̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - mindfulness

‘Teen-friendly’ mindfulness therapy aims to help combat depression

cjb250 — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 08:00:40 +0000

Researchers have developed a mindfulness therapy tailored specifically to appeal to teenagers to help them cope with increasing levels of depression and mental health problems.

Mindfulness training may lead to altered states of consciousness, study finds

cjb250 — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 18:00:20 +0000

̽��ֱ��team say that while these experiences can be very positive, that is not always the case. Mindfulness teachers and students need to be aware that they can be a side-effect of training, and students should feel empowered to share their experiences with their teacher or doctor if they have any concerns.

Mindfulness-based programmes have become very popular in recent years. According to recent surveys, 15% of adults in the UK have learnt some form of mindfulness. They are often practised as a way of reducing stress or coping with depression and anxiety. There is anecdotal evidence that practising mindfulness can lead to alterations of the senses, self, and body boundaries, some even similar to those induced by psychotropic drugs.

From September 2015 to January 2016, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge conducted a randomised controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of mindfulness training as a way of coping with the stress of examinations and found that it can help support students at risk of mental health problems.

Dr Julieta Galante from the Department of Psychiatry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, who led the trial, said: “There’s been anecdotal evidence that people who practice mindfulness experience changes in how they perceive themselves and the world around them, but it’s difficult to know whether these experiences are a result of mindfulness practice or whether people who are more prone to such experiences are also more likely to practise mindfulness.

“Because we’d been running a randomised trial of mindfulness practice with several hundred students at Cambridge, we realised this offered us an opportunity to explore this question further.”

̽��ֱ��team behind the trial followed up with participants a year later to investigate whether they had experienced any of the altered states of consciousness being reported anecdotally. ̽��ֱ��results are published today in PLOS ONE.

Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire that explored 11 ‘dimensions’ such as: spiritual experience; blissful state; disembodiment; and unity. In experiences of unity there is a sense that borders dissolve and everything, sometimes including the sense of time, is perceived in an integrated way. Disembodiment experiences often consist of a floating sensation or a dissolution of body boundaries, which may facilitate strong unity experiences.

In total, 670 participants took part in the randomised trial. Around a third each from the mindfulness trial and the control arm went on to complete the questionnaire about experiences of altered states of consciousness.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that people who had received the mindfulness training were twice as likely as those in the control group to experience unity and disembodiment.

When the researchers explored the relationship between the total hours of formal mindfulness practice and the presence and intensity of experiences of altered states of consciousness, they found that the more people practised, the more likely they were to have an experience of unity, disembodiment, or of a blissful state.

Participants who reported having meditated in the six months prior were asked if altered states of consciousness happened during meditation. Based on this sub-sample of 73 participants, 43% reported unity experiences during meditation, 47% blissful states, 29% disembodiment experiences, and 25% insightfulness experiences.

Dr Galante said: “Although we can’t say definitively, our results at least suggest the possibility that mindfulness training causes these experiences of unity and disembodiment. It aligns with other studies showing that people who practice mindfulness training are more likely to describe experiencing a sense of relaxed self-boundaries and broadening their spatial awareness beyond the physical body.”

Dr Galante, who practices mindfulness, has herself experienced these altered states of consciousness.

“I’ve benefited a lot personally from meditation and mindfulness and I’ve also had many of these experiences,” she said. “They were intense, and at first I found it difficult to share them with my meditation teacher. I didn’t know if they were normal or desirable or if they were a sign of problems with my mental health.”

While many experiences of altered states of consciousness are likely to be interpreted as pleasant, this may not always be the case, and Dr Galante says that it is important for teachers and their students to be aware that they may arise and be open to talking about them.

She added: “ ̽��ֱ��most common and intense experiences tend to be those that do not have intrinsically unpleasant characteristics. Some, such as bliss, can feel extremely pleasant. But some experiences, such as disembodiment or altered sense of self could be perceived as unpleasant, or startling, even alarming, especially if you’re not expecting them.

“It’s important that people who are offered mindfulness are told about the possibility that they may come across these experiences. That way, if they do experience them, they shouldn’t be disconcerted. There may be nothing wrong with their experience, but it may be useful for them to check in with their mindfulness teacher, and if the experience was negative, to also consider discussing it with their doctor.”

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor’s Endowment Fund, the ̽��ֱ�� Counselling Service and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration East of England programme.

Reference

Galante, J & Montero-Marin, J et al. Altered states of consciousness caused by a mindfulness-based programme up to a year later: results from a randomised controlled trial. PLOS ONE; 17 July 2024; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0305928

Mindfulness training may lead participants to experience disembodiment and unity – so-called altered states of consciousness – according to a new study from researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

I’ve benefited a lot personally from meditation and mindfulness and I’ve also had many of these experiences. I didn’t know if they were normal or desirable

Julieta Galante

Dingzeyu Li

Woman sitting on sand at sunset meditating

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Licence type:

Public Domain

Reclaim ‘wellness’ from the rich and famous, and restore its political radicalism, new book argues

ta385 — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Today’s wellness industry generates trillions of dollars in revenue, but in a new book, Dr James Riley (Faculty of English & Girton College), shows that 1970s wellness pioneers imagined something radically different to today’s culture of celebrity endorsements and exclusive health retreats.

“Wellness was never about elite experiences and glossy, high-value products,” says Riley, noting that “When we think of wellness today, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop and other lifestyle brands might come to mind, along with the oft-cited criticism that they only really offer quackery for the rich.” By contrast, in the 1970s, “wellness was much more practical, accessible and political.”

̽��ֱ��word, as it was first proposed in the late-1950s, described a holistic approach to well-being, one that attended equally to the mind (mental health), the body (physical health) and the spirit (one’s sense of purpose in life). ̽��ֱ��aim was to be more than merely ‘not ill’. Being well, according to the likes of Halbert Dunn and later in the 1970s, John Travis and Don Ardell, meant realising your potential, living with ‘energy to burn’ and putting that energy to work for the wider social good.

Riley’s Well Beings: How the Seventies Lost Its Mind and Taught Us to Find Ourselves, published by Icon Books on 28 March, is the first book to explore the background of the wellness concept in the wider political and cultural context of the 1970s.

“Wellness in the 1970s grew out of changing attitudes to health in the post-war period – the same thinking that gave rise to the NHS,” Riley says. “When coupled with the political activism of the 1960s counterculture and the New Left, what emerged was a proactive, socially oriented approach to physical and mental well-being. This was not about buying a product off the shelf.

“ ̽��ֱ��pursuit of wellness was intended to take time, commitment and effort. It challenged you to think through every facet of your life: your diet, health, psychology, relationships, community engagement and aspirations. ̽��ֱ��aim was to change your behaviour – for the better – for the long term.”

Riley’s book also makes a case for what the 1970s wellness industry can do for us today.

“We’re often warned about an imminent return to ‘the seventies’, a threat that’s based on the stereotypical image of the decade as one of social decline, urban strife, and industrial discontent. It’s an over-worked comparison that tends to say more about our own social problems, our own contemporary culture of overlapping political, social and economic crises. Rather than fearing the seventies, there’s much we can learn to help us navigate current difficulties.”

“It was in the 1970s that serious thought was given to stress and overwork to say nothing of such frequently derided ‘events’ as the mid-life crisis and the nervous breakdown. ̽��ֱ��manifold pressures of modern life - from loneliness to information overload - increasingly came under the microscope and wellness offered the tools to deal with them.”

“Not only are these problems still with us, they’ve got much worse. To start remedying them, we need to remember what wellness used to mean. ̽��ֱ��pandemic, for all its horrors, reminded us of the importance of mutual self-care. To deal with the ongoing entanglement of physical and mental health requires more of that conviviality. Being well should be within everyone’s reach, it should not be a privilege afforded to those who have already done well.”

Mindfulness versus wellness

At the heart of Riley’s book is an analysis of the ongoing corporate and commercial tussle between ‘mindfulness’ and ‘wellness’.

In 1979 Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Stress Reduction and Relaxation Programme at the ̽��ֱ�� of Massachusetts Medical Center, where he taught ‘mindfulness-based stress reduction’. For Kabat-Zinn mindfulness meant accepting the inevitable stress that comes with the ‘full catastrophe’ of life and adopting an attitude of serene resilience in the face of it. Stress could be alleviated thanks to a regular meditation routine and small changes made to the working day such as the decision to try a different, more pleasant commute. Little was said about altering the pace of the work causing the stress in the first place.

By contrast, John Travis, a medical doctor who founded the Wellness Resource Center in California’s Marin County in 1975, talked about the health dangers of sedentary, office-based jobs while Don Ardell, author of High Level Wellness (1977), encouraged his readers to become agents of change in the workplace. Both saw work-fixated lifestyles as the problem. Work and work-related stress was thus something to fix, not to endure.

Ardell argued that because burn-out was becoming increasingly common it was incumbent upon employers to offer paid time off to improve employee well-being. Better to be too well to come to work, reasoned Ardell, than too sick. “We tend to think that flexible hours and remote working are relatively new concepts, particularly in the digital and post-COVID eras,” adds Riley, “but Ardell was calling for this half a century ago.”

Riley argues that the techniques of mindfulness, rather than those of wellness, have proved attractive to contemporary corporate culture because they ultimately help to maintain the status quo. Corporate mindfulness puts the onus on the employee to weather the storm of stress. It says, “there is nothing wrong with the firm, you are the problem, this is the pace, get with it or leave”.

According to Riley this view is a far-cry from the thinking of seventies wellness advocates like Travis and Ardell who “imagined a health-oriented citizenship, a process of development in which social well-being follows on from the widespread optimistic and goal-oriented pursuit of personal health. It’s that sense of social mission that self-care has lost.”

Riley points out that this self-care mission had a very particular meaning in the 1970s among groups like ̽��ֱ��Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which established clinics and ran an ambulance service for black communities in and around Oakland, California. “They were saying you’ve got to look after yourself so you can then look after your community. Such communal effort was vital because the system was seen to be so opposed to Oakland’s needs. One sees the deeply political potency of ‘self-care’ in this context. It meant radical, collective autonomy, not indulgent self-regard.”

̽��ֱ��bad guru

As well as suggesting positive lessons from the past, Riley is also quick to call out the problems. “ ̽��ֱ��emphasis on self-responsibility in wellness culture could easily turn into a form of patient-blame,” he argues, “the idea that if you’re ill, or rather if you fail to be well, it’s your fault, a view that neglects to consider all kinds of social and economic factors that contribute to ill-health.”

Elsewhere, Riley draws attention to the numerous claims of exploitation and abuse within the wider context of the alternative health systems, new religious movements and ‘therapy cults’ that proliferated in the 1970s.

“It was not always a utopia of free thought. ̽��ֱ��complex and often unregulated world of New Age groups and alternative health systems could often be a minefield of toxic behaviour, aggressive salesmanship and manipulative mind games. Charismatic and very persuasive human engineers were a common presence in the scene, and one can easily see these anxieties reflected in the various ‘bad gurus’ of the period’s fiction and film.

“There are plenty of voices who say they gained great insights as a result of being pushed to their limits in these situations,” says Riley, “but many others were deeply affected, if not traumatised, by the same experiences.”

Self-experimentation

In addition to exploring the literature of the period, Riley’s research for Well Beings found him trying out many of the therapeutic practices he describes. These included extended sessions in floatation tanks, guided meditation, mindfulness seminars, fire walking, primal screaming in the middle of the countryside, remote healing, yoga, meal replacement and food supplements.

References

J Riley, Well Beings: How the Seventies Lost Its Mind and Taught Us to Find Ourselves. Published by Icon Books on 28th March 2024. ISBN: 9781785787898.

A new cultural history of the 1970s wellness industry offers urgent lessons for today. It reveals that in the seventies, wellness was neither narcissistic nor self-indulgent, and nor did its practice involve buying expensive, on-trend luxury products. Instead, wellness emphasised social well-being just as much as it focused on the needs of the individual. Wellness practitioners thought of self-care as a way of empowering people to prioritise their health so that they could also enhance the well-being of those around them.

Wellness was much more practical, accessible and political

James Riley

Eli Christman via Flikr under a cc license

People doing yoga together outdoors in Richmond USA in 2015

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution-Noncommerical

In-person mindfulness courses help improve mental health for at least six months

cg605 — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 15:01:57 +0000

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researchers looked at participants of group-based and teacher-led mindfulness courses, conducted in person and offered in community settings.

