Research Ties Mindfulness to Physical Health

by Judith Dreyer, MS, BSN

The expanding body of research about the impact of mindfulness on physical health and well-being spans a range of topics as diverse as you might imagine. From oncology departments to sports teams, the benefits of learning how to hold potential stressors in gentle awareness are being applied, and studies are tying daily mindfulness and meditation to physical health.

In a study sponsored by the Canadian Breast Cancer Research alliance and the British Columbia Cancer Agency, researchers, “conducted a randomized, controlled trial comparing two evidence-supported programs, Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery (MBCR) and supportive expressive group therapy (SET), in reducing stress and improving the quality of life of distressed breast cancer survivors." Both groups showed positive results. However, the MBCR group showed improvement at a greater rate and with effects that lasted nearly a year.

Also, we see studies about the application of mindfulness among athletes. Young soccer players placed in either a mindfulness-based program (MG) or against a control group (CG) showed: "Number of injuries, an average of injuries per team, and days lost to injury in the MG were significantly lower than in the CG.”

Many studies have looked at meditation’s (an example of one type of mindful practice) positive effect on overall well-being by looking at physical health and well-being through various parameters such as pain, high blood pressure, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, sports performance, Multiple Sclerosis, and more.

Most of us accept our body's state of physical health. That does not mean we are free of disease or have a health issue. Some could be minor, like a cut or a bruise, or more serious, like diabetes or cancer.

Mindfulness means we pay attention to our body, tune into ourselves within the noise of the moment. The pandemic forced us to make changes overnight. More of us work from home. Have you given a thought to the routines that had to change? What new habits are you trying to cultivate?

1.     Some of us are adding more movement: planning walks, biking, taking a yoga class.  Have you tried mindful walking?  

2.     We can also be mindfully eating: how are we nourishing our bodies?

3.     Connecting with others: how are we getting together?

4.     Connecting with self: "Being" with self in the moment. We know that what we think affects our biology. If our body is in some pain, it affects how we feel.

We suggest that adding a mindful moment to your routine will be positive. We are an interconnected human being; all systems are interdependent on one another. Our western traditions rely on science, as mentioned above, to understand our state of health and well-being. Eastern traditions start with going within, using meditation or mindfulness practices to quiet the mind. 

"Putting your well-being first - like putting your oxygen mask on before you help the person next to you - that really benefits all your relationships." ~ Gabrielle Bernstein

Mindfulness and Negative Self-Talk: What Are We Thinking?

by Judith Dreyer, MS, BSN

Several studies use a mindful self-care and resiliency (MSCR) program to evaluate mindful practices' effectiveness and look at negative self-talk among health care professionals. Burnout and compassion fatigue are real issues in our medical professions, especially during this pandemic time. At an acute care hospital in Australia, researchers reported, "… participants gained more awareness of their thought patterns in stressful situations, thus providing them with the ability to circumvent rising negative self-talk and consciously adopt a more positive perspective on the situation."

Alison Ledgerwood, a social psychologist and TED talk speaker conducted a study at the University of California to evaluate which thoughts are stronger: positive or negative ones. She used the concept of half-empty or half-full in her experiment. She discovered that it's harder to shift from bad to good with our thoughts. Doing so requires disciplined effort due to what is known as our negativity bias.

How many thoughts do we experience per day? Dr. Poppenk, Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience at Queen's University, and his team of researchers discovered a brain-based marker for new thoughts. They estimate that the "average person has about 6,200 thoughts per day".  

Self-talk is something we are aware of in our everyday life. Thoughts can be positive or negative, and some days I know I wish mine would just be quiet. Six thousand two hundred thoughts seem incomprehensible.

"Negative self-talk is any inner dialogue you have with yourself that may be limiting your ability to believe in yourself and your abilities and to reach your potential. It is any thought that diminishes your ability to make positive changes in your life or your confidence in yourself to do so. Negative self-talk can not only be stressful, but it can stunt your success." Most of the time, the inner critic's voice is not an accurate marker of your successes, your intelligence, or character.

However, we have thoughts that are here to protect us. For example: don't jump off that bridge. Then there's emotional self-talk that usually has no basis in fact. Once we understand that both will always be there, then we can learn to manage the negative and reframe the ideas into more positive ones. Does it happen overnight? Mindfulness techniques, when applied consistently, do make a difference. 

What can we do to manage these negative thoughts?

1. Pay attention to your thoughts in the present moment. Simply pause.  

2. Meditation practices help you listen a little more deeply. Negative self-talk can be a blanket covering up deeper hurts, negative patterns. It can also be a distraction from what you are feeling. Negative thoughts can be a treasure in that these types of thoughts can highlight an issue, a problem. 

3. Be kind to yourself. Within our 6,200 thoughts, some are negative. Kindness and gentle awareness, compassion for self open the door to acknowledging them and softening them.

4. Change negativity to neutrality:  For example, "I hate" becomes "I find this challenging."  

There are many mindfulness techniques to use.

            Pause and focus on your breath. 

            When a thought arises, acknowledge it and refocus on your breathing.

            Then resume your day.

"Mindfulness is like that—it is the miracle which can call back in a flash our dispersed mind and restore it to wholeness so that we can live each minute of life."

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Studies Show Mindful Eating Helps with Eating Issues

by Judith Dreyer, MS, BSN

Mindfulness research and eating studies are relatively new, yet the conclusions are promising, especially for eating disorders such as, “binge eating, emotional eating, and eating in response to external cues… Mindfulness-based approaches may prevent weight gain.” They suggest that mindfulness practices appear to work by increased awareness of the internal cues, not the external ones for eating.

Harvard’s School of Public Health reviewed 69 intervention studies that show that slowing down the pace of a meal, recognizing our feelings of fullness, and exerting greater control over our food choices all improved eating behaviors.

Studies using the MB -EAT, Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training show decreased binge eating, and further trials showed weight loss within this same population. MB-EAT adapted for Diabetes patients showed improvements in glycemic control, significant weight loss, and decreases in choices for trans-fat and sugar consumption.

Today, many folks work from home. Schools offer online learning, where students and their families can choose to stay home. Holidays are here, and many celebrations will be virtual or within the immediate household. Today restaurants offer more take-out services as they were mandated to restrict the capacity for in-house dining. Some of us are not comfortable eating out with the pandemic. Or our frequency of dining out shifted.

Today we face new stresses that affect us locally and globally. While mindful eating studies are happening today, some are looking at the effects of mindless eating.

Mindful eating practices include:

1.     Mealtime can offer a pause from all our daily activities. Consider taking a moment with your next meal to focus on the food.

2.     Enjoy the meal prep; involve all your senses with the preparation. If you do not cook, then stop a second or two and enjoy the aromas of the meal before you.

3.     When we choose the foods we enjoy, there is a delight factor. Use this sense of deliciousness to bring you into the moment.

4.     Take your time. In the nutrition world, we recommend chewing each bite 20 times. It takes about 20 minutes for our brains to signal that we are sated. We forget that digestion begins in our mouth and includes the brain. It takes a bit of practice if you are used to multitasking while eating or tend to gulp down food without paying attention to the eating of it. How many of us watch a show, get caught up on the news during mealtime? This pandemic is an opportunity to press a reset button and adopt mindful awareness with all activities of daily life, including mindful eating.

5.     Food is emotional. We have favorites and dislikes that can evoke an emotional response. Be aware of how you are responding to the food you are eating.

6.     We must eat and drink fluids every day. Our health depends on it. When we eat with gentle awareness, we provide more ease to our digestion.

7.     Lastly, eat with gratitude. Remember, you probably did not grow the food you are eating. Maybe you did not prepare it. Our food industry is complicated. Today many hands grow, harvest, package, deliver, and serve foods to us. Who are they? Folks like you and I who contribute to our food systems. Mindfulness, in general, and with eating, connect us to something greater in the moment.

