What are its potential health benefits?

Can mindfulness meditation be a good medicine for both mental and physical ailments?

Yes, says an expert who explains the practice and under what circumstances it could help.

A form of mindfulness that focuses on pleasure has been shown to work as well as an initial dose of a narcotic for pain and better than traditional psychotherapy for substance abuse, says Eric Garland, director of the Center on Mindfulness and Integrative Health at the University of Utah. Development of interventions.

But the meditation style can work for more than just chronic pain and addiction.

“The techniques we teach are also very likely to be effective treatments for depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and simply increasing resilience in people without any diagnosable mental health problems,” Garland said in a university news release.

How does it work?

As a form of therapy, mindfulness is a kind of mental training for cultivating awareness, Garland explained. To do that, it draws attention to your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations as you experience them.

The goal is “to view your experience as if you were a witness,” he said. “It’s a practice of wakefulness, of waking up to the way your mind works and becoming aware of how you function in life.”

In a study Garland and his team found several years ago that 15 minutes of mindfulness meditation reduced pain by almost 30%. That’s equivalent to the amount of pain relief provided by a starting dose of 5 milligrams of oxycodone, he noted.

Mindfulness also helps people with chronic pain separate emotional and physical responses and view pain as just physical sensations, Garland noted. One approach reduces pain intensity by changing the way the brain processes it.

Meanwhile, mindfulness to treat addiction cultivates both self-awareness and self-control. People become aware of their reactions and habits around substance use and can then better control their choices, Garland explains.

But just as the effects of medications don’t last forever, the power of a “dose” of mindfulness is also temporary, likely because the brain returns to its old patterns, Garland said. However, his research found that an eight-week mindfulness treatment reduces addictive behaviors and pain, and these reductions last for at least nine months.

Is there anyone who shouldn’t use it?

Garland said it is not yet known for whom mindfulness works and for whom it does not. He also cautioned that not all mindfulness training is created equal, and that the quality of the techniques taught depends on the skill of the teacher.

He added that people who have experienced trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may experience flashbacks during mindfulness meditation, so these people should learn proper meditation techniques from an experienced, licensed psychotherapist.

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