They say the results, published in the journal Nature Mental Health, should encourage uptake of similar teacher-led programmes in workplaces and educational institutions keen to help prevent mental health problems developing in members of their community.

“In our previous work it was still not clear whether these mindfulness courses could promote mental health across different community settings,” said lead researcher, Dr Julieta Galante, who conducted the research while at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. “This study is the highest quality confirmation so far that the in-person mindfulness courses typically offered in the community do actually work for the average person.”

Mindfulness in these courses is typically defined as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment”.

These courses, formally known as mindfulness-based programmes (MBPs), often combine elements of meditation, body awareness and modern psychology, and are designed to help reduce stress, improve wellbeing, and enhance mental and emotional ‘resilience’. They consist of groups of participants led by mindfulness teachers, who promote reflection and sharing over several one-to-two hour sessions.

̽��ֱ��body of research into the effectiveness of MBPs to date has been mixed. Cambridge researchers sought to confirm the effect of MBPs on psychological distress ‒ which encompasses disturbing or unpleasant mental or emotional experiences including symptoms of anxiety and depression.

They pooled and analysed data from 2,371 adults who had taken part in trials to assess the effectiveness of MBPs. Roughly half the participants had been randomly allocated places on mindfulness programmes that lasted for eight weeks, with a one- to two-and-a-half hour session per week and compared them to those that were not through self-reported questionnaires.

̽��ֱ��study found that MBPs generated a small to moderate reduction in adults’ psychological distress, with 13% more participants seeing a benefit than those who did not attend an MBP.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that existing psychological distress, age, gender, educational level and a disposition towards mindfulness did not change the effectiveness of MBPs.

Galante said: “We’ve confirmed that if adults choose to do a mindfulness course in person, with a teacher and offered in a group setting, this will, on average, be beneficial in terms of helping to reduce their psychological distress which will improve their mental health. However, we are not saying that it should be done by every single person; research shows that it just doesn’t work for some people.

“We’re also not saying you should absolutely choose a mindfulness class instead of something else you might benefit from, for example a football club – we have no evidence that mindfulness is better than other feel-good practices but if you’re not doing anything, these types of mindfulness courses are certainly among the options that can be helpful.”

̽��ֱ��researchers conducted a systematic review to select previous studies for inclusion in their large-scale analysis. They obtained complete but anonymised data from 13 trials representing eight countries. ̽��ֱ��median age was 34 years-old, while 71% of participants were women.

While mindfulness apps are on the rise, researchers remain unsure whether it is the practice of mindfulness that reduces psychological distress, or the fact that courses involve in-person group-work with a teacher present.

“Apps may be cheaper, but there is nowhere near the same evidence base for their effectiveness,” said Galante. “Some apps may say they are evidenced based, but they are often referring to trials that are in-person with a teacher and a group.”

̽��ֱ��effectiveness of smartphone apps, as well as what happens when people continue to practice mindfulness meditation by themselves, will be investigated by Galante, who has recently taken up a new position as Deputy Director of the Contemplative Studies Centre, at the ̽��ֱ�� of Melbourne.

“If you are offered an in-person four- or eight-week mindfulness course in a group setting with a teacher, and you are curious about it, I’d say based on this study, just go ahead and try it,” said Galante. “And for organisations wondering about offering these types of mindfulness courses to members of their community – this research suggests it may be a good investment if their communities express an interest.”

This research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research.

Reference:

Julieta Galante et al. Systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials assessing mindfulness-based programs for mental health promotion, Nature Mental Health DOI: 10.1038/s44220-023-00081-5

Adults who voluntarily take part in mindfulness courses are less likely to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression for at least six months after completing the programmes, compared to adults who do not take part, a new analysis pooling data from 13 studies has confirmed.

This study is the highest quality confirmation so far that the in-person mindfulness courses typically offered in the community do actually work for the average person.

Dr Julieta Galante

Caia Image / Collection Mix: Subjects via Getty Images

Serene creative business people meditating in office

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

School-based mindfulness training programme fails to improve young people’s mental health

cjb250 — Wed, 13 Jul 2022 07:51:50 +0000

̽��ֱ��MY Resilience In ADolescence (MYRIAD) study programme span spans eight years of research and explore whether schools-based mindfulness training could improve the mental health of young people. It involved more than 28,000 children aged 11-14, 100 schools and 650 teachers. ̽��ֱ��main studies from this programme are published in a series of papers in a special issue of Evidence-based Mental Health.

Professor Willem Kuyken from the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford, one of the lead authors, said: “MYRIAD is the largest of its kind to explore, in detail, whether mindfulness training in schools can improve young people’s mental health. With early adolescence being an important window of opportunity in terms of preventing mental health problems and promoting well-being, and young people spending much of their waking lives at school, a schools-based programme could be a good way to support young people’s mental health.”

Reports suggest that one in five teenagers experience mental health problems, and three quarters of all mental illnesses that anyone will ever develop before the age of 24. For example, the peak age of onset of depression is between 13 and 15 years of age. ̽��ֱ��MYRIAD studies showed that certain groups of young people were more likely to report mental health problems: girls, older teenagers, those living in urban areas, and those living in areas of greatest poverty and deprivation.

̽��ֱ��young people participating in the studies reported mixed views of the mindfulness-training curriculum (some rating it highly and others negatively), while 80% did not do the required mindfulness practice homework.

Professor Mark Williams from the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford, added: “ ̽��ֱ��findings from MYRIAD confirm the huge burden of mental health challenges that young people face, and the urgent need to find a way to help. They also show that the idea of mindfulness doesn’t help – it’s the practice that matters. If today’s young people are to be enthused enough to practice mindfulness, then updating training to suit different needs and giving them a say in the approach they prefer are the vital next steps.”

In addition, to teach mindfulness well, committed staff, resources and teacher training and support are needed, and the co-design of programmes and resources with young people would likely be more effective, say the researchers. A multitude of factors affect young people’s health, for example, their environment at school and at home, their school’s culture, and their individual differences.

Co-investigator Professor Tamsin Ford from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge said: “Our work adds to the evidence that translating mental health treatments into classroom curricula is difficult and that teachers may not be best placed to deliver them without considerable training and support – another approach would be for mindfulness practitioners to work with students at risk of poor mental health or who express a particular interest in attending mindfulness training.”

Other findings included:

Mindfulness training improved overall school climate (atmosphere and culture), especially views of the school leadership, connectedness, and respect – although most effects washed out after one year.
Teachers who did the mindfulness training reported lower levels of burnout, particularly feelings of reduced exhaustion and depersonalization – although most effects washed out after one year.

Professor Mark Greenberg, one of the study co-investigators at Pennsylvania State ̽��ֱ��, said: “ ̽��ֱ��MYRIAD project carefully tested the effects of a brief mindfulness intervention for early teens and found it to have no impact on preventing mental health problems or promoting well-being. In order to improve wellbeing for young people, it is likely we need to make broader systemic changes in schools that both teach them new coping skills and support staff to create environments where youth feel valued and respected.”

Miranda Wolpert, Director of Mental Health at Wellcome, which funded the research, said: “In science, it is just as important to find out what doesn’t work as what does. It can take real bravery to share such findings. This rigorous, large-scale study found that when mindfulness training was delivered at scale in schools it did not have an impact on preventing risk of depression or promoting well-being in students aged 11 to 14 years.”

Adapted from a press release by the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford

A standardised schools-based mindfulness training programme did not help young people’s mental health and well-being overall, but did improve school culture and reduce teachers’ burn out, a new study has found.

Our work adds to the evidence that translating mental health treatments into classroom curricula is difficult and that teachers may not be best placed to deliver them without considerable training and support

Tamsin Ford

Drazen Zigic (Getty Images)

Rear view of sports teacher practicing Yoga with her students at school gym

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Mindfulness can improve mental health and wellbeing – but unlikely to work for everyone

cjb250 — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 19:00:26 +0000

Mindfulness is typically defined as ‘the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment’. It has become increasingly popular in recent years as a way of increasing wellbeing and reducing stress levels.

In the UK, the National Health Service offers therapies based on mindfulness to help treat mental health issues such as depression and suicidal thoughts. However, the majority of people who practice mindfulness learn their skills in community settings such as universities, workplaces, or private courses. Mindfulness-based programmes are frequently promoted as the go-to universal tool to reduce stress and increase wellbeing, accessible to anyone, anywhere.

Many randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have been conducted around the world to assess whether in-person mindfulness training can improve mental health and wellbeing, but the results are often varied. In a report published today in PLOS Medicine, a team of researchers from the Department of Psychiatry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge led a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the published data from the RCTs. This approach allows them to bring together existing – and often contradictory or under-powered – studies to provide more robust conclusions.

̽��ֱ��team identified 136 RCTs on mindfulness training for mental health promotion in community settings. These trials included 11,605 participants aged 18 to 73 years from 29 countries, more than three-quarters (77%) of whom were women.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that in most community settings, compared with doing nothing, mindfulness reduces anxiety, depression and stress, and increases wellbeing. However, the data suggested that in more than one in 20 trials settings, mindfulness-based programmes may not improve these outcomes.

Dr Julieta Galante from the Department of Psychiatry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, the report’s first author, said: “For the average person and setting, practising mindfulness appears to be better than doing nothing for improving our mental health, particularly when it comes to depression, anxiety and psychological distress – but we shouldn’t assume that it works for everyone, everywhere.

“Mindfulness training in the community needs to be implemented with care. Community mindfulness courses should be just one option among others, and the range of effects should be researched as courses are implemented in new settings. ̽��ֱ��courses that work best may be those aimed at people who are most stressed or in stressful situations, for example health workers, as they appear to see the biggest benefit.”

̽��ֱ��researchers caution that RCTs in this field tended to be of poor quality, so the combined results may not represent the true effects. For example, many participants stopped attending mindfulness courses and were not asked why, so they are not represented in the results. When the researchers repeated the analyses including only the higher quality studies, mindfulness only showed effects on stress, not on wellbeing, depression or anxiety.

When compared against other ‘feel good’ practices such as exercise, mindfulness fared neither better nor worse. Professor Peter Jones, also from Cambridge’s Department of Psychiatry, and senior author, said: “While mindfulness is often better than taking no action, we found that there may be other effective ways of improving our mental health and wellbeing, such as exercise. In many cases, these may prove to be more suitable alternatives if they are more effective, culturally more acceptable or are more feasible or cost effective to implement. ̽��ֱ��good news is that there are now more options.”

̽��ֱ��researchers say that the variability in the success of different mindfulness-based programmes identified among the RCTs may be down to a number of reasons, including how, where and by whom they are implemented as well as at whom they are targeted. ̽��ֱ��techniques and frameworks taught in mindfulness have rich and diverse backgrounds, from early Buddhist psychology and meditation through to cognitive neuroscience and participatory medicine – the interplay between all of these different factors can be expected to influence how effective a programme is.

̽��ֱ��number of online mindfulness courses has increased rapidly, accelerated further by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although this review has not looked at online courses, studies suggest that these may be as effective as their offline counterparts, despite most lacking interactions with teacher and peers.

Dr Galante added: “If the effects of online mindfulness courses vary as widely according to the setting as their offline counterparts, then the lack of human support they offer could cause potential problems. We need more research before we can be confident about their effectiveness and safety.”

̽��ֱ��research was mainly funded by the National Institute for Health Research.

Reference
Galante, J et al. Mindfulness-based programmes for mental health promotion in adults in non-clinical settings: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. PLOS Medicine; 11 Jan 2021; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003481

Mindfulness courses can reduce anxiety, depression and stress and increase mental wellbeing within most but not all non-clinical settings, say a team of researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. They also found that mindfulness may be no better than other practices aimed at improving mental health and wellbeing.

Mindfulness training in the community needs to be implemented with care. Community mindfulness courses should be just one option among others

Julieta Galante

World Economic Forum

Mindfulness meditation

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike

Mindfulness training reduces stress during exam time

cjb250 — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 23:38:22 +0000

While the prevalence of anxiety and depression among first year undergraduates is lower than the general population, it increases to overtake this during their second year. ̽��ֱ��number of students accessing counselling services in the UK grew by 50% from 2010 to 2015, surpassing the growth in the number of students during the same period. There is little consensus as to whether students are suffering more mental disorders, are less resilient than in the past or whether there is less stigma attached to accessing support. Regardless, mental health support services for students are becoming stretched.

