Scientific Benefits of Mindfulness
Mindfulness is all the rage these days. I bet someone has recommended meditation or mindfulness to you as a way to cope with stress. Maybe you’ve tried it, and it was difficult to focus. Perhaps it felt like a waste of time. Maybe it feels like it's just not for you. Mental health practitioners worldwide sound like broken records when preaching about the benefits of mindfulness. It can feel like we are trying to sell a magic bullet for wellness, and we all know there is no magical remedy for anxiety, depression, trauma, or other mental or emotional concerns.
However, some coping skills and treatments can reliably support improvement in most mental health concerns. Mindfulness and meditation are one of these. There is a reason many treatment modalities taught to counselors include a mindfulness component. Furthermore, in the last few decades, researchers have studied why mindfulness profoundly affects the people who practice it. Mindfulness-based therapies have become what is called an “evidence-based practice.” This means it has been studied repeatedly and continues to show effectiveness. Specifically, studies on mindfulness show physical health benefits and improvement in mental health symptoms. So, there is a good reason a therapist, doctor, or friend has recommended this practice. But why is it so helpful?
Here are the basics of what happens in the brain when we use mindfulness or meditation. Mindfulness practices, even brief or small ones, reduce amygdala reactivity. The amygdala is the part of your brain that scans for threats and tries to keep you safe. If you are worrying or stressed out, the amygdala senses a threat and tells you to go into fight, flight, or freeze. Being in fight, flight, or freeze is helpful if there is significant threat to safety. If there is not an immediate threat, this state looks like worry, rumination, overplanning, and unhelpful coping behaviors. The constant stress in our bodies isn't good for us. Many of us spend most of our day in this state. A mindfulness practice quiets this part of the brain and reduces anxiety. Mindfulness practices also increase brain functioning by supporting problem-solving, memory, focus, emotional regulation, and sleep.
Some studies on the brains of experienced meditators show significant structural changes in the brain. Many regions of the brain are changed in these folks. These regions are linked to the things mentioned above, like problem-solving. Experienced meditators show increased brain density, increased thickness of brain tissue, and an increased number of neurons (sounds like a good way to regain all the brain cells lost in younger years). So, mindfulness helps us feel better in the present moment and can create major long-term brain changes if we stick with it.
Outside of the mental benefits, mindfulness can improve our physical health. Part of this is due to the mind-body connection. If we are less stressed and sad, our immune system functions better due to decreased cortisol and other stress hormones. Mindfulness can also lower blood pressure and help with chronic pain.
If you're looking for more information on what mindfulness is, here is a good article. There are endless amounts of ways to incorporate mindfulness into your life. Here is a link to a bunch of exercises to get you started.
If you're in Colorado and interested in therapy with a mindfulness component, contact us to schedule a free consultation to see if we are a good fit for you.