What Is Mindfulness Meditation and Why Is It Important?
Mindfulness meditation is a simple process, but there is a wealth of benefits stemming from the practice. Mindfulness is the state of paying full attention to the present with openness and acceptance. Therefore, mindfulness meditation is a practice that trains states of mindfulness by calling our attention to our experience at a certain moment so we can use our awareness to respond positively. In focused attention meditation, the goal is to focus on a certain stimulus, usually your breath, and to redirect your attention to the stimulus every time it wanders. Open monitoring meditation involves the nonjudgemental observance of where your attention wanders. Both of these are effective and sometimes used in the same session.
Mindfulness meditation is important not just because it trains us to live in the moment and have clarity of our feelings, but because it can help us cope with challenges arising in our daily lives, improve symptoms of mental illness, and more. The following studies demonstrate the numerous benefits of mindfulness meditation practice. Stick around until the end for some practical and accessible resources for incorporating meditation into your daily life.
Mindfulness Meditation and Stress
Stress-relief is probably the most well-known benefit of mindfulness meditation. We live in a fast-paced, task-heavy world, and nearly everyone succumbs to stress at one point or another. Meditation’s effect on stress is very important because severe stress leads to a whole host of physical and psychological issues, such as heart disease and anxiety.
A common place stress manifests in our lives is at work. High levels of work stress correlate with increased depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, Type 2 Diabetes, increased blood pressure, and metabolic syndrome (Bostock, Crosswell, Prather, & Steptoe, 2019). You may think that health issues stemming from work are rare and come from severe cases, but they are actually quite prevalent. Between 5 to 8 percent of annual health care costs in the United States can be attributed to work-related stressors (Bostock et al., 2019).
Studies show that employees who are given or find the time to meditate experience better health outcomes. Perhaps this is why top companies like Google, Yahoo, and HBO have invested in designated meditation spaces and meditation training. Healthier employees are more effective, after all.
When 900 UK employees were given free access to the app Headspace, which consists of 45 mindfulness meditation-based trainings, they saw significant increases in their well-being (Bostock et al., 2019). Over 8 weeks, the employees gradually reduced their anxiety and depressive symptoms, their job strain, and their systolic blood pressure (Bostock et al., 2019). At the same time, they increased in positive affect and perceived workplace social support (Bostock et al., 2019).
When it comes to mindfulness meditation for stress, more is better. The employees were able to use the app as they wished, with some completing significantly more sessions than others. 17 sessions, over the 8 weeks, was the average. The employees who completed the highest number of sessions saw the steepest improvement in health measures. These results offer a very optimistic perspective of mindfulness meditation’s effect on stress. It is also promising that these results came through a universal, and easily accessible mobile app. Professional, face-to-face guided meditations are not a necessity to experience the positive effects of meditation.
Boyle et al. (2017) studied the stress reduction effects of mindfulness meditation in young women with breast cancer. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, and about 25% of women are diagnosed before age 50 (Boyle et al., 2017). This population is at a higher risk for stress and depression, so meditation could be very important in mitigating the indirect negative psychological effects from their diagnosis.
6 weeks of a mindful meditation intervention decreased depressive symptoms and perceived stress in the patients. This reduction was mediated by increases in self-kindness and decreased rumination (Boyle et al., 2017). Rumination refers to a process of continuously replaying negative thoughts in your mind. The mediating observed suggests that self-kindness and decreased rumination experienced after mindfulness meditation are mechanisms for the decreased stress that follows (Boyle et al., 2017).
According to Charoensukmongkol (2014), higher frequency of mindfulness meditation is associated with decreased stress in the general population. It was also found that meditation is associated with higher emotional intelligence, which also reduces stress (Charoensukmongkol, 2014). Greater self-efficacy was another indirect effect of the boost in emotional intelligence given by regular meditation practice.
Since mindful meditation practitioners were more aware of their internal self, they were better at understanding the origin of their emotions and how to manage them (Charoensukmongkol, 2014). The positive management practices that come with greater emotional awareness likely account for some of mindfulness meditation’s stress reduction effects.
This video will lead you through a great example of guided meditation to tackle stress.