Recent years have seen increasing interest in mindfulness, a means of training attention for the purpose of mental wellbeing based on the practice of meditation. There is evidence that mindfulness training can improve symptoms of common mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. However, there is little robust evidence on the effectiveness of mindfulness training in preventing such problems in university students.

“Given the increasing demands on student mental health services, we wanted to see whether mindfulness could help students develop preventative coping strategies,” says Géraldine Dufour Head of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Counselling Service. Dufour is one of the authors of a study that set out to test the effectiveness of mindfulness – the results are published today in ̽��ֱ��Lancet Public Health.

In total, 616 students took part in the study and were randomised across two groups. Both groups were offered access to comprehensive centralised support at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Counselling Service in addition to support available from the university and its colleges, and from health services including the National Health Service.

Half of the cohort (309 students) were also offered the Mindfulness Skills for Students course. This consisted of eight, weekly, face-to-face, group-based sessions based on the course book Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World, adapted for university students. Students were encouraged to also practice at home, starting at eight minute meditations, and increasing to about 15-25 minutes per day, as well as other mindfulness practices such as a mindful walking and mindful eating. Students in the other half of the cohort were offered their mindfulness training the following year.

̽��ֱ��researchers assessed the impact of the mindfulness training on stress (‘psychological distress’) during the main, annual examination period in May and June 2016, the most stressful weeks for most students. They measured this using the CORE-OM, a generic assessment used in many counselling services.

̽��ֱ��mindfulness course led to lower distress scores after the course and during the exam term compared with students who only received the usual support. Mindfulness participants were a third less likely than other participants to have scores above a threshold commonly seen as meriting mental health support. Distress scores for the mindfulness group during exam time fell below their baselines levels (as measured at the start of the study, before exam time), whereas the students who received the standard support became increasingly stressed as the academic year progressed.

̽��ֱ��researchers also looked at other measures, such as self-reported wellbeing. They found that mindfulness training improved wellbeing during the exam period when compared with the usual support.

“This is, to the best of our knowledge, the most robust study to date to assess mindfulness training for students, and backs up previous studies that suggest it can improve mental health and wellbeing during stressful periods,” says Dr Julieta Galante from the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge, who led the study.

“Students who had been practising mindfulness had distress scores lower than their baseline levels even during exam time, which suggests that mindfulness helps build resilience against stress.”

Professor Peter Jones, also from the Department of Psychiatry, adds: “ ̽��ֱ��evidence is mounting that mindfulness training can help people cope with accumulative stress. While these benefits may be similar to some other preventative methods, mindfulness could be a useful addition to the interventions already delivered by university counselling services. It appears to be popular, feasible, acceptable and without stigma.”

̽��ֱ��team also looked at whether mindfulness had any effect of examination results; however, their findings proved inconclusive.

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the National Institute for Health (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East of England, hosted by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.

Reference
Galante, J et al. Effectiveness of providing university students with a mindfulness-based intervention to increase resilience to stress: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial. Lancet Public Health; 19 December 2017; DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(17)30231-1

Mindfulness training can help support students at risk of mental health problems, concludes a randomised controlled trial carried out by researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

This is, to the best of our knowledge, the most robust study to date to assess mindfulness training for students, and backs up previous studies that suggest it can improve mental health and wellbeing during stressful periods

Julieta Galante

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Students studying

Researcher profile: Dr Julieta Galante

Dr Julieta Galante is a research associate in the Department of Psychiatry. Her interests lie in mental health promotion, particularly the effects of meditation on mental health. She hopes to contribute to the growing number of approaches to preventing mental health problems that do not rely on medication.

“What fascinates me is the idea that you could potentially train your mind to improve your wellbeing and develop yourself as a person,” she says. “It’s not the academic type of mind-training –meditation training is more like embarking on a deep inner-exploration.”

Galante’s research involves studying large numbers of people in real-world settings, such as busy students revising for their exams. It’s a very complex research field, she says: there are many factors, social, psychological and biological, that contribute to an individual’s mental health.

“Our projects are most successful (and enjoyable) when we collaborate with people outside the academic sphere, in this particular project with the Student Counselling Service, ̽��ֱ�� authorities, and the students themselves.”

