Does Meditation Actually Work?

When millions of people seize upon a relaxation method that's gained increasing momentum in recent years, besides being popular, there must be something to it. In fact, according to many scientific studies, meditation offers protective and preventative benefits for psychological and physiological conditions. But does meditation actually work? Meditation is not a panacea or miracle cure, yet it does work.

Meditation Changes the Brain in Depressed Patients

Researchers have long sought treatment remedies for depression that do not involve pharmaceuticals. Some treatment facilities specializing in treating those with diagnosed depression tailor treatments for their patients that include psychotherapy, holistic, and alternative approaches.

Mindfulness meditation is a complementary or alternative treatment approach shown in studies to offer benefits for many physical and psychological issues, including depression. The caveat has been the small sample sizes of those studies and the fact that the results are not extraordinary. They are encouraging, to be sure, yet they need to be more conclusive.

Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital researchers studied mindfulness-based meditation training in depressed patients using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. After an 8-week mindful attention meditation training, the participants' fMRI images showed less activation in the amygdala than before. While undergoing the scans, patients were first instructed to focus on the beats of their hearts. Then they were asked to think about negative self-chatter and advised to cease those phrases and trigger thoughts.

Does meditation actually work, and if so, how? MBCT appears to work in depressed patients by boosting the body's awareness in the present. Keeping the focus on now helps depressed patients stop the self-rumination cycle.

Meditation Helps Eliminate Stress

Stress and unrest stem from the amygdala, the part of the human brain most associated with fear, and the limbic system. Those suffering from chronic stress must find effective ways to calm the amygdala, which can signal the brain's prefrontal cortex that the situation is defused. There is no need for fear or continued stress. Thus, the fight-or-flight response abates, and the body returns to normal.

But how does meditation actually work to help eliminate stress? Think about taking calming, deep breaths. This lowers the heartbeat and blood pressure and dramatically curtails the sense of blood rushing through the body. That is the crux of how meditation beats stress. It will not happen overnight, as the best approach is to build a meditation practice or schedule over time and continue to utilize this alternative approach to banish stress.

According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), the conditions researchers studied where meditation was used to help decrease stress include stress-induced inflammation, the stress associated with menopause, anxiety, and stress in breast cancer patients undergoing treatment, stress among lung cancer patients, those diagnosed with substance abuse, and sleep disturbances.

Meditation Boosts Attention

Americans seem to pride themselves on their multitasking abilities. Yet the frenetic pace of society today and the proliferation of smartphones and other innovative technology that offers and demands constant stimulation has taken a toll on attention capabilities. Scientists are rightfully concerned about the adverse effects of multitasking over time, including how detrimental it is to a person's health and productivity.

Researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Arizona performed an experiment testing an 8-week mindfulness training course and computer-based knowledge workers' multitasking abilities. The study consisted of focused attention training emphasizing voluntary narrowing or widening of attentional focus, resting attention in a current task, shifting focus from one task to another, and cultivating breath and body awareness and objects in the study.

Progressive muscle tension and relaxation were used, along with relaxation imagery. Audio CDs with relaxation exercises and weekly training classes were also part of the meditation training. The experiment results were that the meditating group had improved work details memory, longer time on a task and less task-switching, less negativity in mood, less fatigue, and increased daily mindfulness (self-reported).

Meditation Helps Reduce Distracting Thoughts

By some estimates, as many as 30-60 percent of daily thoughts involve distracted thoughts. People with anxiety and other psychological disorders have difficulty coping with tumultuous and distracting thoughts that take control. With so much pulling at them, they cannot figure out how to solve a problem or decide what to do. They constantly worry about making the wrong choice. This incessant worry, while baseless, further erodes self-confidence.

Conversely, meditation has shown significant psychological benefits in improving focus and thought processing by reducing distracting thoughts and mind wandering.

Studies have shown that cultivating mindfulness in mindfulness meditation can be effective in at-home environments. Meditation mindfulness techniques vary but include breathwork, meditation, mindful eating, and more.

Meditation Helps With Chronic Pain

Although science shows mixed results, most researchers conclude that meditation can somewhat effectively reduce chronic pain in some people. NCCIH research says that meditation helps with pain relief, yet they do not know the specific mechanism of how it works. Meditation works differently than opioids to curb pain. This is important for those seeking pain relief without prescription opioids. It is also crucial for those in treatment or recovery from substance use disorders, particularly opioid use disorder.

Furthermore, meditation works independently of opioids, such as naloxone, to reduce pain. So, it can be an effective treatment combination for chronic pain relief for those candidates for medication and nonpharmacologic approaches.

Do you have chronic pain? Are you wondering, does meditation actually work? Considering the evidence now might be the time to try this complementary health approach to pain relief.