 Mindfulness - An exit from Depression
One out of three of us deals with major depression at some point in life and, according to the World Health Organization, by 2020 depression will be the second largest health issue worldwide. Depression can be defined as a mix of negative feelings, thoughts, mood, behavior and physical symptoms apparently caused by unpleasant experiences. "Apparently" is the magic word that allows mindfulness to eliminate depression.
As shown decades ago by the scientist Aaron Beck, not the events themselves give us a certain state of mind, but our thoughts on them. Clinical experience has also shown that people facing an episode of major depression are very likely to enter the so-called downward spiral, by reactivating the negative thoughts periodically.
Mindfulness arose as a tool to break depression patterns after the researchers Zindel Segal, Mark Williams and John Teasdale had developed Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). This is an eight weeks program combining Buddhist meditation exercises and cognitive behavioral therapy (which focuses on the link between negative thoughts and negative emotions) in order to teach people the patterns of their mind and how to recognize when they are heading to a depression. Through mindfulness, a relapse into depression can be avoided by breaking the "events " "negative thoughts " negative emotions" chain and replacing the critical thinking with a non-judgmental one.
One reason for people being drawn into depression over and over again is, paradoxically, the strong desire to escape the bad mood and to achieve happiness. Mindfulness helps escape depression by blowing up the myth of happiness as a goal. The Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard was saying that happiness is a skill to be learned. This is exactly how mindfulness leads you out of depression: by teaching you to build happiness through pure awareness of your experiences, thoughts and emotions and by accepting them as they are, without any judgment in terms of good or bad.
The efficiency of mindfulness in fighting depression was confirmed by scientists. According to a study published at the end of 2008, MBCT not only reduces significantly the chances of relapse, but it is also a cost-effective and viable alternative for the treatment based on drugs.
In spite of its proven efficiency, when deciding to go for mindfulness to exit depression, there are two key-factors to take into account: timing and the amount of commitment and focus that it requires. According to a study conducted by the researcher Alisa Singer from Calgary University, 40% of people simply cannot apply mindfulness to their thinking. Starting mindfulness meditation for treating depression is never advisable when we are in the middle of a relapse episode because a possible failure in embracing mindfulness leads to an even deeper depression.
Depression is maybe the most isolating human experience because it seems to build a wall between you and the world. But in fact the wall is between you and yourself. Between you and your own thoughts. Mindfulness can take you out of depression by breaking this wall and teaching you to come to terms with yourself and accepting everything as it is: pure experiences, thoughts, emotions that you have to go through.
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