Studies have shown that practicing mindfulness, even for just a few weeks, can bring a variety of physical, psychological, and social benefits. Here are some of these benefits, which extend across many different settings.

• Mindfulness is good for our bodies. A seminal study found that, after just eight weeks of training, practicing mindfulness meditation boosts our immune system’s ability to fight off illness.
• Mindfulness is good for our minds. Several studies have found that mindfulness increases positive emotions while reducing negative emotions and stress. Indeed, at least one study suggests it may be as good as antidepressants in fighting depression and preventing relapse.
• Mindfulness changes our brains. Research has found that it increases density of gray matter in brain regions linked to learning, memory, emotion regulation, and empathy.
• Mindfulness helps us focus. Studies suggest that mindfulness helps us tune out distractions and improves our memory and attention skills.
• Mindfulness fosters compassion and altruism. Research suggests mindfulness training makes us more likely to help someone in need and increases activity in neural networks involved in understanding the suffering of others and regulating emotions. Evidence suggests it might boost self-compassion as well.
• Mindfulness enhances relationships. Research suggests mindfulness training makes couples more satisfied with their relationship, makes each partner feel more optimistic and relaxed, and makes them feel more accepting of and closer to one another.
• Mindfulness is good for parents and parents-to-be. Studies suggest it may reduce pregnancy-related anxiety, stress, and depression in expectant parents. Parents who practice mindfulness report being happier with their parenting skills and their relationship with their kids, and their kids were found to have better social skills.
• Mindfulness helps schools. There’s scientific evidence that teaching mindfulness in the classroom reduces behaviour problems and aggression among students, and improves their happiness levels and ability to pay attention. Teachers trained in mindfulness also show lower blood pressure, less negative emotion and symptoms of depression, and greater compassion and empathy.
• Mindfulness helps health care professionals cope with stress, connect with their patients, and improve their general quality of life. It also helps mental health professionals by reducing negative emotions and anxiety, and increasing their positive emotions and feelings of self-compassion.
• Mindfulness helps prisons. Evidence suggests mindfulness reduces anger, hostility, and mood disturbances among prisoners by increasing their awareness of their thoughts and emotions, helping with their rehabilitation and reintegration.
• Mindfulness helps veterans. Studies suggest it can reduce the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the aftermath of war.
• Mindfulness fights obesity. Practicing “mindful eating” encourages healthier eating habits, helps people lose weight, and helps them savour the food they do eat.
  
  

Research Papers on Clinical Mindfulness

Changes Seen in Neuroimaging Studies

Functional neuroimaging studies reveal compelling evidence that mindfulness impacts the function of the medial cortex and associated default mode network as well as insula and amygdala. Additionally, mindfulness practice appears to affect lateral frontal regions and basal ganglia, at least in some cases. Structural imaging studies are consistent with these findings and also indicate changes in the hippocampus.

Marchand WR. Neural mechanisms of mindfulness and meditation: Evidence from neuroimaging studies. World J Radiol. 2014 Jul 28;6(7):471-9

Improves Psychological Well Being and Grey Matter Activity

Individuals can improve their levels of psychological well being through utilization of psychological interventions, including the practice of mindfulness meditation.

Results showed that scores on five psychological well being subscales as well as the psychological well being total score increased significantly over the mindfulness based stress reduction course. The change was positively correlated with gray matter concentration increases in two symmetrically bilateral clusters in the brainstem. Those clusters appeared to contain the area of the pontine tegmentum, locus coeruleus, nucleus raphe pontis, and the sensory trigeminal nucleus.

The identified brain areas include the sites of synthesis and release of the neurotransmitters, norepinephrine and serotonin, which are involved in the modulation of arousal and mood, and have been related to a variety of affective functions as well as associated clinical dysfunctions.

Singleton O, Hölzel BK, Vangel M, Brach N, Carmody J, Lazar SW.Change in Brainstem Gray Matter Concentration Following a Mindfulness-Based Intervention is Correlated with Improvement in Psychological Well-Being. Front Hum Neurosci. 2014 Feb 18;8:33

The Opposite of Mindlessness

In medicine, a common example of mindless attitude is defining a person by the diagnosis, ignoring or not accounting for the individual as a non-diagnosed person. A mindful clinical practice could help find different ways to see the patient’s situation and self that would have a positive effect of the patient’s psychological well-being.

Pagnini F, Phillips D, Langer E. A mindful approach with end-of-life thoughts. Front Psychol. 2014 Feb 21;5:138

Improves Positive Perspective

The main finding of this study is that individuals with no previous experience of meditation reported less positive affect and showed less joy expression when asked to adopt a mindful perspective.

The significant results are noteworthy given that we have been able to directly and empirically compare mindfulness, reappraisal and expression suppression, which to our knowledge, has never been done.

We could show that mindfulness allowed an improvement in positive affect – a phenomenon that very few studies have investigated. This is a step forward in understanding the relationship between mindfulness practice and emotion regulation.

Lalot F, Delplanque S, Sander D. Mindful regulation of positive emotions: a comparison with reappraisal and expressive suppression. Front Psychol. 2014 Mar 24;5:243

Similar to, and Enhances Exercise Training

Mindfulness based interventions seem to share similar mechanisms with physical fitness by which they may influence cardiovascular responses to stress.

A “mindful” exercise may provide benefits that are not available in “non-mindful” regular exercise or in opposition to situations where exercise is performed in a multitasking context. If so, a mixture of aerobic or resistance physical training with mindfulness would have the potential to improve cardiovascular response to stress in a more effective direction.

Demarzo MM, Montero-Marin J, Stein PK, Cebolla A, Provinciale JG, García-Campayo J. Mindfulness may both moderate and mediate the effect of physical fitness on cardiovascular responses to stress: a speculative hypothesis. Front Physiol. 2014 Mar 25;5:105

Multiple Benefits Last for 4 Years

Mindfulness based stress reduction reduces rumination and interoception of distressing physical signals and increases mindful awareness and acceptance of pain. It has demonstrated efficacy in addressing severity of medical symptoms and psychological symptoms, pain intensity, and coping with stress and pain; these treatment gains may last up to 4 years after intervention in many domains.

Mindfulness based stress reduction has been effective in diverse pain samples,and in individuals with irritable bowel syndrome, neck pain, migraine, fibromyalgia and chronic musculoskeletal pain. Additionally, it addresses co-occurring symptoms of depression in individuals with some chronic pain conditions like fibromyalgia and enhances the effects of multidisciplinary treatment on disability, anxiety, depression and catastrophizing.

Meta-analytic studies in chronic pain have shown small to moderate effects of on anxiety, depression, and psychological distress in patients with chronic illnesses including pain and these benefits tend to be robust across studies.

Sturgeon JA. Psychological therapies for the management of chronic pain. Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2014 Apr 10;7:115-24

Protects Against Depression and Anxiety

Mindfulness, involving an attitudinal orientation of curiosity, openness, and acceptance, has been linked to emotional intelligence in its shared focus on perceptual clarity to one’s emotional state.

A number of studies have in fact attributed the efficacy of mindfulness in reducing symptoms of stress and negative affect to its capacity to modify emotion regulation abilities, with evidence suggesting that emotion regulation is directly engaged during the active performance of mindful exercises.

By enhancing behavioural self-regulation, increasing emotional differentiation, and reducing the routine tendency to emotionally react to transitory thoughts and physical sensations, mindfulness practice is thought to decrease negative affect, stress and mood disturbance, and protect against symptoms of anxiety and depression, including ruminative thinking.

Prakash RS, De Leon AA, Patterson B, Schirda BL, Janssen AL. Mindfulness and the aging brain: a proposed paradigm shift. Front Aging Neurosci. 2014 Jun 24;6:120