̽��ֱ��mindfulness trial was ‘blinded’, meaning that the researchers did not know which students (and hence which data) belonged to which group. ̽��ֱ��‘unblinding’ of the results – when they found out whether their trial was successful – was nerve-wracking, she says. “ ̽��ֱ��team statistician didn’t know which group had received mindfulness training and which group was the control. He showed his results to the rest of the team and we could all see that there was a clear difference between the groups, but we didn’t know whether this meant really good or really bad news for mindfulness training. When the results were then unveiled, we all laughed with relief!”

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution

Opinion: Feeling anxious about that first date? Here’s how science can help

bjb42 — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 10:27:29 +0000

Sometimes, just thinking about a social situation can induce panic attacks, which are sudden spikes of intense anxiety that peak within a few minutes and feel like you’re about to have a heart attack, lose control, or go mad. During social situations, people with anxiety might feel short of breath and experience dizziness, sweating, blushing, stuttering, and an upset stomach

Many people are affected by anxiety. In fact, one in 14 people around the world will have an anxiety disorder at any given time, with women and young people being most affected. But it is possible to overcome anxiety and date successfully. Here are some top scientific tips.

Don’t focus on the worst

People with anxiety tend to worry about what might go wrong in a situation and fear that they will do or say something to embarrass themselves. These thoughts not only produce a highly negative mental state characterised by dread and helplessness, but also harmful physiological body changes, such as higher secretion of stress hormones.

Being in such a negative state doesn’t allow you to put your best self forward and shine. An effective way to get over this is to stop focusing on what might go wrong. As soon as a worrying thought pops into your head, let it go. Realise that it is just that – a thought or a mental event that will pass just like many others did. This technique is based on mindfulness, which has been shown to lower anxiety in study after study.

Another thing you can do when you’re feeling stressed or anxious is to take a few minutes and simply focus on your breathing. If thoughts come into your head as you’re doing this, don’t follow them – let them go and bring your mind gently back to your breaths. This meditative technique will relax you and make you feel calmer.

Face your fears

One of the best ways of getting over your anxiety is through repeated exposure to circumstances that scare you – and this doesn’t apply to just dating. Repeated exposure to situations or people that make you feel anxious eventually lessens your fear response and makes you realise that you really are more resilient than you thought you were.

Not so bad, after all. Shutterstock

When it comes to social interactions – or any other phobias for that matter – graded exposure is an effective way of getting over those nerves: start small with mildly feared situations and build your way up to more strongly feared circumstances. For example, next time you go to a social event, practice making small talk for a short period of time or make it a point to voice a comment during a group interaction. Next time, practice making small talk for a longer time and with more people. This will retrain your mind to stop seeing social situations as scary and will give you greater control when around others.

Don’t replay conversations in your head

You’ve got that “I just met someone” feeling and you can’t help but replay the conversation you’ve just had over in your head. Studies have shown that rumination – or constantly going over situations or conversations in your mind (especially those you’re uncertain of) – will only increase your anxiety. If there is an issue that needs to be dealt with, focus on fixing it or doing something about it – but without reacting to it. This is called problem-focused coping. According to research studies, people who do this have better mental health, tend to feel more positive and have more positive outcomes in life than those who use emotion-focused coping. For example, if someone does something that bothers you, tell this person, but don’t ruminate or think about it afterwards.

Are they worth it?

Many self-help books talk about what you should do in order to keep someone attracted. But that seems to be totally the wrong way of going about it. He or she may well be attractive and funny – and know just what to say to keep you hooked – but is that enough? Instead of worrying about how you look to the other person or being self-critical, try to find out more about him/her and whether this person is really worth sticking around for. Maybe you’ll discover that this cutie has a lying streak, is unreliable, or says things that he/she doesn’t mean. Is such a person really worth a relationship? Because the only thing worse than being in a bad relationship for a year, is being in a bad relationship for a year and a day.

Olivia Remes, PhD Candidate, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

Does anxiety keep getting in the way of you making connections with the people you’d like to spend more time with? Maybe you’ve just met someone, but are worried that your anxiety will ruin it all. People with anxiety can be highly self-critical, tend to overestimate the likelihood that something negative will happen, and often feel that others are judging them.

Jocelyn Kinghorn on Flickr

Blankets to Keep Warm

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution-ShareAlike