Mindfulness Meditation for Pain
Mindfulness meditation influences somatic and psycho-somatic conditions as well as conditions like stress. Meditation for migraines has been particularly promising. Chronic migraine is a disabling condition indicated by the presence of a headache in at least 15 days per month. The migraines come from a mix of biological, social, and psychological factors. It can lead to impairment in functioning and the overuse of painkillers (Grazzi et al., 2017).
When a group of patients with chronic migraines participated in a weekly 45-minute intervention for 6 weeks with an at-home practice component, they showed reduced headache frequency, reduced medication in-take, improved depressive symptoms, and less inflammation biomarkers (Grazzi et al., 2017). These positive results likely stem from the effect mindfulness meditation has of reducing stress and improving emotional intelligence. Meditators show improved stress management, and therefore can more adequately respond to pain. These results were similar to the conventional pharmacological treatment, but meditation is far less expensive and more accessible (Grazzi et al., 2017).
Another condition that can be improved through meditation is multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, neurodegenerative disease that involves physical and psychological symptoms. This condition often leads to a lower quality of life, which increases mental health issues in those who suffer with it. Mood and anxiety disorders are 3 times as common in people with multiple sclerosis, depression and anxiety being the most common (Schirda et al., 2020).
One contributor to these negative mental health outcomes is emotional dysregulation. Those who cannot regulate their emotions are not able to modulate their experience and expression of emotions (Schirda et al., 2020). People with multiple sclerosis report greater difficulty regulating their emotions, and more frequently experience worrying and rumination. However, after 4 weeks of mindfulness training, a group of patients with multiple sclerosis experienced less emotional dysregulation, less negative affect, and less negative thinking (Schirda et al., 2020).
Mindfulness Meditation and Depression
Meditation is associated with better outcomes for those suffering with depression. After 8 weekly 3-hour sessions, with an at-home practice component, participants in a study on meditation’s effect on depression dropped into a normal range for scores on a depression and anxiety symptom inventory (Xue et al., 2018). There were also improvements on quality of sleep and metabolic profiles. Depression is associated with lipid abnormalities, which puts patients at risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Therefore, the improvement in lipid metabolism in this study shows the importance of meditation in increasing health outcomes for those suffering with mood disorders.
Another study investigated the effectiveness of meditation on depressive symptoms. Patients with chronic or lifetime history of depression were given 3 sessions of a mindfulness-based meditation intervention with home practice encouraged (Winnebeck, Fissler, Gärtner, Chadwick, & Barnhofer, 2017). Compared to a control group, the meditation group had significantly stronger reductions in symptoms of depression. The meditators also improved in mindfulness and reduced their rumination (Winnebeck et al., 2017). Overall, meditation is a good resource for those suffering with depression as it reduces negative affect.
Mindfulness Meditation and Hallucination and Delusion
Mindfulness meditation can benefit everyone, even those with more “severe” mental illnesses. Sheng, Yan, Yang, Yuan, & Cui (2019) studied meditation’s effect on schizophrenic patients. After 12 sessions of mindfulness meditation during 90-minute interventions (20 spent meditating), participants experienced decreases in hallucination and delusion symptoms. Participants also improved in quality of life and overall mindfulness (Sheng et al., 2019).
The mechanism for these changes were brain oscillation changes that increased brain network integration. 7 of the changes participants experienced were those predicted to decrease abnormal brain activity (Sheng et al., 2019). Mindfulness meditation also increases acceptance and, as previously mentioned, reduces stress and anxiety, which can also contribute to improvement in psychotic symptoms. While meditation will not likely ever cure a condition like schizophrenia, the improvements to the quality of life of patients are significant.
Mindfulness Meditation and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Since mindfulness meditation is associated with calming the mind, it’s no wonder why it has an effect on disorders like obsessive compulsive disorder. Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by unwanted thoughts, ideas, or sensations, known as obsessions, that drive repetitive behaviors, known as compulsions. The repetitive behaviors, which include acts like hand washing and cleaning, typically interfere with a person’s day to day life.
Mindfulness meditation can reduce some of the discomfort associated with OCD. In one study, patients diagnosed with OCD listened to their own obsessive thoughts without an experimental condition and later with either a mindfulness meditation-based strategy or a distraction strategy. The mindfulness strategy reduced anxiety and desire to perform compulsions, whereas the distraction strategy did not (Wahl, Huelle, Zurowski, & Kordon, 2013). While those suffering with OCD might instinctively look for a distraction during an episode of obsessive thoughts, these results suggest that meditation is a more useful tool.
Mindfulness Meditation vs. Exercise
For those wanting to relieve some stress in their life, taking a brisk walk often seems like the best idea. Walking certainly has positive effects, but recent studies have shown that meditation in addition to the exercise can produce more benefits. In one study, those assigned to taking a walk then meditating experienced a more significant decrease in exhaustion than those who solely meditated, solely walked, or meditated then walked (Edwards & Loprinzi, 2019). Though walking is often associated with tranquility, research found that meditation-only improved tranquilty, while walking alone did not (Edwards & Loprinzi, 2019). For best results in boosting energy and finding peace, it seems the best protocol is meditation after a short bout of exercise.
Mindfulness Meditation and Academics
Mindfulness meditation has been shown to have positive effects on first-year university students, offering good evidence that meditation generally benefits the student population, likely at other levels of education as well as college. Lin & Mai (2018) placed freshmen in a weekly 2-hour class for 3 months. In the class, students would practice focused-attention breath mindfulness meditation for 20 minutes before they learned each day’s lessons.
Compared to the control group, the students practicing the meditation showed significant improvement in short-term academic performance, measured by daily in-class quizzes (Lin & Mai, 2018). Additionally, the students who scored higher on a test of meditation depth had better short-term academic performance. Not only could enhanced academic performance have important effects on the future and lives of the students, questionnaire results revealed that students enjoyed meditating and thought it was helping them learn (Lin & Mai, 2018).
The increases in academic performance translate to students with learning disabilities. Learning disabilities are defined by compromised academic performance. These students tend to have higher levels of anxiety, higher levels of stress, and poorer social skills. Meditation is associated with decreased anxiety and improved social skills. A 5-week mindfulness meditation program administered to a group of adolescent students diagnosed with learning disabilities led to favorable results (Beauchemin, Hutchins, & Patterson, 2008).
The participants demonstrated decreased state and trait anxiety, improvement in social skills, and improved academic performance (Beauchemin et al., 2008). Students overall expressed positive attitudes towards the program. (Beauchemin et al., 2008). It is believed that meditation is able to improve social skills and academic outcomes because it prevents detrimental self-focus of attention (Beauchemin et al., 2008).
Mindfulness Meditation and Anxiety
It makes sense that with the stress-reduction effects of meditation, anxiety-reducing effects would occur as well. Diaz (2018) investigated this assumption on music students with performance anxiety by questioning a sample on their meditation habits. It was found that the students who meditated at least weekly tended to report less performance anxiety (Diaz, 2019).
Another study looked at the presence of neurological changes associated with anxiety relief as participants completed meditation sessions. Participants assigned to 4 days of mindful meditation sessions showed reduced state anxiety, and this was associated with engagement in brain mechanisms involved in sensory evaluation and the cognitive control of emotions (Zeidan et al., 2014).
Mindfulness meditation was also associated with activity in brain regions involved in cognitive reappraisal, the positive re-framing of negative affect. Increased activity was found in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is associated with regulating negative emotions and enhanced cognitive control (Zeidan et al., 2014). Finally, mindfulness meditation was associated with reduced brain activity in regions connected to ruminative thought processes (Zeidan et al., 2014).
There are multiple theories for why meditation affects anxiety. First, anxiety is indicative of uncontrollable ruminative thought processes and decreased executive-level brain activity (Zeidan et al., 2014). Attentional control from meditation may help people positively alter the meaning of their emotionally significant events and therefore decrease rumination (Zeidan et al., 2014). Mindfulness meditation also helps us regulate our emotions by bringing our attention to emotional events, yet also helping us disengage with negative appraisals (Zeidan et al., 2014). Additionally, mind wandering is associated with negative disposition, so the practice of reducing mind wandering through meditation may also reduce anxiety.
With awareness of our emotions, we can recognize negative thought processes and consciously bring ourselves back to a non-reactive state. Meditation also helps us detach from negative events instead of constantly obsessing over them in our heads (Zeidan et al., 2014).
If you suffer from anxiety, this video is a great place to start to familiarize yourself with anxiety-reducing meditation techniques.
Meditation and Attention
As a process of focusing attention, it’s no surprise that mindfulness meditation can aid your attention. A problem many people have with focusing is dealing with the experience of mind wandering. You are encountering mind wandering every time your thoughts fail to center on a single topic for a long period of time when you are engaged in an attention-demanding task. Mindfulness meditation training reduces mind wandering and therefore enhances focus (Rahl, Lindsay, Pacilio, Brown, & Creswell, 2017). This effect was observed specifically when mindfulness meditation training contained an active acceptance-based component. Becoming accepting of your present moments allows you to reduce mind wandering more easily (Rahl, Lindsay, Pacilio, Brown, & Creswell, 2017). If focus is your goal, acceptance-based meditation is the mindfulness exercise for you.
Even if you are attentive, voluntary attention is usually not sustained for long. Our perceptual sensitivity declines when we spend time on a task. However, this effect is also mitigated by mindfulness meditation. Maclean et al. (2010) studied the effects on an intensive mindfulness meditation training on attention. Their participants who went through meditation practice for 5 hours a day for 3 months saw improvements in discrimination between two similar visual stimuli (Maclean et al., 2010). This outcome is associated with increased perceptual sensitivity. The participants also had longer sustained visual attention. Meditation seems to make it easy to voluntarily control our attention for long periods of time (Maclean et al., 2010).
Meditation and Discrimination
Mindfulness meditation is not just beneficial at the individual level. It can help make society as a whole a better place. One way meditation can change our world is through its effects on discrimination. Meditation has been shown to reduce bias towards black and elderly populations on the implicit associations test (Lueke & Gibson, 2016). In one study, participants listened to a 10-minute guided meditation that focused on experiencing their sensations and thoughts in a nonjudgmental way (Lueke & Gibson, 2016).
Compared to a control group, the meditators were less biased in an evaluation of white and black players in the Trust Game (Lueke & Gibson, 2016). The Trust Game is a game where players must evaluate the trustworthiness of their partner in order to decide how much money to allocate to them. However much money they send to their partner is tripled, but the partner decides how much to give back to the player. Meditators in the Trust Game gave black and white individuals the roughly same amount of money, which non-meditators were less likely to do the same (Lueke & Gibson, 2016).
Another study demonstrated reduced prejudice towards homeless people after a brief meditation exercise. Participants who were led through a brief loving-kindness meditation intervention had less intergroup anxiety, more positive explicit attitudes, and enhanced future contact intentions when meditating with a homeless person. (Parks, Birtel, & Crisp, 2014). This offers more evidence that meditation can improve intergroup relations and diminish prejudice and discrimination (Parks et al., 2014)
Mindfulness Meditation and Interpersonal Forgiveness
There are a variety of interpersonal improvements associated with mindfulness meditation. Interpersonal forgiveness is a particularly important one. Being able to forgive (within reason) can greatly extend the length of a relationship. In one study, meditators who were able to increase their mindfulness as a trait (as opposed to a state limited by a certain segment of time) had higher levels of forgiveness (Karremans et al., 2020). Additionally, a guided mindful meditation session lead to higher levels of forgiveness regarding an offense that already happened (Karremans et al., 2020). The reason for enhanced forgiveness in meditators is likely to due to higher empathetic perspective taking and lower levels of rumination (Karremans et al., 2020).
Mindfulness Meditation and Creativity
Although meditation often seeks to limit thoughts, it can still be a positive source of inspiration. In one study, music students qualitatively described their experience of increased perceived creativity after completing a mindfulness meditation course (Newton, 2015). Students described enhanced focus and awareness. They were able to express more when performing live, experiencing more clarity, flow, introspection, and openness (Newton, 2015).
The musicians also experienced “non-striving.” Non-striving does not mean not-trying. Non-strivers don’t force inspiration or completion of a project but allow it to naturally unfold. The meditators experienced this through a decrease in frustration, brooding, and fear, and an increase in patience, calmness, and effortlessness (Newton, 2015).
In a more generalized example, experienced meditators led through a mindfulness meditation session experienced an immediate increase in creativity when compared to pre-meditation measures (Müller, Gerasimova, & Ritter, 2016). Meditating before a creative project may give you a boost in inspiration and problem-solving, causing you to turn out a better product.
Mindfulness Meditation and Dieting
Mindfulness meditation is an important tool for weight loss. Focusing internally helps take the focus off of food during cravings. People who are overweight also tend to over fixate on food as a means of stress reduction, and mindfulness meditation offers a replacement to this coping mechanism. At the same time, not eating mindfully in the sense of completely ignoring food is problematic as well. Watching tv or looking at your phone can distract from your internal experiences, causing you to miss cues of fullness. Mindfulness meditation helps dieters find a balance between not registering the food they are eating and over-fixating on it.
Mindfulness may also assist weight loss by reducing impulsivity around food and adding emotional balance. Eating is often inspired by emotional distress, making meditation’s calming effects useful in curbing cravings.
When a group of dieters experienced mindfulness meditation instruction, they experienced more weight loss, less cognitive-behavioral avoidance, and slightly less impulsivity (Mantioz & Giannou, 2014). Cognitive avoidance refers to strategies like distraction and thought suppression that help us avoid thoughts about negative situations. Overeaters tend to use food as a distraction from discomfort in their life, so the fact that meditation can decrease this avoidance is likely one of its associated mechanisms that leads to weight loss.
Meditation and Meaning
There is a reason many people look at meditation as an important tool for spiritual development. It can affect your sense of purpose. Bloch et al. (2017) researched the theory that mindfulness meditation can develop meaning in life through improving interpersonal relations, personal growth, wellbeing, and religious beliefs. This is based on the idea that meditation can increase and enhance personal well-being, relationship satisfaction, relatedness, closeness, and acceptance. Mindfulness meditation interventions can also help people gain insight, accept experiences, relax, and feel connected to others, which all contributes to meaning (Bloch et al., 2017).
The interpersonal component of meditation makes sense because intimate relationships involve regulating anxiety or loneliness, and meditation is associated with stronger acceptance of emotions (Bloch et al., 2017). In terms of meaning, meditation can go so far as helping people achieve self-actualization, which refers to the total fulfillment of one’s potential. This is because the awareness of our inner minds can inspire us to pursue intrinsic desires and goals.
A group of college students took part in a mindfulness and meditation course that taught five facets of mindfulness, including observing, describing, awareness, nonjudging, and nonreactivity. Improvements in all of these facets was associated with the presence of meaning in life (Bloch et al., 2017).
Brief Mindfulness Meditation
Some people believe that meditation is not worth practicing if you don’t have time to sit down for hour long sessions on a daily basis. However, unless you are training to be a monk, you can find success with mindfulness meditation in very short doses.
Mindfulness meditation sessions are generally considered brief if they are 20 minutes or less. Promising results of brief meditation have been found in several areas of research. First, brief mindfulness can impact social interactions and relationships. A 15 minute intervention was able to increase self-esteem in participants, which can buffer against self-esteem threats, and allow people to react more calmly to conflict (Heppner & Shirk, 2018). Mindfulness can also buffer against aggression when facing rejection, as emotions can be regulated and self-control can be improved (Heppner & Shirk, 2018).
Meditation doesn’t just decrease negative interpersonal behaviors. It also increases positive ones. Another brief 5 minutes intervention was associated with expression of empathy. A 10 minute meditation intervention improved group decision making. Mindfulness is also thought to improve romantic relationship outcomes (Heppner & Shirk, 2018). Short meditation also improves physical health. Meditation is associated with lower ratings of pain, reduced fatigue, and improved heart rate (Heppner & Shirk, 2018). Mindfulness can also help people make healthy choices in the moment, which improves health outcomes later in life. A 15 minute mindful breathing task reduced calorie consumption by 24% during a taste test (Heppner & Shirk, 2018). People who meditated for 5 minutes also ate less chocolate chip cookies in a free eating period compared to those who did not participate in the meditation (Heppner & Shirk, 2018).
Brief meditation is also associated with reduced smoking behaviors. College students with mindfulness-based instructions smoked fewer cigarettes over the course of the following week (Heppner & Shirk, 2018). The urge did not go away, but meditation helped their ability to be mindful and respond constructively to urges and display self-control.
Mindfulness can also help us let go of poor health choices, through decentering. We can step away from our perspective and not let guilt take over, which makes us more prepared to tackle our next craving.
Overall, it appears that no matter how brief the meditation is, it is still worth doing.
Mindfulness Meditation Examples
Below are two short videos introducing you to the most popular forms of meditation so that you can try this practice for yourself.
