective. They found that the more months that yoga has been practiced the lower the levels of both anxiety and depression. In addition, the amount of daily practice in minutes was also associated with lower levels of anxiety associated with chronic illness.

There are a number of effects of yoga practice that may underlie its ability to relieve anxiety and depression in chronically ill patients. Yoga practice has been shown to decrease the physical and psychological responses to stress. The stress related to chronic illness can magnify both the symptoms of the illness and also the psychological impact of the illness. By relieving this stress yoga practice can affect both the physical and psychological symptoms of the illness.

Yoga practice is also known to improve mood which could directly affect the levels of anxiety and depression. It may also do so by altering brain chemistry which is known to be associated with depression and anxiety. In addition, the fact that yoga is frequently practiced in a group can provide social support and stimulation that can assist with mental health.

Regardless of the mechanism it appears clear that the more you practice yoga, the better you begin to feel psychologically and physically. So, keep up your yoga practice for physical and emotional health.

“Even if you have a terminal disease, you don’t have to sit down and mope. Enjoy life and challenge the illness that you have.” – Nelson Mandela

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Heart Health with Tai Chi

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“If you want to be healthy and live to one hundred, do qigong.” ~Mehmet Oz

Tai Chi and Qigong are ancient practices of mindful movement. The reason that they have continued to be practiced by millions for centuries is that they have major mental and physical benefits. Modern research is verifying these benefits. Mindful movement practice has been shown to improve balance, self-concept, and attention span, reduce falls, boost the immune system and helps to relieve symptoms of arthritis, asthma, Parkinson’s disease and insomnia. It has been shown to improve sleep in the elderly http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/aging-healthily-sleeping-better-with-mindful-movement-practice/ and even improve cancer recovery http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/age-healthily-mindful-movement-and-cancer-recovery/.

Tai Chi involves slow motion smooth mindful movements. It doesn’t look much like an exercise and so it has the reputation of not being an exercise that improves cardiovascular health. Tai chi “does not supply the cardiovascular component that we’d be looking for in a well-rounded routine. The exertion level, while challenging, is not going to increase your heart rate.” – Jessica Matthews. This notion, however, turns out to be untrue.

In today’s Research News article “The Effect of Tai Chi Training on Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1081496985207560/?type=1&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4332633/

Zheng and colleagues reviewed the literature on the effects of Tai Chi practice on heart and circulatory health in healthy adults. They find that there is considerable evidence that Tai Chi has positive effects on heart and circulatory health.

Tai Chi practice appears to improve blood pressure, heart stroke volume, resting heart rate, cardiac output, lung capacity, and heart and breathing endurance. It appears to do this without any adverse effects. This is remarkable, as all of the drugs used to produce these same effects have major side effects and adverse consequences. Hence, Tai Chi appears to be a safe and effective practice for heart and respiratory health.

So, practice Tai Chi and help maintain heart health.

“Tai chi does not mean oriental wisdom or something exotic. It is the wisdom of your own senses, your own mind and body together as one process.” ~Chungliang Al Huang

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Learn Less Implicitly with Mindfulness

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“The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn

When people think of learning they’re usually visualizing learning information like historical facts, peoples names, mathematical formulas, etc. But, there’s another very important form of learning, called implicit learning, which is learning how to perform automatic tasks rapidly and efficiently. Things like riding a bike, playing a musical instrument, serving a tennis ball and tying your shoelaces all require implicit learning and memory.

Implicit learning requires the person to actually perform and practice a task to master it. Many athletic skills fall into this category. The skills are mastered with repetition so that they can be performed instinctively and mindlessly when needed. Once you’ve mastered hitting a ball with a bat you don’t have to think about the actual swing. You only need to make the decision to swing or not; the automatic system takes over from there. This is very effective. In fact athletes will tell you that if they think too much about what they’re doing they won’t do it as well.

Implicit learning also involves most mundane tasks that we perform constantly throughout our day. Walking, producing speech, even typing this sentence on a keyboard all involve implicitly learned skills. So, implicit learning is important and helps to reduce the cognitive load on our nervous system for everyday behaviors. We don’t have the think about them so we can devote our brain capacity to higher level thoughts and ideas.

