What Is Mindfulness?

Dec 5, 2021 | Mental health, Zeina Moukarzel

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By Zeina Moukarzel

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4 minutes

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, also known as MBSR, is very popular across North America and England. It was first introduced more than a decade ago by Jon-Kabat-Zinn (University of Massachusetts- UMass Medical School), to decrease pain in cancer patients.

Today, MBSR has a great number of purposes. It is integrated within numerous educational programs, including medical education programs. In addition, children and teenagers at school are being initiated to this technique, as evidence-based studies show that it decreases stress and violence among youth.

MBSR is an 8-week program medically proven to improve symptoms of anxiety and to decrease stress

It consists of daily mindfulness and meditation exercises. It has no religious or spiritual content. Usually, a one-day silent retreat is scheduled at the end of the program, during which talking, writing and even eye contact are not allowed.

Mindfulness simply means awareness and paying attention

Positive attitudes, like kindness, compassion, empathy, gratitude, generosity, acceptance, letting go, are the foundation for mindfulness practice.

MBSR promotes our well-being

Regularly practicing mindfulness has many benefits. It allows us to fully live our life, moment by moment, live the present moment, without thinking about the past or about the future. It also helps to break conditioned patterns of thinking, feeling and reacting, known as Automatic Pilot, and to make conscious choices instead of unconscious reactions.

On another note, mindfulness improves secondary physical or emotional symptoms related to stress by decreasing stress hormones; it slows the heart rate and decreases blood pressure and it may strengthen the immune system and decrease pain levels and suffering associated with pain (moderate evidence-based).

The mindfulness practice is divided into two categories: the formal practice, which includes step-by-step exercises, and the informal practice, which is included in day-to-day tasks.

For the formal practice, there are many types of exercises. One could be a 45 minutes’ body scan meditation practiced by lying down. During this time, we explore our bodies from head to toes, paying attention to our sensations and emotions. Another one could be a 10 to 20 minutes seated breath-focused meditation. Lastly, one could perform a 20 minutes’ yoga session as a meditation practice.

On the other hand, the informal mindfulness practices require us to be aware of our bodies’ sensations, feelings and emotions in response to daily situations. We are encouraged to use all of our five senses at all times, whether we are showering, eating, walking… It is also recommended that we take at least one 5 to 10 minutes’ breath-focused meditation session during a busy day.

During the course, there is a lot of discussion and sharing of sensations, emotions and experiences, and listening. Listening is a crucial component of the program.

Mindfulness-based interventions can help in different situations

Mindfulness techniques can help people suffering from chronic pain, by teaching them to accept the pain they may be feeling at the moment, and by helping them feel less weighed down by negative thoughts and achieve a sense of internal control. By allowing them to think more clearly, they will be able to control their thoughts, emotions, and some disabling situations like hypervigilance (constant awareness of pain, difficulty diverting focus away from pain), fear avoidance (avoiding situations that may worsen the pain), pain catastrophizing (worrying that the pain becomes consuming and emotionally distressing) and difficulty sleeping.

Mindfulness practice can also empower and improve quality of life of people living with mental illness, by reducing their anxiety and giving them a deeper sense of overall wellbeing and positivity.

Moreover, mindfulness techniques have shown effectiveness for relationship enhancement in couples, controlling weight gain (mindful eating) and managing menopausal symptoms (distress due to hot flushes).

The exact mechanism of action of mindfulness techniques on the brain is not well-know

However, the functional brain imagery (fMRI) showed modifications in some brain structures and activities while practicing mindfulness; the amygdala (reactive area of the brain responsible of fear) shrinks and the neurons within it become less active and the prefrontal cortex (area of the brain responsible of control over emotions) expands and the neurons within it become more active.

Outcome: overall reduction of one’s fear response and greater control over emotions

One application of mindfulness technique is Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)

MBCT’s purpose is to help people with chronic depression learn how to prevent relapses by not participating in certain habits of unconscious thinking that prolong and exacerbate depression. In fact, a study published in The Lancet found that MBCT helped prevent recurrence of depression as efficiently as maintenance antidepressant drugs did.

On average, MBCT has been shown to decrease the risk of relapse by almost 50% for individuals who experience chronic depression, regardless of their gender, age, education, or social status

Research has also shown that MBCT can decrease the severity of depressive symptoms and help alleviate addictive drug cravings. MBCT programs lasts 8 weeks. There is a weekly course during those eight weeks, which lasts two hours, and a day-long class after the fifth week. Participants should be taught during this period what is referred to as the 3-minute breathing space technique that focuses on three steps, each lasting one minute:

Observing one’s current perspective (How are you doing right now?)
Breath-focusing
Attending to bodily stimuli and the body

Other MBCT strategies include exercise in body scanning, yoga, meditation on walking and sitting, contemplating thoughts & sounds, and stretching mindfulness

However most of the practice is conducted outside of training. Participants are asked to do homework, which involves listening to recorded guided meditations and attempting in their daily lives to cultivate knowledge. This means that day-to-day tasks, such as brushing your teeth, showering, washing dishes, exercising, or making your bed, are taken into account by applying MBCT skills such as: