Category: Research related to Mindfulness

Mindfulness Approaches and Depression

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A study, published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, claimed that Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy was as effective as maintenance anti-depressants in preventing a relapse into depression and more effective in enhancing peoples’ quality of life. The study also showed MBCT to be as cost-effective as prescription drugs in helping people with a history of depression stay well in the longer-term.

Funded by the British Medical Research Council, the study was led by Professor Willem Kuyken at the Mood Disorders Centre, University of Exeter, in collaboration with the Centre for Economics of Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, Peninsula Medical School, Devon Primary Care Trust and the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit.

The study involved 123 people who had suffered repeat depressions and were referred by their doctors. The participants were split into two groups. Half continued their on-going anti-depressant drug treatment and the rest participated in an MBCT course and were given the option of coming off anti-depressants.

Over the 15 months after the trial, 47% of the group following the MBCT course experienced a relapse compared with 60% of those continuing their normal treatment, including anti-depressant drugs. In addition, the group on the MBCT program reported a higher quality of life, in terms of their overall enjoyment of daily living and physical well-being.

Professor Kuyken said: “Anti-depressants are widely used by people who suffer from depression and that’s because they tend to work. But, while they’re very effective in helping reduce the symptoms of depression, when people come off them they are particularly vulnerable to relapse. MBCT takes a different approach – it teaches people skills for life. What we have shown is that when people work at it, these skills for life help keep people well.”

Fibromyalgia

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The widespread pain of fibromyalgia is hard to treat, but a small clinical study published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics shows that meditation may deliver lasting benefits. 39 women with fibromyalgia attended the 8 week MBSR Programme, focusing on deepening mind-body awareness and cultivating acceptance of parts of their condition that they were unable to control. At the end of the Course – and at a three-year follow-up – the women in the Mindfulness group coped better with pain than those whose classes included relaxation training and exercise.

The MBSR Programme included elements on managing stressful situations, which National Fibromyalgia Association senior medical adviser Patrick Wood M.D. considers important. “Fibromyalgia pain is often triggered by some sort of stressor” he says, “so learning to handle stress better can make a big difference in terms of symptom experience”

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and different medical conditions

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Scientists have reported that the MBSR Programme may keep people with HIV healthier longer. A 2009 UCLA study published in the journal Brain, Behaviour and Immunity found that the Course helped people with HIV maintain immunity. In the study, 48 HIV positive people (43 men and 5 women) with T cell counts of between 600 and 700 were assigned to 2 groups, one of which did an 8 week MBSR programme while the other got a basic instruction in meditaion without any encouragement to practice on their own. After 8 weeks the MBSR group saw their T cells remain high while the other groups plummeted. The drop was expected but not the relationship between mindfulness meditation and T count: “The more people practiced” said lead study author David Creswell, Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, “the better their T cells did. That indicates that the more you practice, if you do it on a weekly or daily basis, the better your outcome”.

“This study provides the first indication that mindfulness meditation stress-management training can have a direct impact on slowing HIV disease progression,” continues Creswell. “The mindfulness program is a group-based and low-cost treatment, and if this initial finding is replicated in larger samples, it’s possible that such training can be used as a powerful complementary treatment for HIV disease, alongside medications.”

Another area studied is the effectiveness of MBSR in working with stress and other conditions in cancer patients. A study carried out by Linda Carson and Sheila Garland at the University of Calgary looked its impact on a number of mood-related symptoms in those who suffer from cancer. They found that, in general, sleep disturbance was significantly reduced and sleep quality improved. There was also a significant reduction in stress, mood disturbance and fatigue.

Some effects of stress

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People prone to negative emotions and stress may be 40% more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment, according to a study in Neurology. The authors hypothesize that a lifetime of stress could adversely affect the part of the brain responsible for regulating memory. To stop stress weakening your brain, researcher Dr Paul Nussbaum, from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, recommends devoting 30 minutes a day to calming activities such as reading or, at a minimum, aim for 10 to 15 minutes of meditation.

Help for Helpers

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Training in mindfulness meditation can alleviate burnout experienced by many in the helping professions and improve their well-being, University of Rochester Medical Center researchers report.

The training also can expand a physician’s capacity to relate to patients and enhance patient-centered care, according to the researchers, led by Michael S. Krasner, M.D., associate professor of Clinical Medicine.”From the patient’s perspective, we hear all too often of dissatisfaction in the quality of presence from their physician. From the practitioner’s perspective, the opportunity for deeper connection is all too often missed in the stressful, complex, and chaotic reality of medical practice,” Krasner said.

“Enhancing the capacity of the physician to experience fully the clinical encounter—not only its pleasant but also its most unpleasant aspects—without judgment but with a sense of curiosity and adventure seems to have had a profound effect on the experience of stress and burnout. It also seems to enhance the physician’s ability to connect with the patient as a unique human being and to center care around that uniqueness”

Seventy physicians from the Rochester, N.Y., area were involved in the study and training. The training involved eight intensive weekly sessions that were 2 ½ hours long, an all-day session and a maintenance phase of 10 monthly 2 ½-hour sessions.

Edward A. Stehlik, M.D., of the New York branch of the American College of Physicians and an internist who practices near Buffalo, said the training was “the most useful thing I’ve done since my medical training to help me in my practice of medicine.”

“If you asked my patients, I think they would say I listen more carefully since the training and that they feel they can explain things to me more forthrightly and more easily,” Stehlik said. “Even the brief moments with patients are more productive. Are there doctors who desperately need this training? Yes, absolutely.”

ScienceDaily (Sep. 23, 2009)

Distractions

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There is a lot of research going on these days into the effects and benefits of meditation. Psychologists at John Moores University, Liverpool, tested meditators and non-meditators to see how effectively they could tune out distractions and complete a detailed task, as well as to see how well they could override their automatic thoughts and behaviours. They found that experienced meditators performed significantly better than those who had never meditated. Thus it seems that meditation promotes the flexibility needed to accomplish more and stay calm in stressful situations.