It has been demonstrated that mindfulness helps with explicit learning, such as academic material. For example mindfulness training can improve college entrance exam scores in students. But, does mindfulness also help with implicit learning? In today’s Research News article “Dispositional mindfulness is associated with reduced implicit learning”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1080803475276911/?type=1&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4140982/

Stillman and colleagues tackle this very question; investigating the relationship between mindfulness and implicit learning.

They found that mindfulness appeared to interfere with implicit learning, the higher the level of mindfulness the lower the score on implicit learning tasks. But, mindfulness was associated with positive outcomes such as lower depression, better overall health, episodic memory and inhibitory control. So, mindfulness appears to have many very positive effects but there appears to be a tradeoff. As the old saying goes ‘you don’t get something for nothing’. The benefits occur but there’s also a cost, lower ability for implicit learning.

To some extent this result makes sense. Implicit learning involves learning to perform an action without attention. Mindfulness involves learning to pay attention. So, the two would appear to be incompatible. Being better at paying attention in the present moment makes it more difficult to learn to not pay attention and learn implicitly.

There actually may be an upside to mindfulness interfering with implicit learning. There are a number of behaviors that we learn implicitly that we might call ‘bad habits.’ Mindfulness may interfere with the development with these also. Developing an addiction is a good example. It involves learning implicitly a myriad of behaviors elicited by certain environmental conditions. Interfering with implicit learning might interfere with acquiring an addiction. In fact, it has been shown that mindfulness training helps with kicking a bad habit, getting rid of an addiction.

So, be mindful, the plusses outweigh the minuses. You might not be as good at mastering an athletic skill, but your life will be much better in most other ways.

“Mindfulness may help prevent formation of automatic habits — which is done through implicit learning — because a mindful person is aware of what they are doing.” – Chelsea Stillman

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Age Healthily – Sleep better with Meditation

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Aging brings a myriad of physical and mental changes including altered amounts and patterns of sleep. Older people have the same sleep needs as when they were younger but they have more difficulty falling and staying asleep and do not sleep as deeply. In addition, aging individuals wake more often during sleep, tend to go to sleep and wake earlier than when they were younger. There is also an increase in sleep disorders, including insomnia and 44% of the elderly report at least occasional problems with insomnia.

Sleep problems are more than just an irritant. Sleep deprivation is associated with decreased alertness and a consequent reduction in performance of even simple tasks, increased difficulties with memory and problem solving, decreases quality of life, increase likelihood of accidental injury including automobile accidents, and increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. It also places stress on relationships, affecting the sleep of the older individuals sleep partner.

Hence, it is clear that getting a good night’s sleep is important for everyone. But for the elderly it’s more difficult to get it. So, anything that could assist older people to sleep better would help the individual to age healthier with a better quality of life. Mindfulness has been found to be associated with healthy aging (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/age-healthily-mindfulness/).

Mindfulness can also be helpful with sleep problems. Indeed, meditation has been shown to be effective for the treatment of insomnia in adults (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/mindfulness-is-a-snooze/). But, the elderly are different and it is not known if meditation might also help them to sleep better.

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness Meditation and Improvement in Sleep Quality and Daytime Impairment among Older Adults with Sleep Disturbances: A Randomized Clinical Trial”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1080339028656689/?type=1&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4407465/

Black and colleagues demonstrate that meditation can improve sleep quality in people over 55 years of age. They found that meditation increased the quality of sleep and the degree of improvement was related to the degree of increase in mindfulness produced. Meditation also resulted in less insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, and depression and less interference in daily living produced by fatigue. These findings are very exciting and suggest that meditation may be an effective intervention to improve sleep in the elderly.

Sleep problems are associated with a high level of physiological arousal. Meditation has been shown to reduce the hormonal and neural systems that underlie arousal and reduces responses to stress (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/destress-with-mindfulness/). This could be one mechanism by which meditation improves sleep. Also sleep disturbance is often associated with psychological issues such as anxiety, depression, worry and rumination. Meditation is also known to reduce these processes. Indeed, Black and colleagues demonstrated reductions in depression with meditation in older individuals (see also http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/dealing-with-major-depression-when-drugs-fail/) and mindfulness is known to reduce anxiety (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/the-mindfulness-cure-for-social-anxiety/) and worry (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/stop-worrying/)  This may be another potential mechanism by which mindfulness improves sleep.

