Psychologists are experimenting with mindfulness exercises to fight eating disorders, according to the Psychotherapy Networker. A treatment program known as the Enhancing Mindfulness for the Prevention of Weight Regain (empower) uses breathing and visualization exercises to help people better understand their thoughts, emotions, and associations with food.

“People who struggle with their emotions and thoughts often externalize their psychological battles,” according to the article, “by denying themselves nourishment to starve unwelcome feelings or overeating to smother them.” The exercises are designed to help people better understand those emotions and empower them to change their diets for the better.

Source: Psychotherapy Networker 

In the Fall 2008 issue of Tricycle—an independent magazine that excels at illuminating Buddhist thought for Western readers—Noelle Oxenhandler has a hopeful essay about dementia and the benefits of meditation.

“Already there is compelling evidence that the regular practice of meditation can ease the early symptoms of dementia,” Oxenhandler writes. But keeping your gray matter limber—tapping into the recent craze for brain fitness—is only one of the compelling reasons to practice mindfulness. Meditation also awakens the mind.

“If, as they say in Zen, the rain falls equally on all things,” Oxenhandler writes, “then doesn’t it follow that the bodhi mind—the awakened mind—is bright and vast enough to encompass the fog, despair, and disruption of dementia? … What is mindfulness if not the practice of brining the mind to those places it goes missing?”

A simple example of how mindfulness might benefit those with dementia is kindness practice. Paranoia is dementia’s common, understandable companion. It’s also a frustrating wedge between caregivers and the people they wish to help—injecting that relationship with suspicion, anxiety, even fear. Kindness practice, however, could “make us more resistant to paranoia,” in effect training the mind to open “the door to the unknown with a trusting and welcoming heart.”

“In a dharma talk, I once heard a meditation teacher recount a story about a longtime family friend who was suffering from dementia,” Oxenhandler writes. “Before his illness, this friend had been a highly intelligent and successful man, and he had always been very kind. When the teacher and her husband arrived for a visit, he threw open the door and exclaimed: ‘I have no idea who you are, but do come in and make yourselves at home!’ ”

Image by Gio JL, licensed under Creative Commons.

Researchers continue to explore the therapeutic benefits of meditation, and one new study on depression touts mindfulness exercises as viable alternatives to anti-depressants.  

Just two months of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) prevented relapses better than traditional treatments, according to researchers at the University of Exeter. Forty-seven percent of patients relapsed after MBCT, compared with sixty percent who relied on traditional treatment methods, and the MBCT test groups reported higher levels of satisfaction with their physical well-being and in their day-to-day activities.

In the MBCT trials, a therapist led small groups in focusing exercises, inspired in part by Buddhist meditation techniques. The exercises encouraged participants to concentrate on the present rather than past or future events. The therapy was designed for simplicity, allowing patients to practice independently after the study ended. According to Professor Willem Kuyken, who led the study, MBCT works because it “teaches skills for life.”

Interest in the therapeutic applications of meditation isn’t particularly new—Utne Reader recently covered the issue here and here. MBCT seems promising, though, as a realistic way to integrate mindfulness practices with more conventional forms of psychological treatments. MBCT is a potentially cost-effective option for treating depression on a large scale because it’s led by a single therapist in groups of eight to fifteen, patients learn to practice the techniques without oversight, and it appears to stave off relapses. The Exeter team, encouraged by the findings, has already announced plans for further study on MBCT techniques.

(Thanks, Shambala Sun.)

Meditation and psychology are intertwining as experts in the fields realize the benefits of a symbiotic relationship. Joelle Hann reports for Whole Life Times that many psychologists have begun to incorporate yoga and mindfulness into their therapies, and some yoga instructors are studying up on psychology to create “yoga psychotherapy” for their clients.

“Integrating yoga-based methods into psychotherapeutic work presents inherent challenges,” Hann writes. Part of the problem lies in a strict taboo against physical contact in traditional psychotherapy, a standard born out of concern about abuse from therapists. There are, however, many yoga-based therapies that don’t involve any touching. For example, some psychologists have found that controlled breathing and meditative exercises can go a long way toward psychological healing.

Many of these mindfulness-based therapies have hard science to back them up. “Mindfulness reduces stress, boosts immune functioning, reduces chronic pain, lowers blood pressure, and helps patients cope with cancer,” Jay Dixit writes for Psychology Today.  The article offers six tips on how people can incorporate mindfulness into daily lives.

The mindfulness exercises have also been used to help children in war-torn countries. In the September-October issue of Utne Reader, Aaron Huey wrote about a yoga class in the Allahoddin Orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan. Huey writes that yoga helps the children “move away from painful thoughts to ones that give them strength. In a place so full of suffering, the comfort this simple routine provides is immeasurable.”

Image by  RaminusFalcon , licensed under Creative Commons.

The Buddhist practice of mindfulness—the engaged awareness of the present moment, of one’s self and surroundings—has many practical applications in the modern, busy world. But many of us live in a loud, violent, crowded culture, and sometimes it’s hard to find room for mindfulness. “That’s all well and good for someone at a meditation retreat in the mountains,” an overwhelmed city dweller might sniff, “but it won’t work here.”

Andrea Miller, writing for Shambhala Sun (excerpt only online), anticipates that reaction and outlines five practical contexts where mindfulness can be practiced despite the odds against it. Miller describes mindfulness initiatives in health and healing, caregiving, education, prisons, and organizational leadership. “Not long ago seen as fringey and foreign, mindfulness practice is going mainstream.”

Image by mrhayata, licensed by Creative Commons.

Sometimes, the best way to achieve a mindful life is by keeping it simple. Renowned Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh recently published the book Mindful Movements: 10 Exercises for Well-Being (Parallax Press), offering simple activities designed to help anyone reduce stress and achieve more physical and emotional calm. The movement descriptions, accompanied by endearing illustrations by Wietske Vriezen, encourage readers to smile, relax, and enjoy the experience. Beliefnet is featuring an excerpt from the book with seven of the exercises, to give readers one movement to perform each day for a week.

We blunder through our days asleep, our lives a dream, the true nature of reality obscured. And why not? It seems so hard to pierce the veil of everyday life to get to something sublime. Where would you even start?

The beginning is simple. You notice how you walk. You notice your breath. 

That’s how you start Vipassana meditation. Also called insight meditation, Vipassana meditation trains the mind to notice sensations. From the simple act of observing your breath and your thoughts, your understanding can deepen. The idea is to get to the true nature of reality in which the self dissolves. And while that goal seems heady, it all begins with the basic act of breathing. Interested? The 2007 Utne Independent Press Award-winning Shambhala Sun is featuring a helpful step-by-step introduction from its archives by master Sayadaw U Pandita to get you started.

—Brendan Mackie