CNN
—
A mindfulness meditation course may be as effective in reducing anxiety as common medications, according to new research.
research, Published in JAMA Psychiatry on November 9, involved a group of 276 adults with untreated anxiety disorders. Half of the patients were randomized to receive 10 to 20 mg of escitalopram, a generic form of Lexapro, a common drug used to treat anxiety and depression. The other half was assigned to her eight-week course in mindfulness-based stress reduction.
The results were astonishing. Both groups experienced approximately a 20% reduction in anxiety symptoms over eight weeks.
Elizabeth Hoge, lead author of the study and director of the Anxiety Disorders Research Program at Georgetown University Medical Center, said she hopes the study will open up more treatment options for patients with anxiety. told to
“Lexapro is a great drug. I prescribe it a lot,” she said. “But it’s not for everyone.”
For example, patients who experience severe side effects or are allergic to anti-anxiety medications can be prescribed meditation instead, says Hoge. Also, starting meditation can be a first step for people with untreated anxiety who are wary of medications.
However, the study should not trigger patients to stop taking their medication without consulting their doctor. said, “If you want to stop taking drugs, you should talk to your doctor.”
There may be undetermined factors that make some patients more responsive to meditation. After data collection was completed, participants were given the option to try treatment options they had not been assigned, Hoge said. Hoge said some patients assigned to meditation groups actually found the drug to be much more effective.
Hoge said further research could explore “what are the predictors of response to different treatments,” and study which patients would benefit more from meditation or medication. Clinicians can then prescribe different treatments based on the patient’s profile.
And she hopes the research will lead to more insurance companies covering meditation courses as an anxiety treatment.
“Normally, insurance companies are happy to pay if there is research to support its use,” she said. “If they know it’s as effective as the drug they’re paying for, why aren’t they paying for this too?”
Patients assigned to the meditation group were asked to attend weekly face-to-face mindfulness meditation group classes. Each class was about two and a half hours long and was held at a local clinic. They were also asked to meditate on their own for approximately 40 minutes per day.
Hoge compared the time commitment to “taking an exercise class or an art class.”
But for many patients dealing with anxiety, daily time commitments can be too much, according to Joseph Alpaia, an Oregon-based psychiatrist who specializes in mindfulness and meditation. .
“Telling someone who works so much that they should spend 45 minutes a day meditating is psychotherapy’s ‘let’s eat the cake,'” he wrote in Hoge’s publication, also published in JAMA Psychiatry. I wrote in response to things.
Arpaia says she has been working to find more time-consuming mindfulness methods to help her patients manage their anxiety. One of the techniques he teaches is called “One Breath Reset,” which helps a patient calm down with her one breath.
But despite his reservations, “it’s always interesting to see the effects of meditation, and it works in a similar way to drugs,” he said. It’s about realizing that there is something that works for
“My other hope is that sitting and breathing can make you feel relaxed, but they understand that it doesn’t relax everyone. Read a book, go for a walk, or spend some time gardening,” he said.
Patients assigned to meditation groups participated in a specific program called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, first developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in the 1970s. based on the teachings of
“It’s like a skill that you practice,” Hoge said. “People learn to have a different relationship with their thoughts. Practice trains people to let go of their thoughts, to be patient, to be gentle with their thoughts, and just let them pass by.”
“Repeating it over and over allows people to put a little distance between themselves and their thoughts,” she said.
According to Hoge, patients shouldn’t expect meditation or medication to completely relieve anxiety. “It’s normal to feel anxious,” she said. “But you can be a little quieter.”
“People think that meditation is hard and that you need to take your mind away from your thoughts,” she said. It is only important to have
Alpaia also says that meditation helps break the feedback loops that feed anxiety.
“Anxiety tends to feed on itself,” he said. “People become anxious and their cognitive and social skills are impaired. As people start to feel more disabled, their anxiety increases.”
Anxiety isn’t the only problem that meditation can help patients deal with.
Investigation Published in the American Journal of Nursing in 2011 An eight-week mindfulness program was found to be as effective as antidepressants in preventing relapses of depression.
Hoge says various meditation programs may be suitable for treating conditions such as depression and ADHD.
“I think there’s a lot of potential there,” she said.
