About thirty minutes of daily meditation would help alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression, according to an analysis of the results of nearly 50 clinical trials.
Better than antidepressants?
“A large number of people turn to meditation but this exercise is not considered as part of any medical therapy,” notes Dr. Madhav Goyal, assistant professor of internal medicine at Johns Hopkins University, the lead author of this study published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The study revealed that meditation can be a useful tool to help reduce certain symptoms of anxiety and depression. However, further research is needed to determine if it can also improve other symptoms, such as difficulties with concentration or sleep.
“But in our research, meditation appears to alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression as much as antidepressants in other studies,” he adds, also stressing that these patients did not suffer from severe forms of anxiety or depression.
Researchers have assessed the degree of symptom change in individuals suffering from a variety of health problems such as insomnia or fibromyalgia, a chronic painful muscular condition.
“Mindfulness” Meditation
Only a minority of these patients suffered from a mental illness, the authors note. They found that the meditation known as “mindfulness“, a form of Buddhist technique that involves focusing one’s attention on the present moment, proved particularly promising.
Generally, they observed signs of improvement in anxiety symptoms, depression and pain after the participants undertook a eight-week meditation programme for about thirty minutes a day.
This changes nothing about the stress level
But these researchers noted little evidence of improvement in stress levels and quality of life. In the clinical trials analyzed that followed patients for six months, they observed that these benefits of meditation persisted.
This analysis was conducted on 47 clinical trials involving a total of 3,515 participants who practiced various meditation techniques and suffered from various mental and physical disorders including depression, anxiety, stress, insomnia but also drug addiction, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and chronic pain.
Overall, the findings of this study suggest that mindfulness-based interventions can be effective in managing stress and improving quality of life. They also indicate that these effects can be sustained with continued practice of the intervention for at least six months.
However, further research is needed to understand how long or how often the intervention should be performed for optimal benefit. In addition, further research is needed to determine whether mindfulness-based interventions are effective for different types of stress and health problems.
Whether you are starting to meditate or already know its benefits, there are many online resources that will guide you on this peaceful journey to self-discovery.
So why not start today? Take the time, despite your busy schedule, to relax and explore the power of meditation, no matter what level of yogi or mindfulness guru you will become!