Scientists say mindfulness can work as well as anxiety drugs (if you do it properly)

Meditation can be the key to calm your nerves.


Whether for the future, everyday stress or something more unexplained, many people regularly experience anxiety . In fact, anxiety disorders affect until 40 million adults In the United States, around 19.1% of the population. Anxiety can be treated with psychotherapy, as well as drugs like SSRIs if necessary, but according to a new study, mindfulness meditation could work just as effectively. Read the rest to discover what researchers have to say about this healing practice.

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Therapy can help those with anxiety.

Woman in her bed struggling with anxious thoughts.
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While making a long walk or making deep breathing can alleviate anxiety in the moment, psychotherapy is an effective long -term anxiety treatment. A therapist will help patients understand their individual triggers and give them tools to manage their response.

"During the therapy process, the customer and the therapist will learn what triggers the anxiety of the customer," explains Brent Metcalf , a clinical social worker approved at Tri Star Counselling . "The customer will be hopeful, to identify and to face triggers during the therapeutic process and to acquire adaptation skills to reduce anxiety. If anxiety is serious enough or disturb the customer, drugs can also be used to treat anxiety with therapy. "

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The drug is an option.

Woman taking medicine.
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If you always feel extreme anxiety after treatment or if you want faster relief, anxiety drugs are an option. "The drugs are excellent and I return my clients for drugs when necessary," explains Metcalf. "However, drugs do not help individuals to learn to identify stress factors or to face it. It simply treats symptoms." AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB

Matthew Luciano , a clinical psychologist for psychotherapy of the Sierra coast finds that drugs, although incredibly useful, can also have its drawbacks.

"Medicines can sometimes act faster (several weeks) than therapy (one month or more)," he said. "It is effective in reducing the physical symptoms of anxiety, but obliges people to use this medication for a long time (perhaps forever) and there can be unpleasant side effects."

What about mindfulness meditation?

Man feeling anxious sitting down.
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In a study of 276 adults with anxiety disorders <> Published by Jama Psychiatry in early November, half of the participants took a generic form of Lexapro, a current drug used to treat anxiety, while the other half embarked on "full stress based on mindfulness ". The results were quite surprising: according to CNN, the two groups experienced a 20% reduction In their symptoms of anxiety during the eight -week period.

It is important to note that the group doing mindfulness work did not practice once in a blue moon. Patients were invited to meditate alone for about 40 minutes a day and had to participate in a two -hour and a week's full -mindedness meditation course once a week. During the sessions, they participated in a program based on Full -based stress -based stress (MBSR), a Buddhist technique developed in 1979. This practice incorporates movements such as stretching and posture poses and has passed from stress to treat pain, immune disorders and diabetes.

The main author of the study, Elizabeth Hoge, compared mindfulness to any skill you practice. "People learn to have a different relationship with their thoughts. In practice, we form people to drop thoughts, to be patient and soft with thoughts, let them go," she said Cnn .

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Meditation is not a remedy for everyone.

Woman meditating on the floor.
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Mediation is a powerful tool that can calm your mind and facilitate anxiety, but the quantity of effort that those of the study should make is not very realistic for the average person.

"To say the people who are overworked, they should spend 45 minutes a day to meditate is the" let them eat the cake "of psychotherapy". Joseph Arpaia , an Oregon based psychiatrist specializing in mindfulness and meditation wrote in response to the study. However, he thinks that there is less time consuming breathing techniques than those who suffer from anxiety can do to calm down.

Brent , the co-founder of Behavioral health roots Think that even meditation daily, as in the study, is not something that will be effective for people with severe anxiety.

"In theory, meditation could replace drugs with light symptoms," he said Better life . "If the symptoms are serious, no, mediation will probably not be sufficient to provide sustained relief."

Although this study shows positive results from the practice of meditation, it is important to note that everyone's brain is wired differently. For some people, a daily walk can do the trick, while others will need more support for medicines or psychotherapy.


Categories: Health
Tags: / Mental Health
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