Basics
June 20, 2020

Jem Fundano

What is Mindfulness Therapy?

People who have mood disorders identify their situation to be episodic or recurrent. With that, if you’re diagnosed with a mental disorder, getting well or recovering is half of the problem while staying well is the other half.

As you witness the progress of science and psychology in helping alleviate mental disorders, you can see that there are advancements in psychotherapeutic techniques. One of the new types of psychotherapy is mindfulness therapy and it has been showing promising results.

What does being mindful mean?

Being mindful is about becoming aware or paying attention in a particular way to your present thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It’s about acknowledging what you’re presently thinking or feeling while casting judgments aside.

What is mindfulness therapy?

Mindfulness therapy is a type of psychotherapeutic technique under Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT. It is a form of therapy establishes daily habits that can be quite powerful through mindfulness activities.

So what does it include? Here are a few of the practices and theories you will find in mindfulness therapy:

  • Understanding being mindful - This type of therapy demands active engagement from you. Mindfulness therapy will not produce results if you don’t engage in active change.
  • It consists of mindfulness activities - It includes various activities that can include mindful eating, breathing, meditation, body scans, or active listening. Each of these activities help us to stop struggling with our thoughts and calming the nervous system.

    With repetition of mindfulness therapy activities we are changing our mind, body and physiology. The act of acknowledge the presence of the negative or positive feelings you are experiencing decreases pain which helps us stop struggling with our thoughts.
  • It is effective and supported by clinical trials - Dr. Zindel Segal, a psychologist, researched and conducted over a thousand clinical trials on individuals diagnosed with depression. His results showed that mindfulness therapy reduced depressive relapse or recurrent depressive symptoms by 43%. Dr. Segal's research proved that when mindfulness therapy was consistently practiced it had the equal effects as antidepressants taken long-term.
  • It is scientific - Through the research of psychologists around the world, mindfulness therapy was found to access the ‘present moment pathway’ your brain has. The present moment pathway includes triggering the ‘Insula’ which is a part of the brain that plays a role in your ability to perceive pain, socially engage, establish empathy, and establish present sensations.

Mindfulness therapy has proven to have powerful results for reducing pain and distress.

Related: Understanding Depression

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