Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a type of meditation that involves paying attention to your experiences without judgement. The term can cover various forms of meditation, including transcendental meditation, guided meditation and mindful movement, which is the practice of completing exercises while focusing on the movement of your body. Mindfulness has been credited with boosting mood, memory and health, and helping to reduce stress, fight inflammation and prevent pain.

Meditation has its roots in Buddhism, with secular versions first developed in the 1970s. Today, many people use meditation apps to practise mindfulness. However, a 2015 study found that fewer than 5 per cent of those tested offered quality training to the user.

There is good evidence that regular mindfulness practice has a calming effect on the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotion. It has also been shown to reduce impulsive reactions to stressful or negative thoughts and experiences.

Researchers who study mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) – tailored for people who experience recurrent depression – say there is robust evidence that this type of treatment can work as well as drugs and cognitive behavioural therapy. However, despite one 2013 study finding that MBCT helped those with childhood trauma, overall it showed “no significant advantage in comparison to an active control treatment”.

Brain-imaging studies of meditation have illustrated the efficacy of mindfulness, suggesting that it activates the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. This area of the brain links the prefrontal cortex with the limbic system and is involved in top-down processes such as control of attention.

Another key area affected is the insula, which plays a role in our internal sense of our body, such as awareness of heart rate. This implies that meditation practice really does help us to focus our attention, get out of our heads and into our bodies, where we are more connected with our experience in the present moment.

Pain and physical sensation

New brain-imaging research is also providing clues about how being mindful can help people experiencing chronic pain.

A study carried out by neuroscientist Fadel Zeidan at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of California, San Diego, showed how even 60 to 80 minutes of mindfulness training reduced pain in almost all of the hundreds of volunteers he tried it on.

Zeidan induced pain in volunteers while scanning their brain activity using functional MRI. Some subjects were taught to practise mindful meditation during the sessions, whereas others were given a placebo or told to simply take deep breaths. The findings show that the average reported pain in those who used the mindfulness techniques was eased by 45 per cent, an effect Zeidan estimates as double that of a clinical dose of morphine.

Negative effects

While many studies have shown the benefits of mindfulness and meditative techniques, some have also highlighted its potential negative effects.

In their book The Buddha Pill: Can meditation change you?, psychologists Miguel Farias and Catherine Wikholm found that the negative impact of meditation and mindfulness were often unreported in the media.

They cite a study that found that practising mindfulness for 25 minutes a day resulted in higher levels of biological stress, as measured by the hormone cortisol, compared with a non-meditation group. This is despite the mindfulness group reporting lower levels of subjective stress.

It does seem that for meditation more generally, a significant percentage of people encounter some negative effects. A systematic review of the evidence on meditation found that about one in 12 people who try it experience an unwanted negative effect, usually a worsening of depression or anxiety.

There are various reasons why mindfulness and meditation might bring about these negative effects. It could be that when people are trying to still their thoughts, the mind can “rebel” against this attempt at control. Negative thoughts can also rise to the surface when the mind wanders during the practice of meditation, which can also lead to anxiety and depression.

Despite these potential negative outcomes, experts say that practising meditation and mindfulness can provide a range of benefits, though lasting change is likely to require regular practice.