Benefits of Mindfulness
When it comes to mental health, Mindfulness might be the most important skill we ever learn. Big statement, I know, but it’s hard to argue with the wealth of clinical and scientific research that attests to its salubrious qualities. Let’s go through each of them.
Reduced Anxiety
When we see a threat, our amygdala (the part of the brain responsible for our fight or flight response) lights ups, sending our bodies and our minds into an anxious overdrive. This is appropriate when there is an actual, real-time threat (You see a tiger, you run, you stay alive). It keeps us alert, on our toes, making us a tad faster and stronger – perfect for keeping us safe from harm.
However, our minds don’t just perceive actual threats: we can imagine them. This is sometimes helpful. You have an upcoming exam. You study for it. Disaster averted. However, we can conjure up ridiculous, far-fetched catastrophes that will never happen. We can worry about things out of our control, that are unpreventable, or halfway around the world. We can worry about our inevitable deaths. We can worry about ‘nothing’.
This is a problem.
Chronic over-activation of our fight or flight response is called allostatic load – which is the physiological wear and tear on our bodies. It’s the cumulative effects of stress, and it’s not pretty:
- immune dysregulation (increased infections),
- higher inflammation,
- hardening of the arteries which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease,
- metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure, high blood lipids, high blood glucose,
weight around the trunk),
- osteoporosis (thinning of the bones),
- loss of brain cells (especially in the hippocampus and pre-frontal cortex which
predisposes one to Alzheimer’s Disease)
- a larger more reactive amygdala (you become better at being anxious!)
Mindfulness helps us see which threats are actually present and which ones are ‘just in our heads’. This switches off the fight-or-flight response and reduces the allostatic load.
Reduced Depression
Mindfulness is more than just taking a break from worry and negative thinking a few times a day. It’s about becoming more conscious and learning to use the mind differently: to focus on the now with an attitude of acceptance. It’s about changing our relationship with negative thoughts and emotions rather than trying to change them. We don’t have to buy into painful thoughts and emotions as these big problems that need to be changed or controlled. We just need to observe and accept them for what they are – passing sensations and opinions.
This attitude both reduces symptoms of depression (because we are disentangling ourselves from negative thoughts and detaching from painful emotions) and prevents depressive
relapses
(as negative thoughts are quickly identified and detached from). Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (developed by prominent psychologists based on the works of Jon Kabat- Zinn) has proven to reduces depressive relapses from a whopping 78% to 36%.
Enhanced Performance
Doctors who report being overly stressed and depressed make 6 times the amount of clinical and prescribing errors compared to non-stressed and depressed doctors doing the same job. But you know this for yourself already. During times of stress, chances are you’ve been flustered, distracted, and all over the shop (I’ve certainly been there!). And no wonder, anxiety activates the amygdala (our ‘anxious’ brain) which sets our brains on fire and effectively ‘hijacks’ the pre-frontal cortex (our ‘clever’ brain), making it difficult – if not impossible- to perform.
Now, to be clear, some stress is valuable for performance. Too little and you underperform. Too much and you’re too anxious to perform optimally. However, a little goes a long way and in our modern world we tend to be WAY too stressed.
But it’s not really stress that improves performance, but rather focus and an appropriate level of arousal. Peak performance is associated with a calm but perceptive mind and a relaxed body. Mindfulness helps achieve this ideal combination of calm focused arousal. It does so by enhancing our brain’s executive functioning (associated with the pre-frontal cortex): short- term memory, information processing, knowing what to pay attention to, decision making, emotion regulation and prioritising.
Neuroplasticity
“Neurons that fire together, wire together” (Hebbe’s hypothesis)
The brain is not set in stone. Au contraire – our brain continues to wire and re-wire itself all throughout our lifetime through a process called neuroplasticity. This means, through repetition, we can train our brains into bad habits and train our brain into good ones. Thus, how we consistently think and behave will become the dominant, automatic response. Mindfulness helps ‘unwire’ mental and behavioural ‘bad habits’ and cultivate helpful ones. Whatever they may be.
And this re-wiring isn’t just ‘in your head’ – it’s can be measured objectively via brain scans. Research shows that long-term mindfulness practice increases the thickness of the ‘grey matter’ in the parts of the brain associated with the senses, memory and executive functioning.
Reduced Default Mental Activity
We have two modes of brain activity: 1) Active Tasks and 2) Default States.
Active Tasks are associated with paying attention (i.e. being mindful). Default States are when the mind is inattentive, idle, recalling past events, daydreaming, and ruminating (i.e. being mindless).
For reasons not fully understood, Default Mental Activity is highly associated with the development of Alzheimer’s Disease, depression and anxiety. It appears that being mentally inattentive is like physical inactivity – it’s unhealthy and leads to mental degeneration.
Mindfulness practice reduces Default Mental Activity, protecting the brain from anxiety, depression, and degeneration.
Ageing
Remarkably, according to the Novel Prize winning researcher, Elizabeth Blackburn, Mindfulness may slow and even reverse genetic ageing. However, when you consider how mindfulness reduces amygdala activation and allostatic load and its cascade of negative physical effects, it’s easier to comprehend.
Addiction and Cravings
Mindfulness is all about observing and accepting. So, if you consider a craving – a constellation of unpleasant physiological, emotional, and cognitive symptoms – it’s not surprising that it helps recovering addicts cope with the experience and choose a wiser path. Rather than acting on impulse and giving into the urge, mindfulness practitioners have greater awareness, acceptance, and, ultimately, better control over themselves.
Research is clear: recovering addicts who practice mindfulness report significantly fewer relapses and enjoy improvements in mood and a greater perceived sense of coping.
Cancer
Cancer patients who learn mindfulness report less symptoms of depression, anxiety, anger, and confusion. They also enjoy greater vigour and fewer overall physical symptoms. They also have lower cortisol levels (higher scores are indicative of a poorer prognosis) and report a better quality of life.
Improved Relationship Satisfaction and Compassion
If we genuinely pay attention to someone (in a mindful manner), it makes sense that we will be more ‘in tune’ with them. It also makes sense that we will feel a greater sense of compassion for them.
And, of course, the opposite will be true. If we are distracted, thinking of other things, or simply waiting for our turn to speak, our relationships will not be all they could be.
Mindfulness also reduces ‘carer-fatigue’ and ‘carer burnout’.
Chronic Pain
Sadly, Chronic Pain is a significant challenge that negatively impacts people’s well-being. Mindfulness has been shown to help not only reduce the negative emotions associated with chronic pain – but chronic pain itself. By attending to pain through a lens of non-judgment and acceptance, the parts of our brain that generate pain calm down, and pain sufferers can enjoy less pain and less distress due to pain.
Eating Disorders
By increasing awareness of thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations in a non-judgmental way, mindfulness can help those with eating disorders regain control over their relationship with food. It enables individuals to recognize and respond to their body’s hunger and fullness cues in a more deliberate and value-driven way, reducing impulsive and emotional eating. Moreover, mindfulness fosters self-compassion and acceptance, which is crucial in overcoming self-criticism, negative self-image, and the associated shame and guilt common with eating disorders.
Sleep
By reducing stress, anxiety, frustration, and rumination highly associated with sleep issues, Mindfulness helps people fall asleep quicker, stay asleep longer, improve sleep quality, and reduce reliance upon sleep medications.
Immunity
Chronic stress can weaken the immune system, making individuals more susceptible to illness. Mindfulness reduces stress, which restores people’s immune function.
Mindfulness also reduces markers of inflammation in the body, mitigating the risk of inflammatory related health problems such as rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel disease, psoriasis, asthma, allergies, Lupus, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. Research also indicates that Mindfulness may increase the production of natural killer cells and other immune response markers, improving the body’s defence against pathogens.
Self-Control
In an unpredictable world, we may not have control over much. But Mindfulness can give us greater control of something very, very important – ourselves. By getting out of autopilot and living more consciously and deliberately, we are less impulsive, less rash, and more in tune with what we really want. It gets us in touch with our values and gives us the wherewithal to enact them. It gives us the freedom to choose how we want to respond to challenge situations. This is a valueable thing. For, in the words of Greek philosopher, Epictetus:
“We cannot control the external events around us, but we can control our reactions to them.”
With all these benefits, you’d be crazy not to practice Mindfulness. So stay tuned for our next blog: How do practice mindfulness.
References:
Chiesa, A., & Serretti, A. (2010). A systematic review of neurobiological and clinical features of mindfulness meditations. Psychological Medicine, 40(8), 1239-1252.
Creswell, J. D., & Lindsay, E. K. (2014). How does mindfulness training affect health? A mindfulness stress buffering account. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(6), 401-407.
Hofmann, S. G., Sawyer, A. T., Witt, A. A., & Oh, D. (2010). The effect of mindfulness-based therapy on anxiety and depression: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 78(2), 169-183.
Hölzel, B. K., Carmody, J., Vangel, M., Congleton, C., Yerramsetti, S. M., Gard, T., & Lazar, S. W. (2011). Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 191(1), 36-43.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). Constructivism in the Human Sciences, 8(2), 73-107.
Keng, S. L., Smoski, M. J., & Robins, C. J. (2011). Effects of mindfulness on psychological health: A review of empirical studies. Clinical Psychology Review, 31(6), 1041-1056.
Keng, S. L., Smoski, M. J., Robins, C. J., Ekblad, A. G., & Brantley, J. G. (2012). Mechanisms of change in mindfulness-based stress reduction: Self-compassion and mindfulness as mediators of intervention outcomes. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 26(3), 270-280.
Tang, Y. Y., Ma, Y., Fan, Y., Feng, H., Wang, J., Feng, S., ... & Posner, M. I. (2009). Central and autonomic nervous system interaction is altered by short-term meditation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(22), 8865-8870.
