By Catherine A. Sanderson, Amherst College
The term meditation describes a group of techniques generally designed to focus attention entirely on the present. It sometimes involves focusing intently on a single feeling, such as breath coming in and out of the body, or a single thought or phrase—a mantra. A specific type of meditation, mindfulness meditation, is designed to calm the mind as well as the body.
Mindfulness
The term mindfulness refers to an ability to be fully present (or mindful) of where one is and what one is doing. So, it includes a focus on overall relaxation, just like meditation, but it also teaches people to slow down their racing thoughts and let go of negativity.
Some people tend to be pretty mindful already in their daily lives, whereas others seem to struggle. Here’s a quick scale which can help one figure out their tendency. Read each of these statements, and rate whether you often or always have these experiences or rarely or never have them.
- I break or spill things because of carelessness, not paying attention, or thinking of something else.
- I tend to walk quickly to get where I’m going without paying attention to what I experience along the way.
- I forget a person’s name almost as soon as I’ve been told it for the first time.
- It seems I am ‘running on automatic,’ without much awareness of what I’m doing.
- I find myself listening to someone with one ear, doing something else at the same time.
- I drive places on ‘automatic pilot’ and then wonder why I went there.
- I find myself preoccupied with the future or the past.
- I snack without being aware that I’m eating.
Improving Psychological Well-being
In a simple demonstration of the benefits of meditation, a researcher read one group of people brief instructions about a mediation technique for mindfulness about breathing, focusing their attention, and awareness on their own breathing and then asked them to meditate for 10 minutes.
People in the other group, the control group, were asked to just sit quietly.
All the people in both the groups then plunged their hands first into warm water and then into freezing cold ice water and were told to keep their hands in the freezing water for as long as they could.
People who had just meditated kept their hands in the cold water significantly longer, providing clear evidence that meditation led to a higher pain tolerance.
This is a particularly important finding, given the need to develop strategies for helping people manage chronic pain that don’t involve reliance on pain-relieving drugs, which can lead to addiction.
This article comes directly from content in the video series Introduction to Psychology. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Meditation
But meditation also leads to important benefits beyond physical health. People who meditate regularly report increases in positive emotions and life satisfaction coupled with decreases in stress and anxiety.
And the benefits of meditation aren’t just found in self-report studies. Randomized clinical trials, in which all people in a study have an equal chance of being assigned to a meditation condition or some alternative, reveal the same benefits.
One meta-analysis combining data from multiple different studies on the effects of meditation found that 30 minutes of daily meditation was as helpful in reducing anxiety and depression as taking antidepressants.
Benefits of Meditation
Meditation also improves overall cognitive functioning. Researchers in one remarkable study compared the effects of two distinct approaches for improving memory with patients showing early signs of dementia. One approach consisted of a 12-minutes daily meditation program involving chanting a mantra, hand movements, and visualization, plus a weekly yoga class.
The other approach was a standard memory enhancement training program. It included training in specific strategies for improving memory as well as homework assignments that involve practicing these strategies. Both programs led to improved memory and lower rates of depression.
So, the evidence describing the benefits of meditation on physical health, pain, psychological well-being, and so on is pretty strong. But what we’re less clear about is how to explain why the act of meditating produces such wide-ranging benefits.
Managing Stress and Reducing Heart Problems
One explanation is that meditation helps people manage stress by relaxing the body and the mind. These changes, thereby, minimize the wear and tear on the body that would otherwise result from chronic use of the physiological stress response.
For example, teenagers with high blood pressure who are trained to meditate for 15 minutes, twice a day, over a four-month period show greater improvements in early warning signs of cardiovascular disease than those who spent an equivalent amount of time receiving lifestyle education information focused on making healthy food choices and engaging in regular physical activity.
This study tells us that reducing stress through meditating can play as important a role in reducing serious heart problems as more traditional approaches focusing entirely on physical health—eating, exercise.
Disrupting Destructive Thought Patterns
Another explanation is that meditation can help disrupt destructive thought patterns. One of the key features of this technique is an intense and deliberate focus on the here and now which can help people break out of cycles of negative thought that, over time, can spiral into depression.
People who practice meditation are better able to keep their thoughts focused on the present, and when their mind does wander, it’s less likely to head toward unpleasant thoughts.
Thus, practicing meditation is one way to achieve an altered state of consciousness. It is a relatively simple and cheap way to reduce stress and anxiety, stave off age-related changes in the brain, and become kinder and more compassionate.
Common Questions about Meditation and Mindfulness
Both meditation and mindfulness can help people manage pain, cope with illness, and improve psychological well-being.
One meta-analysis combining data from multiple different studies on the effects of meditation found that 30 minutes of daily meditation was as helpful in reducing anxiety and depression as taking antidepressants.
People who practice meditation are better able to keep their thoughts focused on the present, and when their mind does wander, it’s less likely to head towards unpleasant thoughts.
