You might be hearing lots about Mindfulness these days, and that’s great because mindfulness has a ton of health benefits for you! If you don’t know exactly what mindfulness is check out our blog on Decoding Mindfulness here. Having a daily mindfulness practice will benefit your life greatly.
1. Reduces stress, depression, and anxiety. Many studies prove that practicing mindfulness reduces stress, decreases anxiety as well as depression. For example, a study by Dr James P. Malcolm, School of Psychology, University of Western Sydney, Australia, investigated the effect of Mindfulness Meditation on the emotional states of depression, anxiety, and stress. He also explored whether people with varying severity of depression, anxiety, and stress responded differently to mindfulness training. In order to investigate these questions, participants completed the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale, 21-item version (DASS-21) before and after a 10-week mindfulness meditation program. By the end of the meditation course, the severity levels of all 3 disorders (stress, anxiety and depression) had decreased.
He found that the participants with severe emotional difficulties at the time of starting the meditation course showed the most notable improvement over time. These results suggest that mindfulness training is extremely beneficial in reducing the symptoms of subclinical depression and anxiety and can substantially reduce stress. Now who wouldn’t want that?!
2. Improves the immune system. Your immune system is your body’s personal bodyguard; it’s your defense system that protects your body from foreign intruders like bacteria or a virus. When your immune system is weak, it’s like hanging up a neon a welcome sign for disease and/or infection. Richard Davidson, an honored professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, also conducted a study investigating whether mindfulness meditation could alter brain and immune function. In his study, people were injected with the flu vaccine and were either part of a group receiving mindfulness training or a control group. After eight weeks, the mindfulness group showed greater levels of antibodies available to respond to, and prevent, potential illness.
3. Improves attention span and focus. Another study (Moore and Malinowski, 2009) examined how mindfulness meditation affected participants’ ability to focus attention and suppress distracting information. The researchers compared a group of experienced mindfulness meditators with a control group that had no meditation experience. They found that the meditation group had significantly better performance on all measures of attention and had higher self-reported mindfulness. Mindfulness meditation practice and self-reported mindfulness were correlated directly with cognitive flexibility and attentional functioning. People’s ability to focus and hold attention even on boring stimulus improves significantly with mindfulness. (Wish I would have known about mindfulness when I was in school!)
4. Improvement in working memory. Research finds that improvements to working memory appear to be another benefit of mindfulness. A 2010 study by Jha et al., for example, documented the benefits of mindfulness meditation among a military group who participated in an eight-week mindfulness training, a non-meditating military group and a group of nonmeditating civilians. Both military groups were in a highly stressful period before deployment. The researchers found that the nonmeditating military group had decreased working memory capacity over time, whereas working memory capacity among nonmeditating civilians was stable across time. Within the meditating military group, however, working memory capacity increased with meditation practice. In addition, meditation practice was directly related to self-reported positive affect and inversely related to self-reported negative affect.
5. Improves personal relationships. When you have a regular mindfulness practice you are more open, compassionate, and self-aware. Mindfulness pulls you off of running on autopilot and those negative, judging thoughts. This allows you to be more present and connected to whatever is happening right now. So, you can only imagine how a more mindful person might make for a better relationship partner. A meta-analysis of the association between mindfulness and relationship satisfaction was published finding that higher levels of mindfulness may also be linked to happier and more satisfying relationships. And, who doesn’t want to have amazing personal relationships?!
With so much research on the benefits of mindfulness and the conclusions that science has found, it’s no wonder more people today are making mindfulness a part of their daily routine. I know from my personal experience, that since I have started practicing mindfulness my anxiety levels have gone down dramatically — and this is coming from a girl who was at one time diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. Another major improvement I see in myself is that I am able to handle stress a whole lot better (no more mini-meltdowns!).
Do you currently have a daily mindfulness practice? If so, what benefits have you seen? We’d love to hear from you!
