For a healthy start to the new year, many individuals rely on diet fads or new fitness regimes – frequently with doubtful efficacy. Meditation, however, has repeatedly been demonstrated to improve both mental and physical health.
In late 2022, a prominent study indicated that meditation may be as effective as the standard anti-anxiety medicine Lexapro in treating anxiety. Over the past couple of decades, similar evidence has emerged regarding mindfulness and meditation’s extensive array of health benefits, which include stress and pain reduction, depression treatment, brain health enhancement, and aiding in the management of excessive inflammation and long-term COVID-19.
Despite the growing quantity of research demonstrating the health advantages of meditation, it can be difficult to evaluate the science and determine its reliability.
I am a neuroscientist who studies the effects of stress and trauma on the brain development of children and teenagers. I also investigate how mindfulness, meditation, and exercise can favorably benefit the brain development and mental health of children and adolescents.
I am ecstatic about how meditation may be utilized as a technique to bring profound new insights into how the mind and brain function and to profoundly alter a person’s perspective on life. And as a mental health researcher, I see the promise of meditation as a low- or no-cost, evidence-based, and relatively easy-to-integrate approach for improving health.
Meditation needs training, discipline, and practice, none of which are often simple. But with the right tools and methods, it is accessible to everyone.
There are numerous styles of meditation, with mindfulness being one of the most prevalent. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, a recognized expert in mindfulness-based activities, mindfulness is a mental state characterized by “awareness that arises through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and without judgment.”
This entails not dwelling on anything that occurred in the past or fretting over your to-do list. It has been demonstrated that focusing on the present, or living in the moment, offers a variety of benefits, including enhancing mood, reducing anxiety, alleviating pain, and possibly enhancing cognitive performance.
Mindfulness is a skill that may be developed through practice and training. The objective is that, with practice, the benefits of mindfulness practice will carry over into everyday life — when you are not actively meditating. For instance, if you discover that you are not characterized by a fleeting feeling, such as anger, it may be more difficult to maintain anger for an extended period of time.
It is believed that the health advantages of meditation and other stress-reduction therapies result from growing levels of overall consciousness via practice. Involving concentration and self-discipline, yoga, martial arts, and dance all incorporate elements of mindfulness.
The extensive amount of research supporting the health advantages of meditation is too big to be discussed in detail here. The publications cited below, however, are among the highest-quality and most rigorous reviews of scientific data on the subject to date. Numerous of these are systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which synthesis numerous studies on a certain topic.
Mindfulness-based treatments have been demonstrated to effectively reduce stress in a range of populations, including dementia carers and children during the COVID-19 epidemic.
During the pandemic, meta-analyses were published demonstrating that mindfulness programs are effective for reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and depression – including during pregnancy and the postnatal period, which are particularly vulnerable.
Mindfulness-based programs also show potential as a therapy option for anxiety disorders, the most prevalent mental disorders, which afflict an estimated 301 million people worldwide. Although there are effective therapies for anxiety, many people might not have access to them due to lack of insurance coverage or transportation to providers, for example, or they may only receive limited relief.
It is crucial to stress, however, that mindfulness-based techniques should not substitute first-line treatments like medication and psychotherapy such as cognitive behavioral therapy for persons with mental or drug use disorders. Mindfulness-based interventions should be viewed as an addition to these evidence-based treatments and as a supplement to healthy lifestyle interventions such as physical activity and healthy food.
According to studies, habitual meditators have increased control of their attention, heart rate, respiration, and autonomic nervous system functioning, which regulates involuntary responses such as blood pressure. Those who meditate have lower levels of cortisol, a hormone implicated in the stress response, compared to those who do not.
Recent meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies revealed that focused attention meditation is associated with functional changes in multiple brain regions involved in cognitive control and emotion processing. The review also discovered that more experienced meditators exhibited stronger activation of the brain regions involved in these cognitive and emotional processes, indicating that the cognitive benefits grow with practice.
Regular meditation may also prevent the age-related thinning of the cerebral cortex, which may protect against age-related diseases and cognitive decline.
Additionally, gardening assists individuals in recovering from mental disorders.
This research has limitations. There is a dearth of properly controlled trials and a lack of a common definition for the sorts of programs used. In randomized, placebo-controlled studies with pharmaceuticals, participants are unaware of whether they are receiving the actual drug or a placebo.
In contrast, participants in trials of mindfulness-based therapies are aware of the condition they are assigned to and are not “blinded,” so they may anticipate experiencing some of the health advantages. This builds anticipation, which might be a confounding variable in scientific studies. In addition, control groups, which are necessary for comparing meditation to other treatments, are rarely included in many meditation research.
Mindfulness-based programs may be more accessible and have fewer adverse side effects than pharmaceuticals. Nevertheless, medicine and psychotherapy, particularly cognitive behavioral therapy, are effective for many patients, and a combination approach may be the most effective. Mindfulness-based interventions are also cost-effective and provide better health outcomes than standard care, especially among high-risk patient populations; hence, there are also economic benefits.
Researchers are investigating methods for delivering mindfulness tools via computer, smartphone app, or virtual reality, which may be more successful than traditional in-person meditation sessions.
Importantly, mindfulness is not limited to individuals with physical or mental health conditions. These practices can be used by anybody to reduce the risk of disease and reap the health advantages in daily life, such as enhanced sleep and cognitive performance, elevated mood, and reduced stress and anxiety.
Numerous recreation facilities, fitness studios, and universities offer meditation lessons in-person. There are now over 600 clinical trials recruiting people for a variety of disorders, including pain, cancer, and depression, to determine whether meditation can aid in the treatment of physical or mental ailments.
There are numerous free online tutorials on how to practice meditation, including meditations for sleep, stress reduction, mindful eating, and more, which can be accessed from the comfort of your own home. Several apps, such as Headspace, seem promising, as randomized controlled trials have demonstrated their users’ advantages.
Obviously, the hardest thing is getting started. However, if you set a daily reminder to practice, it will become a habit and may even carry over into your daily life – which is the ultimate goal. For some, this may require time and experience, whilst for others, it may occur rather rapidly. Even a single five-minute session can have beneficial benefits on health.
»Health benefits may be equally effective as medication«