Thich Nhat Hanh from his book How to Eat:

“When we can slow down and really enjoy our food, our life takes on a much deeper quality. When I eat in this way, not only am I physically nourished, I am also spiritually nourished.”

Today we leave you with a gentle reminder to eat with gentle awareness. Start with one bite.

It’s that simple.

Web-Based Mindfulness Results in Significant Improvement in Depression

by Judith Dreyer, MS, BSN

In a recent randomized clinical trial published in JAMA and conducted in primary care and behavioral health clinics at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Denver, from among “460 participants with residual depressive symptoms, those who received an online version of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in addition to usual care had greater reductions in depressive and anxiety symptoms, higher rates of remission, and higher levels of quality of life compared with participants who received usual care only.” People living with residual depressive symptoms face gaps in access to in-person care because of costs and a lack of options available outside of major cities. One of the most important implications of this study was that web-based mindfulness interventions have the potential to scale access to those who face gaps, as well as the overall improvements in outcomes for those being tested.

 In this study, the intervention used was a web-based Mindfulness intervention called Mindful Mood Balance (MMB), based on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), which combines the best practices of cognitive therapy with the tools of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and according to B Grace Bullock at Mindful.org, is designed, “to teach individuals how to better regulate their emotions. Previous studies have found MBCT to be as effective as antidepressant medication in preventing depressive relapse. To date, however, access to the program has been limited largely to those living in large cities. Mindful Mood Balance (MMB) was created to fill the access gap by delivering MBCT online.”

A Very Short History of Studying Mindfulness in Healthcare

by Judith Dreyer, MS, BSN

In 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn began a program called Mindfulness-Based Stress -Reduction (MBSR) that combined simple yoga postures with meditation. He sought to offer an alternative approach to pain relief.  There were no studies back then. Today books upon books abound on the subject. In fact, in 2017, “in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, Australian researchers reviewed findings from 45 studies. They concluded that MBSR is associated with lower levels of stress-related hormone cortisol.” These conclusions play a huge role in opening doors to chronic diseases, fatigue, lower work performance, and more. Factor in today’s uncertainties, political, and social unrest, and where does that leave our emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing?

Whether one is under stress or has high blood pressure, dealing with cancer or opioid addiction, programs and studies exist today that measure the results mindfulness bring to our wellbeing. Hospitals, clinics, and private practices are useful settings to conduct investigations, and that is happening all over our country.

Mindfulness research has grown rapidly, and driven a broad wave of adoption. According to the American Mindfulness Research Association, there were 1203 studies performed in 2019 alone. “Aetna, one of the world’s largest health insurers, now has a chief mindfulness officer; mindfulness is taught in grade schools, high schools, and colleges; and now UMass has become the first university whose medical division contains a Division of Mindfulness.” (https://www.mindful.org/the-medicine-of-the-moment/)

Mindfulness research is not only driving adoption, it is showing that these practices create positive changes in the brain due to neuroplasticity. Mindfulness “increases cognitive flexibility, allowing people to see stressful situations from different perspectives. “

Within just a few breaths, mindfulness can take us off autopilot, and return us to the current moment. In those “now” moments when we focus on the in-breath and the out-breath, we change our biochemistry. Although mindfulness is not a cure-all, it supports our body’s rest-and-digest functionality as it gives us the ability to pause and notice our world a bit differently over time.  

The trend in research has been so positive that leading medical institutions now dedicate resources, and even whole divisions to further the study and application of mindfulness towards our wellbeing.

Jon Kabat-Zinn started in a basement, offering classes when mindfulness practices were not understood. Today we have institutions and healthcare professionals across the country, and the world, committed to understanding mindfulness for our society’s overall wellbeing. This is why you can read about a major insurance company with a mindfulness officer, or research studies using the MBSR model into how mindfulness helps humanity for issues as diverse as alleviating anxiety, all the way to improving work performance. Thanks Mr. Kabat-Zinn!