Regardless of the mechanism, it is clear that meditation improves sleep in older individuals. Since meditation is relatively safe and easy to perform and has become more and more common and acceptable in modern western cultures, it would seem to be an ideal solution to the sleep problems of the elderly.

So, meditate and sleep better as you age.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

The Purpose of Life

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“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

We tend to make everything overly complicated. We do this repeatedly in our existence and particularly in our search for meaning in life, for our purpose in living. Rather than see its elegant simplicity we intellectualize it and attempt to construct some form of theoretical understanding in reference to what we’ve been taught and what we’ve learned from experience. In other words we use our intellects to make up a purpose. It is no wonder that we feel uncertain and confused about our purpose.

So we look to scriptures, the writings of great thinkers, or the productions of great artists to reveal to us the meaning and purpose of our lives. For some that seems to bring comfort. But, they are comforted only because they don’t invest significant time and energy in processing the logic of the solutions. They simply defer to someone else’s ideas. With a little reflection though, the purported purpose is realized to be unsatisfactory.

How sad, that our minds convince us that our purpose has to be difficult to discern. Our purpose in existing should be simple and patently obvious to all. Only our intellects would need to look for something obscure and complex. Simply put, thinking prevents us from seeing. So, let’s look without thinking. Let’s simply look around us.

The purpose of life should be revealed in the present moment, not in our hazily remembered and reconstructed past and not in our imagined and projected future, but right now. The only time that we can have a purpose is right now. So why not look for it there.

If we look carefully at what we’re experiencing right now in the present moment without thinking or reference to the past or future, we will experience an incredible panoply of sensations that arise and fall away, arise and fall away, arise and fall away. If we try to grasp ahold of any of them we fail and become unhappy. But, if we simply sit back and let whatever comes come and whatever goes go, we experience the beauty of the ever changing present. We can come to enjoy the pleasure and wonder of the richness of every moment. We can see it for the miracle that it actually is.

This quickly leads to the patently obvious conclusion that the purpose of life is simply to experience it. Nothing more! If we truly stop trying to make it complicated and simply focusing on experiencing what is there right in front of us, a revelation begins to dawn on us that our purpose is not to come up with an intellectual answer to produce meaning but simply to experience the meaning that is revealed in every single moment.

How wonderfully obvious and simple!

It’s not rocket science. It’s simply seeing the wonder of existence and allowing it to play out for us.

So, experience life in all its glory and fulfill your purpose.

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”  ― Eleanor Roosevelt

“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” -Dalai Lama

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Live More Effectively with Breast Cancer with Mindfulness

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About 1 in 8 women in the U.S. develop invasive breast cancer over their lifetimes and about 40,000 women die annually from breast cancer. It is encouraging however that the death rates have been decreasing for decades from improved detection and treatment of breast cancer. Five-year survival rates are now at around 95%. Nonetheless, more women in the U.S. die from breast cancer than from any other cancer, besides lung cancer.

The improved survival rates mean that more women are now living with cancer. This can be difficult as breast cancer survivors can have to deal with the consequences of chemotherapy, and often experience increased fatigue, pain, and bone loss, reduced fertility, difficulty with weight maintenance, damage the lymphatic system, heightened fear of reoccurrence, and an alteration of their body image. With the loss of a breast or breasts, scars, hair shedding, complexion changes and weight gain or loss many young women feel ashamed or afraid that others will reject or feel sorry for them.

There is a need then to find ways to help women adjust and adapt to life with breast cancer. Mindfulness training has been shown to help in dealing with the psychological issues associated with having cancer (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/tackle-cancer-with-mindfulness/ ). In today’s Research News article “The effect of group mindfulness – based stress reduction program and conscious yoga on the fatigue severity and global and specific life quality in women with breast cancer.”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1079361118754480/?type=1&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4431452/

Rahmani & Talepasand employed Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) to help women who live with breast cancer. They found that MBSR produced robust and clinically significant improvements in the patients’ quality of life including role, cognitive, emotion, and social quality of life. It even reduced pain and fatigue in these women.

These are encouraging results that MBSR can be of great assistance for women coping with breast cancer. It has been previously shown that MBSR reduces fears of recurrence and symptoms of anxiety and depression in breast cancer survivors. These reductions alone could be responsible for improved quality of life. But, MBSR does so much more. It also reduces perceived stress and arousal in the sympathetic nervous system. Reduction in stress, allowing the patient to relax, by itself can also improve quality of life.

MBSR is also known to improve present moment awareness. By focusing on the present moment rather than catastrophizing about the future of the cancer, MBSR can help the patient to focus on living with the cancer in the moment making them better able to cope. MBSR also improves emotion regulation. This allow the women to more effectively process and respond to how their feeling about their situation. So, rather than being paralyzed by fear, anxiety, and depression, they can allow themselves to feel these emotions and still respond effectively to the needs of the moment.

MBSR is also known to reduce pain (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/mindfulness-the-pain-killer/). In part, MBSR works by interrupting the rumination and fear of pain that amplifies the perceived pain. This can go a long way in improving quality of life with cancer.

Finally, there is evidence that MBSR can increase the activity of the enzyme telomerase that is responsible for long-term cellular health. This can directly affect the progress of the cancer.

So, practice mindfulness and live more effectively with cancer.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Kick the Drug Habit with Mindfulness

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Substance abuse is a major health and social problem. There are estimated 22.2 million people in the U.S. with substance dependence. It is estimated that worldwide there are nearly ¼ million deaths yearly as a result of illicit drug use which includes unintentional overdoses, suicides, HIV and AIDS, and trauma. In the U.S. about 17 million people abuse alcohol. Drunk driving fatalities accounted for over 10,000 death annually and including all causes alcohol abuse accounts for around 90,000 deaths each year, making it the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States.

Obviously there is a need to find effective methods to prevent and treat substance abuse. There are a number of programs that are successful at stopping the drug abuse, including the classic 12-step program emblematic of Alcoholics Anonymous. Unfortunately the majority of drug and/or alcohol abusers relapse and return to substance abuse. Hence, it is important to find an effective method to prevent these relapses.

In today’s Research News article “Relative Efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention, Standard Relapse Prevention, and Treatment as Usual for Substance Use Disorders: A Randomized Clinical Trial”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1078832758807316/?type=1&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4489711/

Bowen and colleagues examine the ability of a 12-step program, a Relapse Prevention (RP) program, and Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) in preventing relapse over a one-year period.

The Relapse Prevention (RP) program attempts to prevent relapse by helping the abuser to identify situations that tend to precipitate relapse and teach cognitive (thinking) and behavioral skills to navigate through these situations. Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) employs some components of relapse prevention and adds mindfulness based components to increase awareness and behavioral flexibility in daily life.

They found at three month follow-up that all three programs were effective in preventing relapse. But at 6 months both the RP and MBRP programs were superior to the 12-step program in preventing relapse. The participants in these programs had significantly higher abstinence from drug use and refraining from heavy drinking. The superiority of the Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) program was evidenced at the one-year follow-up, reporting 31% fewer drug use days and a significantly higher probability of refraining from heavy drinking. So, all programs were effective over the short term, but over the long-term the mindfulness based program worked the best.

How can mindfulness help an addict to refrain from indulging over the long-term? Mindfulness training stresses present moment awareness of both internal and external stimuli. It puts the individual in better touch with their own feeling and thoughts in real time. The cognitive therapy components of the program help the individual properly interpret what their feeling and to change the way they think about themselves and others. This improves the addict’s ability to recognize and tolerate the discomfort associated with craving, interpret it correctly, not see it as a personal failure, and effectively employ an alternative technique to deal with craving.

In addition mindfulness is known to improve emotion regulation. The individual becomes better at recognizing and responding effectively to their own emotions. Thus the addict can better recognize emotions, particularly negative  ones, and feel them thoroughly but respond to not with drugs or alcohol, but with responses more appropriate for the current situation.

Regardless of the mechanism the fact that mindfulness training can extend the effectiveness of relapse prevention is very significant. The longer the addict remains drug or alcohol free, the greater the likelihood of developing more adaptive behaviors which can, in turn, spawn the kind of success experiences that can help to maintain the drug free existence.

So, practice mindfulness and kick the habit.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies