Can you envision having a tool, powerful enough to transform the chaos of the mind into a haven of calm and clarity? As a mental health professional, you have the privilege of wielding this tool called mindfulness, which cultivates a calmer and more serene environment, significantly benefitting clients.
But What is Mindfulness?
As the word suggests, it is when a person’s mind is fully attentive to one’s internal states and surroundings (APA, 2024). A person whose mind fully experiences their present moment without judgments or labels (Black, 2011). From a therapeutic perspective, it can represent a practice (meditation), a psychological process (being mindful), or a theoretical construct (mindfulness). With such an awareness, one can comprehend their own feelings better, allowing them to think before acting -a priceless skill to master (Germer, 2004)
The Science Behind the Benefits of Mindfulness
Research on mindfulness proves its value to wellness and improving mental health, time and time again. In practice, you train your ability to pay attention so that your thought patterns are under your voluntary control (Walsh & Shapiro 2006). Whether there is a short- or long-term commitment to mindful practices, there are some key benefits which show the important role it can play in mental wellness:
- Stress Reduction
Many studies show that practicing mindfulness reduces stress. Literature has proven the stress reduction effects of mindfulness. In a 2010 meta-analysis of nearly 40 papers , Hoffman et al. proved that for many conditions such as cancer, generalized anxiety disorder, depression, mindfulness reduced anxiety during treatment and long after therapy had ended.
Additionally, an interesting study in 2010 by Farb et. al showed that brain activity during mindful practice is improved compared to the non-mindful state.
The experiment went like this, participants did an eight-week mindfulness stress reduction program and then were made to watch sad films. The brain activity, called neural reactivity was compared, using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) with those who did not do the program. Images of the ‘mindful’ brains showed they had less reactions to the sad films than the non-mindful brain, in a way that was very different from their brains before they had begun the experiment.
The experiment proved that the mindful therapy participants had a marked decrease in anxiety, depression and bodily distress compared with the group who had no therapy, suggesting that meditation improves your ability to utilize emotion regulation so you can experience emotion selectively, in a different way inside of the brain (Farb et al., 2010; Williams, 2010).
- Memory improvements
Working memory, the so-called ‘sticky notes’ of the brain, allow us to use information without losing track of what we are doing. In Jha et. al.’s 2010 study, mindful meditation appeared to have improved working memory among a military group who was under immense stress before the training. The military group which had not meditated had their working memory decreased over time, compared to the meditating group which had stable working memory across time.
- Focus
Mindful practice can also enable you to improve the way you direct your attention to one single thing at a time. This ability to “focus up” within the scope of mindfulness has been proven by recent studies. Moor and Malinowski in 2009 studied experienced mindfulness meditators and compared them with a group that had no meditation experience. They discovered that the meditation group performed much better on all attention-related tasks. Mindfulness meditation and reported mindfulness were directly linked to better cognitive flexibility and attention. Mindfulness meditation practice and self-reported mindfulness were correlated directly with the mental ability to switch between thinking about two different concepts, and to think about multiple concepts simultaneously.
A Success Story in Mindfulness
Take for example Jake, a 25-year-old college student who has been struggling with not only self-doubt but anxiety as well which hurt his grades causing him to fall below average last semester. After having mindfulness integrated into his therapy sessions, Jake was able to manage his racing thoughts and negative self-talk. Jake’s therapist taught him skill like deep breathing and body scan exercises which he used to observe his anxious thoughts without becoming overwhelmed. Over time, Jake reported feeling more confident in managing stress during exams and deadlines. Exam related stress and assignment deadlines became more tolerable and over time Jake’s grades improved. Jake said that “Mindfulness is what helped me to take the step back I needed to take from my worries and handle my challenges with a clearer mind.”
In the End
The science shows that your quality of life and mental resilience can be greatly enhanced by mindfulness (Cohen & Miller, 2009). Forming your daily routines with mindfulness in mind could be a vital practice to maintain your mental health and wellness. By practicing mindfulness, individuals can create peaceful environments that help them manage stress, improve concentration, and build stronger relationships.
References:
- American Psychological Association (2022). Mindfulness. [online] American Psychological Association. Available at: https://www.apa.org/topics/mindfulness [Accessed 1 Jul. 2024].
- Black, D.S. (2011). A brief definition of mindfulness. Mindfulness Research Guide. Accessed from http://www.mindfulexperience.org
- K. Germer, R. D. Siegel, & P. R. Fulton (Eds.), Mindfulness and psychotherapy (pp. 91–110). New York: Guilford Press.
- Shapiro, S. L., Astin, J. A., Bishop, S. R., & Cordova, M. (2005). Mindfulness-based stress reduction for health care professionals: Results from a randomized trial. International Journal of Stress Management, 12, 164–176. doi:10.1037/1072–5245.12.2.164
- Corcoran, K. M., Farb, N., Anderson, A., & Segal, Z. V. (2010). Mindfulness and emotion regulation: Outcomes and possible mediating mechanisms. In A. M. Kring & D. M. Sloan (Eds.), Emotion regulation and psychopathology: A transdiagnostic approach to etiology and treatment (pp. 339–355). New York: Guilford Press.
- Williams, J. M. G. (2010). Mindfulness and psychological process. Emotion, 10, 1–7. doi:10.1037/a0018360
- Jha, A. P., Stanley, E. A., Kiyonaga, A., Wong, L., & Gelfand, L. (2010). Examining the protective effects of mindfulness training on working memory capacity and affective experience. Emotion, 10, 54–64. doi: 10.1037/a0018438
- Moore, A., & Malinowski, P. (2009). Meditation, mindfulness and cognitive flexibility. Consciousness and Cognition, 18, 176–186. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2008.12.008
- Cohen, J. S., & Miller, L. (2009). Interpersonal mindfulness training for well-being: A pilot study with psychology graduate students. Teachers College Record, 111, 2760–2774. Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord .org