Be Mindful

Often when getting anxious or having panic attacks, people are told "just breathe." At first, it may seem like superficial advice, but the truth is that it actually holds a lot of value.

Many people have heard of meditation but to some, mindfulness may be a relatively new term. According to Shonin and Van Gordon (2016), mindfulness is a technique derived from Buddhist practices that began over 2600 years ago (p. 844). Mindfulness focuses on being in the present moment in all things a person does and in some aspects, focusing on breathing as an anchor. In an article written by Edo Shonin and William Van Gordon titled "The Mechanisms of Mindfulness in the Treatment of Mental Illness and Addiction," it was found that this type of mindfulness can help alleviate anxiety and calm effects of mental illness. Shonin and Van Gordon propose Meditation Awareness Training as an MBI (mindfulness-based intervention) to help as a therapeutic improvement technique. Although there are many, many different types of mindfulness and meditative practices out in the world, as well as many ways to test if mindfulness is helpful, Shonin and Van Gordon (2016) wanted to narrow down their findings to ten "noteworthy and evidence-based mechanisms of mindfulness that have been proposed in the academic literature to date" (p. 846). A few of the most interesting of these mechanisms of mindfulness are addiction substitution, values clarification, perceptual shift, and structural brain changes.

Shonin and Van Gordon found that indeed, mindfulness can assist in relieving stress and the effects of mental illness. Their study was conducted without any ethical implications or conflicts of interest. The findings that mindfulness and meditation can be so blissful that it can substitute the "high" from addiction is fascinating and I'm looking forward to doing more research on it. Below is an insightful Tedx talk regarding mindfulness and the opioid epidemic.

I found the article by Shonin and Van Gordon to be extremely interesting because I always kind of thought that mindfulness was just a buzzword or a trend. The information provided in this paper proved me very wrong and as someone who suffers from anxiety and depression, I will definitely be looking more into how mindfulness can help me long-term. I do meditate from time to time and always feel much better when I practice it regularly. Hopefully, I can get better at doing it regularly so I can see more improvement.

Questions for you readers out there: Have you ever tried practicing mindfulness? Do you meditate? And if so, do you feel it helps you in any way?

References:

Shonin, E., & Van Gordon, W. (2016). The mechanisms of mindfulness in the treatment of mental illness and addiction. International Journal of Mental Health & Addiction, 14, 844-849. DOI 10.1007/s11469-016-9653-7.