Being Mindful of Meditation

People who meditate regularly say it provides mental, spiritual, and physical benefits. Even some mainstream doctors recommend meditation to help treat chronic pain, high blood pressure, and other ailments.

How it works is not fully understood, though research is accumulating--and encouraging.

Meditation helps you draw attention inward and calm the mind. It comes in many forms, which typically involve combinations of postures, breathing, sound, visualizations, and/or movement. Transcendental Meditation, for example, focuses on a mantra, which can be a word, phrase, or sound that is repeated with every slow breath. Zen Buddhist meditation involves sitting in special positions as you direct your awareness to your posture and breathing.

Another popular form is mindfulness meditation, which also comes out of the Buddhist tradition. You practice being aware of the present by observing your thoughts, feelings, and sensations, without making judgments or allowing yourself to think about the past or worry about the future. Mindfulness practice has largely been pioneered by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts, who founded its Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society. It is often combined with yoga or stretching and incorporated into daily activities, such as walking and eating.

Tough to test

Subjecting meditation to scientific testing is a challenge. States of mind are hard to measure. And other forms of relaxation training (for instance, progressive muscle relaxation, biofeedback, and stress management) may be just as useful.

Still, research over the past 30 years suggests that mindfulness meditation may help in conditions such as insomnia, chronic pain, psoriasis, fibromyalgia, and some psychiatric disorders. It has been shown to alter aspects of the immune, nervous, and endocrine system and produce changes in areas of the brain associated with memory, learning, and emotion. Research suggests it may be particularly useful in helping people adhere to medical treatment and cope with pain, as well as reduce anxiety and depression associated with illness. 

Some notable findings:

• Hot flashes. In a study in Menopause of 110 women going through menopause, those who participated in an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program coped better with their hot flashes. Though the program didn’t significantly reduce the intensity of hot flashes, the women reported improved quality of life, better sleep, and less anxiety and stress.

• Depression. In a study in the Archives of General Psychiatry of people who had been successfully treated for depression, mindfulness-based therapy was as effective as antidepressants in preventing relapses.

• Pain. Long-term practitioners of mindfulness meditation handle pain better, a study in the journal Pain found. Anticipating more pain makes current pain worse; being attentive to the present helps prevent this. Another study in the same journal found that mindfulness meditation reduced pain and increased physical function in older people with chronic low-back pain.

• Immunity. In study from UCLA in Brain, Behavior and Immunity, mindfulness training countered the adverse effects of stress on certain key immune cells in people with HIV.

• Cognitive function. Mindfulness training helped people improve their performance on several tests requiring sustained attention and other mental skills, in a study in Consciousness and Cognition.

Putting it into practice

To get the most from mindfulness meditation, you should practice it regularly. You can learn the basics at programs offered at many medical clinics and community centers. You can also purchase books, audiotapes, videotapes, and DVDs; or check out such videos of Dr. Kabat-Zinn.