Meditation Improves Symptoms of Pain, Anxiety and Depression

Rebecca Lewis January 08, 2014

An analysis by John Hopkins University School of Medicine suggests that 30 minutes of meditation daily may improve symptoms of pain, anxiety and depression.

The report looked at 47 clinical trials performed through June 2013 among 3,515 participants that involved meditation and various mental and physical health issues, including depression, anxiety, stress, insomnia, substance use, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and chronic pain. The research team found moderate evidence of improvement in symptoms of anxiety, depression and pain after participants went through an eight-week training program in mindfulness meditation.

The researchers evaluated the degree to which those symptoms changed in people who had a variety of medical conditions, such as insomnia or fibromyalgia, although only a minority had been diagnosed with a mental illness. Their analysis revealed that mindfulness meditation – a form of Buddhist self-awareness designed to focus precise, nonjudgmental attention to the moment at hand, may ease symptoms of pain and stress. The results remained the same even after the researchers controlled for the possibility of the placebo effect, in which subjects feel better even if they receive no active treatment because they perceive they are getting help for what ails them.

The researchers also found no harm in using meditation.

"A lot of people use meditation, but it’s not a practice considered part of mainstream medical therapy for anything," says Madhav Goyal, M.D., M.P.H., the lead author of the study and an assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "But in our study, meditation appeared to provide as much relief from some anxiety and depression symptoms as what other studies have found from antidepressants." These patients did not typically have full-blown anxiety or depression.

"A lot of people have this idea that meditation means sitting down and doing nothing," Goyal says. "But that’s not true. Meditation is an active training of the mind to increase awareness, and different meditation programs approach this in different ways."

Mindfulness is typically practiced for 30 to 40 minutes a day. It emphasises acceptance of feelings and thoughts without judgment and relaxation of body and mind.

Findings were published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

Source of this article:

Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being