Although often linked to its Buddhist and Hindu roots, mindfulness meditation as it is practiced today is done so in part by the work of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn who opened the first Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical school in 1979 (Kabat-Zinn, 2009). As part of his program, Kabat-Zinn distanced the meditation practice from its religious roots, focusing instead on the component of non-judgmental awareness found in mindfulness (Wilson, 2014). He similarly developed the techniques of mindful yoga, which takes these principles and applies them to yoga as a physical exercise.
It is important to note that a fundamental aspect of mindfulness practices is its emphasis on non-judgmental awareness of thoughts and feelings. Its purpose is to train the mind to not respond emotionally to concerns in order to help curb the mental impact of emotionally stimulating events. As such, many mental health workers have taken on the practice as part of their own therapeutic services in order to help teach emotional control to their clients.
Mindfulness and Emotional Well-Being
Much of the research on mindfulness practices to date have focused on mindfulness as a therapeutic technique. In a review of mindfulness literature, Davis and Hayes (2011) found that a number of studies determined that mindfulness practices seem to have a positive influence on reducing the symptoms of rumination (i.e. thoughts continuing to dwell on negative thoughts and feelings), aiding in stress reduction, and helping in emotional reactivity. Additionally, it was also found that therapists themselves experienced a greater degree of compassion, counselling skills, decreased anxiety, and increased empathy (Davis & Hayes, 2011).
Of particular interest, recent large-scale studies on couples in romantic relationships have found that people who demonstrate a greater degree of mindfulness experience a higher degree of relationship satisfaction (Karsten, 2019). This is important to consider because up until now, most of the research on mindfulness has focused on the impact on the individual practitioner. However, there is reason to believe that the impact of mindfulness is not just isolated to just the person practicing it, but may also affect the people around them (Karremans et al., 2015).
Other studies have found that the effects of mindfulness practice can be long lasting, so long as practice is maintained. Solhaug et al. (2019) found that in a four-year follow-up study, those who practiced mindfulness on a semi-annual basis had an increased degree of mindfulness scores, and that after each mindfulness session, participants in the mindfulness group showed positive short-term improvements in mental distress, and coping. Other studies have found that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy helped to prevent relapse in patients who suffered from major depressive disorder (Matthew et al., 2010).
Mindfulness-based therapies have found a welcoming home in clinical therapies, in part because of their effectiveness. But also because of how its focus on promoting non-judgmental awareness can affect not just the patient, but also the therapist and the relationship that they share with others. While its effects appear to be significant, it’s important to consider that our understanding of mindfulness is still very young.
Meditation as a Risk
I bet that headline got your attention. How could a behavioural practice where you just try to focus your awareness lead to harm in a practitioner? It does sound a little outlandish. But believe it or not, there are inherent risks associated with meditation-based practices. Many people are exposed to meditation via instructors, or popular media (magazine covers, celebrity endorsements, television interviews, etc.); and oftentimes, is described as a cure all. Some practitioners indicate it is good for alleviating the symptoms of anxiety and depression, others say it’s good for maintaining heart rate, while still others imply that it can improve physical strength, cure cancer, end war, or help you fly (Rohrlich, 2018).
But in reality, our understanding of how meditation (and in particular mindfulness meditation) works, how it acts upon the brain, and what it can actually do for us is woefully unexplored. While there is research out there to indicate that mindfulness can have positive effects on our mind and body (mentioned above), the average instructor might not fully understand the science behind mindfulness, or might misrepresent it entirely. Part of this issue is a lack of guidelines dictating what mindfulness exactly is. In literature, and among practitioners, it is often described with vague or interpretive language (Lutz et al., 2007). Additionally, the structure and nature of meditation practices are often at the discretion of the instructor or researcher (in a journal), which leads to very little regulation regarding practice length, how often the practices occur, or the mindfulness method that was used (Chiesa et al., 2011; Lutz et al., 2007). While this might not seem like much of an issue on the surface level, it does become a concern when we consider how little we know about mindfulness and whether there are people that should not be practicing it or cases where it should not be used as a therapeutic tool (Van Dam et al., 2018).
While meditation has been touted as a resource for managing stress and depression, there are concerns over whether some forms of meditation should be used in a therapeutic setting. For instance, some studies have indicated that techniques like transcendental meditation and Qigong are associated with adverse effects such as panic attacks, antisocial behaviour, impaired reality testing, dissociation, musculoskeletal pain, uncomfortable sensations, suicidal feelings and exhaustion (Perez-De-Albeniz & Holmes, 2010; Shonin et al., 2019). Other studies have found that practitioners with higher levels of rumination (repetitive negative thoughts), those who engaged in vipassana or insight meditations, and those who had attended a meditation retreat were more likely to report unpleasant meditation-related feelings/events (Schlosser et al., 2019). Furthermore, the Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) Implementation Resources has identified that therapists and instructors should be cautious engaging in mindfulness practices when interacting with participants who have a history of substance misuse, suicidal tendencies, experience acute depression, suffer from psychosis or schizophrenia, have a history of trauma, or are currently in a period of suicidal tendencies (Kuyken et al., 2012). As mentioned above, researchers still struggle with an understanding of what mindfulness is and how meditation affects the body. This is part of the issue that has contributed to guidelines, like those in the MBCT, being developed in order to help therapists know where and when to use it.
It is important to note that in the above section I outlined some risks that have been identified with meditation in general, coming from a number of different meditation traditions. For instance, the ability to fly was a reference to the practice of transcendental meditation among celebrities (though this example is from a popular news article and should be taken with a grain of salt). I did this in part because while there are theoretical differences between each of these traditions, they share roots with each other and the terminology are oftentimes used interchangeably. Furthermore, it is entirely possible that the side-effects that we see in one meditation practice may also manifest themselves in other similar meditation traditions. This does not necessarily mean that transcendental meditation is the same as mindfulness meditation; they are most certainly different. Rather, this is a demonstration of how confusing the practices can be, how complicated the body of literature is surrounding them, and how we need to be careful when referencing their various materials.
Final Thoughts
This article was primarily interested in outlining the various research that has been conducted on meditation and mindfulness, as well as presenting a broad degree of cautiousness that should be considered when looking at the practice. While many of the claims of mindfulness, and meditation in general, should be warily considered; there is still substantial evidence that it can have a strong positive impact on mental well-being. In the next, and last, article of this blog series we will introduce some of the common techniques for mindfulness, differentiate it from other meditation practices, and then present an example of a mindfulness guided exercise.
References
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Davis, D. M., & Hayes, J. A. (2011). What are the benefits of mindfulness? A practice review of psychotherapy-related research. Psychotherapy, 48(2), 198-208. https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/pst-48-2-198.pdf
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