Is mindfulness better than medication?
That's what I'm going to be talking about today.
I'm Dr. Tracey Marks, a psychiatrist,
and this channel is about mental health education
and self-improvement.
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This is a follow-up to a video I did on depression
and neuroplasticity.
And in that video I mentioned that we now see depression
as a poor connection between the neurons.
We also recognize that practicing psychotherapy
and mindfulness improves that connectivity.
Does it work better than medication for depression?
It doesn't work as quickly, but the research shows that
it can be mare effective in the long term
without the side effects of medication.
Let me explain.
Simply put mindfulness is attention to the here and now.
It's being fully present in the moment.
And you're experiencing the present moment
in a non-judgmental way.
Experiencing any given moment is different
from thinking about it.
We spend more time thinking and processing thoughts
than we do experiencing.
And your mind is always working
and processing a lot of thoughts every day.
And thoughts can be your friend if they're creative
and help you make plans or figure out a problem.
But thoughts can be your enemy when they make you worry,
ruminate over things which is thinking about
something over and over again.
And thoughts can be your enemy when they tell you
negative things about yourself.
So managing your thoughts is one
of the goals of mindfulness.
Why does this matter?
In an article from Science magazine in 2010,
researchers talked about how the normal default mode
of your brain is to wander and think about things
from the past and present.
It's called stimulus independent thought.
And although this is the default mode of your brain,
it comes at an emotional cost.
That is, they found that people were more unhappy
when their thoughts wandered than when they were
intentionally thinking about the thing
that was currently happening.
So an overactive mind creates a sense of
dis-ease and distress.
Likewise, a mind with more controlled thoughts
on the present is less uneasy.
How is this related to brain function?
Researchers have shown that depression can be characterized
as less connectivity between the neurons in certain parts
of the brain that regulate and process your emotions.
More specifically, the the frontoparietal network.
They also found a hyper connectivity
in the default mode network in your brain.
The default mode network is a region of your brain
that's responsible for self-reflection
and emotional appraisal.
Emotional appraisal is where you form of judgments
about a particular situation.
So for example, suppose you lose your job
and you can't find another one.
You could be sitting around thinking about your situation,
and start focusing on all the negative things
that have happened to you and come to the conclusion,
my life sucks, what's the point?
That's one appraisal.
Another situation could be that you're thinkin' about
your situation and you think, I hate this.
I've gotta find something else to do.
Maybe I need to switch careers.
What else can I do?
How can I make that happen?
Do I need to get more training?
The first appraisal is more negative and hopeless,
the second appraisal is more hopeful
and problem-solving focused.
So with depression you selectively focus on negative things
and wallow in negative self-appraisal.
This is rumination.
You can just get lost in the negative thinking.
And we see this with the hopelessness of depression.
You get tunnel vision that blocks out the positive thoughts
and you get locked into this negative world in your head.
So depression equals loose connections
in the frontoparietal network
and tight connections in the default network.
The end result is poor ability to regulate your mood
and too much time ruminating on negative things.
Here's where mindfulness comes to the rescue.
Because mindfulness helps reduce self-critical thoughts,
it strengthens the connectivity
in the frontoparietal network and weakens the connectivity
and the default mode network.
This of course is a simplified explanation.
If you really want to get into the details
of how this happens, look at the reference
that I have in the description.
But here's an even bigger point
and how it can really help treat depression
in the long run.
Researchers have shown that not only does the practice
of mindfulness help during the period that you're doing it,
but if you practice it on a regular basis,
you get sustained connectivity
and therefore improvement in your depression.
What's a regular basis?
In the studies that I referenced the participants
completed an eight week program of doing mindfulness
exercises on average 30 minutes to an hour a day.
Now I realize even 30 minutes a day is a lot
and you don't have to start with that.
But keep in mind practicing mindfulness doesn't always
have to involve sitting in a room
with your eyes closed in quiet meditation.
You can be in a mindful state in your day-to-day activities.
The mindfulness attention awareness scale
is a questionnaire that researchers use
to get a sense of a person's baseline level of mindfulness
in their every day activities.
And some of the items used to measure are as follows:
I forget a person's name almost as soon
as I've been told it for the first time.
And I tend to walk quickly to get where I'm going
without paying attention to what
I'm experiencing along the way.
Can you relate to any of these things?
These are just a couple of examples of
how you can mindlessly engage in everyday activities.
And the real practice of mindfulness will involve not only
having quiet time but learning how to be more present
and aware throughout your day.
So back to the issue of whether or not
it's better than medication.
For some people it may be a better option
given the potential side effects of medication.
However, it doesn't have to be in either or.
You can practice mindfulness alongside
of your medication treatment.
Then once your episode resolves,
your mindfulness practice is something you can use
to help you out of a depression.
You can see a therapist who specializes
in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.
But to do this on your own, the easiest way to start
is to do guided meditations where you listen to someone
talk you through the process.
And I wanna help you get started with this.
I have an audio download of a guided meditation.
And I challenge you to set-aside 5 to 10 minutes each day
to pull away from the busyness of life and be mindful.
There is a lot more to mindfulness,
but for now this can help you get started.
And I'll have the mindfulness attention awareness scale
for you as well just so you can have a sense
of your own level of mindfulness.
These things are free.
All you have to do is click the link in the description
that will take you to my website.
Follow those instructions to get the download.
If you're already a part of my email community,
then the meditation and the awareness scale
will already waiting for you in your inbox.
Share this video with someone who you think could use it
and talk to me in the comments.
See you next time.