Using Mindfulness to Reduce Depression

Mindfulness has been a practice for a long time now. The practice of living and being in the moment, not thinking about the past and not worrying about the future. The practice of mindfulness has been shown to reduce the future of clinical depression by up to half. Also worth noting that mindfulness’s effects do seem to be comparable to taking antidepressants. Mindfulness can take practice to get the hang of but all you have to do is spare five to ten minutes of your day to practice this and it will get easier and become a more natural part of your day.

How can being in the present moment, being aware of what you are doing help with depression?

Depression is often kept in the moment by streams of negative thoughts, constantly running through your mind. People can often keep the thoughts of, “What’s wrong with me?”, “Why is this happening to me?” among many other constant negative thoughts. Mindfulness helps to redirect your mind away from these thoughts by being in the present moment and what is currently going on at that moment. Taking away those thoughts and focusing on what you are doing right now or what is going on around you at the moment. By practicing mindfulness we actually end up living in the present moment and not inside of our heads and lost in negative thoughts.

Being conscious of what we are doing in the present moment can help us shift gears in our heads and away from that negative flow. Often times our thoughts are in an autopilot mode and sometimes we may not be aware of where our thoughts have taken us, we “zone out”.

With mindfulness, we pay attention to our present moment and our experience at that moment instead of being lost in other thoughts of both past and future. The effectiveness of this is that we develop an automatic of being in the present moment and helps us to develop the ability to deal and cope better with difficult experiences. This also allows us to see the negative thoughts for what they are, and that they have no place in our minds as we concentrate more on the present moment and what we are currently doing.

Why is it difficult for people with depression to practice mindfulness?

It is actually easy to be present in the moment and what is going on. The difficulty for many people, even those who do not suffer from depression, is in remembering to be mindful. Our minds have already become wired for certain patterns of thinking that it is done on autopilot. Being able to interrupt that autopilot and redirect yourself to the present moment can be difficult in the beginning. The good news? With some practice, this becomes easier to do and the more we practice mindfulness the more we break the chain of continuous negative thinking. Not that it will ever go away for good when dealing with depression, but that autopilot of negative thinking will become less over time.

This is also a good way of coping when the depression kicks in the anxiety and panic attacks. Often practicing mindfulness is done in a quiet place, with deep breathing and recognizing the thoughts that come into our head but then imagining them floating away and letting go of those thoughts. The deep breathing can help to calm the anxiety and bringing yourself into the present moment and letting go of the thoughts can help to relieve the depression. This is why taking 5 to 10 minutes out of your day to practice mindfulness becomes so important. If you make it a daily habit, your mind can be rewired to help interrupt those chains of negative thinking that comes with depression.

A few books that you can read to help you develop your mindfulness practices are:

The Mindful Way Through Depression

The Mindful Way Workbook

A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook