Chapter 20: Does Practicing Mindfulness Help Ordinary People?

Mindfulness is a “way of being,” development of the state of mind through meditative practice.  Buddhist mindfulness meditation is designed and intended to cultivate and maintain mindfulness throughout the day.  Mindfulness is not a mystery; a quality that can be develop with practice. The goal is to maintain the mind in the present; being aware of the present moment, without judgment or criticism. Meditation practices further advance the mindfulness to a higher level, where one trains the mind for everyday mindfulness, leading to strengthening the mind and develop wisdom. 

Being focused on the present moment (i.e., the mindfulness) would facilitates problem solving ability and individual’s creativity.  When such people working together, the atmosphere will allow synergy that like to translate into work enhanced output.  Achieving the latter, however, must go together with clear path of communication and teamwork, and collegiality. Activities that facilitate a state of ‘cultured’ mind, including meditation, yoga, Taiichi, etc.  Each of these have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Meditation and cognitive improvements:

Meditation training improves not only mindfulness, it also enhances and preserve the cognitive aspects of the mind.  Practice of meditation is a self-motivated, self-training mental exercise, emotional, and behavioral development. Its scope extends to cultivating the mind, detaching from emotions, and developing a coordinated mental and physical well-being.  In addition, meditation improves the focus of attention and the non-reactive monitoring of the peaceful experience that arises from moment to moment.

Compassion (not comparison) is a key motivator of altruistic behavior.  Mindfulness and training and engaging in compassionate work make a person more altruistic, humble and happy.  In addition, those who are able to develop and sustain the mindfulness, develop their ability to enhance compassion.  Neuroimaging studies in fact, have demonstrated increased activity in the neural networks involved in understanding the suffering of others and regulating self-emotions and manifestation of compassion.

Can mindfulness training help caregivers?

Because of the aging population and the increasing numbers in vulnerable groups, such as those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the numbers of caregivers are continuing to increase.  Such groups, including caregivers are vulnerable to excessive stress, exhaustion, and burning out.  These groups have higher prevalence of chronic conditions, such as depression and physical and emotional problems than do non-caregivers.  Few studies have examined the effectiveness of MBSR in improving the mental well-being of caregivers.

An randomized controlled trial (RCT) reported that compared with the participants in the control group (n = 71), group of caregivers/ participants in the MBSR group (n = 70) had a significantly greater decrease in depressive symptoms at post-intervention and at 3 months post-intervention (p < 0.01).  A statistically significant larger increase was reported in self-efficacy (controlling negative thoughts; p = 0.041) and mindfulness (p <0.001) among participants in the MBSR group at the 3-month follow-up compared with participants in the control group.  These data suggest that mindfulness training or MBSR is an effective adjunct mode of therapy and a support for improving mental health among family caregivers with significant care burden, however, benefits are short lived.

Could mindfulness assist in coping chronic diseases?

Chronic diseases are associated with a range of unwelcome psychological and physical consequences.  In addition, especially in chronic diseases, abnormalities in information processing (i.e., neurally-mediated, electrical signals) in the brain cause internal mental chaos. Anxiety and overly suspiciousness are inappropriate responses and signs of an unstable mind and in some people; these may coexist with reduced or over activity in the brain center that processes cognitive and emotional information. 

The practice of mindfulness leads to modification of certain brain areas and neural connectivity, and signaling in a positive manner, enable to reverse information-processing deficits and inappropriate responses. Moreover, mindful development practices over longer-term lead to favorable structural and functional modifications in the brain. The latter will be discussed briefly below and in-depth in a later chapter.

The functional improvements mentioned are in part attributable to the shrinkage of amygdala, the center in the brain that modulates the fight-or-flight response. The amygdala controls fear and emotions and generates emotional, verbal, and physical responses to stress working with other areas of the brain.  Depending on the circumstance, incoming signals to amygdala either dampens or amplifies emotions such as fear, anger, and unhappiness.

Developing inner peace and happiness: 

Mindfulness makes it easier for us to generate compassion and trust, which in turn reduce our jealousy, fear, hatred of others, and anxiety, generating a sense of easiness and mental relaxation. Despite the belief of unmindful people, money, fame, and the power will neither make one happy nor attract true friends. When we are attached to something or someone, or angry, the capacity of our mind becomes limited. We fails to analyze the real situation. In general, unmindful actions are motivated by ignorance, anger, jealousy, and greed, frequently leading to inappropriate behavior, violence, and war. 

It is noteworthy that, those who are motivated by altruism, compassion, and concern of the well-being of others, most of the time are peaceful and happy. For them, there is no worries about competition (no need of jealousy), need of material wealth (power or fame), or needless anger and greed.  Praying constantly or repeating rituals with various expectations and assistance from others, seen and unseen ones, in the absence of the development of mindfulness will neither resolve problems or bring peace or happiness.

Inner happiness is achievable through mindfulness:

All human beings have the inherent desire to be happy.  No one wants to be unhappy, miserable, or suffer.  While everyone wants to be happy, the common ailments that make us unhappy include, excessive stress, emotional crisis or physical ill health, pain and suffering, depression, loss of loved ones, loss of money, material goods, or valuables. 

Unmindful mind leads to mental disturbances and unhappiness.  These can also arise from natural disasters, such as tsunamis and hurricanes, etc. Humans cause most of the unhappiness—physical, mental, and emotional—to other humans.  Yet, we depend on each other in the community, country and globally.  Thus, fighting, killing and destroying each other, communities, or countries, make no sense.  Engaging on such, would only bring misery to themselves and others.  

Despite extraordinary qualities, humans are one of the least-cooperative groups among living beings.  Selfishness jealousy, and a lack of responsibility and accountability toward each other make the situation worse.  The oneness of humanity and true altruism toward others, together with the protection of the environment are meritorious fundamental deeds for individuals, organizations, which needed for societies to flourish. It is the responsibility of every one of us to make such materialize and be successful together. 

Characteristics of a mindful person

Meditation is about positive cultivation of the mind.  Meditation improves one’s concentration, precision of thoughts, thinking, and the rationalizing power without being subdued by preconceived ideas.  Those who follow the simple path of developing and maintaining mindfulness enable themselves to settle the mind and keeping the mind in the present.  The practice of meditation also leads to transformation of an individual into a better person.  In addition, such positivity of the mind and the behavior also influences others. The development of mindfulness is the first step toward this.  This is the first and an important step to overcoming many psychological disturbances and disorders.  Developing a sustained, right mindfulness is helpful to everyone.

Chapter 19 evaluates the Right Mindfulness training versus the popular, mind-relaxation short-cut methods, such as MBSR, MBCT, etc.

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Professor Sunil J. Wimalawansa, MD, PhD, MBA, DSc, is a physician-scientist, educator, social entrepreneur, and process consultant. He is a philanthropist with experience in long-term strategic planning, and cost-effective investment and interventions globally for preventing non-communicable diseases [recent charitable work]. The author has no conflicts of interest and received no funding for this work.