Meditate your way through depression?
Published: 17 January 2010
Author: Rose Gamble
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[ 8 ] Comments
The Mental Health Foundation has released a report suggesting Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) - with roots in Eastern philosophy and Buddhism - could halve the UK depression problem if it were available on the NHS.
The best cure for depression
Mindfulness teaches the patient how to empty their mind and focus through meditation or yoga, allowing more space for considered decision-making and preventing the mind from being hijacked by negative emotions.
In 2004, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommended mindfulness-based cognitive therapy courses for people who had experienced depression at least three times. In two clinical trials, mindfulness training halved the rate of relapse for people with recurrent depression.
Mindfulness training has also been shown to increase activity in the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain associated with positive emotion that is normally subdued in depressed individuals.
Anti-depressants provide a chemical lift out of despair - yet if the patient stops taking them, there is nothing to prevent a return to their original state of mind. And although cognitive behaviour therapy encourages a patient to understand the cause of their depression through assessing their thoughts and behaviour, it does not prevent the illness.
Whereas mindfulness training, according to the Mental Health Foundation, may provide both prevention and cure.
Doctor Jonty Heaversedge, a South London GP who learned meditation at a Buddhist centre told The Times: “Depression is something that affects a huge number of my patients, often year after year, with devastating consequences. MBCT gives them the opportunity to develop a healthier, more accepting relationship with their thoughts and feelings.”
No treatment fits all
“I wouldn’t say one treatment fits all,” Private GP Michael Gormley told Sideways News.
“Depression is a big and complicated subject. There is no one particular treatment that works best – it depends on the patient and the circumstances.”
Depression comes in many forms. Whereas talking therapies (such as counselling), exercise or herbal remedies may aid some people with mild depression, others would be more suited to taking a regular chemical anti-depressant. Moderate or severe depression may require a combination of treatments.
Although Doctor Gormley agrees that GPs, often hard-pressed for time, can be quick to prescribe a chemical treatment to depression (such as Prozac) because other options, or simply talking time, are not widely available, he also concedes that this does not mean that alternative therapies such as mindfulness are the only option.
Mindfulness, although a helpful discipline for any person whether depressed or not, requires concentration and focus which, for a depressed person, can be extremely difficult.
“It’s a good discipline but it requires motivation and focus,” said Gormley.
“Depressed people often really struggle to focus, or they can’t at all, so it doesn’t work for everyone.”
The limited availability of psychotherapy remains an important issue in the treatment of depression. Hence, making MBCT available on the NHS would be a positive move. But a combination of therapies and treatments, based on accurate assessment of a patient and their circumstances, remains the best way to treat depression.
Comments
i try evry think from last seven years but did not work for me so please try to not take it if you can
If depression is due to loneliness, then it's better to meditate with a group. If it's a bunch of buddhist monks who aren't speaking, then the lack of social contact may not help. You need to find a friendly group where there is some warmth!
as everyone above agrees, one size doesn't fit all when it comes to treating depression. some people find meditation makes everything a whole lot worse! it's very hard and takes a long time to master and sitting alone with their thoughts is something they probably do way too much of anyway (yes you're supposed to clear your mind but it's difficult to do this at first). for people like this, exercise or something that takes concentration (like wall climbing or sailing) works well as it means they are taken out of themselves
Depression is a multifarious psychoneurotic disorder which calls for different solutions. Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy may well be one of them.
Not participating in mindfulnesstherapy definately won't help you, that's for shure.
I lead an international meditation school and we have wonderful result with depression.
More details at www.fisu.org
dear, sir/madam plz inform me what is depresssion ,and definition of cbt and how can applying the cbt
depression affects peiple in lots of different ways and those depressed due to circumstance won't react in the same way to those clinically depressed. One cure can't fit all