The Science and Practice of Staying Present Through Difficult Times (mindful.org)

Research suggests that we turn towards pain and discomfort, we can experience less of it. Plus — a guided meditation for being mindful when things get tough.

Research into mindfulness has shown the benefits of staying present, and of gently turning towards difficulty. Mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP) trains people with addictive habits to manage their cravings mindfully by staying present to the sensations of craving, rather than trying to distract from them, avoid them or defeat them. In a large trial of MBRP, mindfulness-trained patients drank and used drugs significantly less than those who were treated with cognitive-behavioural approaches, and a control group who attended twelve-step and psycho-education groups. The authors of the study conclude that mindfulness was the most successful approach, especially over the longer term, because it enabled patients to “monitor and skilfully cope with discomfort associated with craving or negative affect.” A similar study with smokers found that mindfulness training was more than five times as effective as a standard smoking cessation programme, as measured by abstinence from cigarettes after four months (31 per cent compared to 6 per cent). Another study has suggested that mindful people are more able to tolerate their own distress, rather than react in harmful ways.

As far back as 1971, Robert Wallace and Herbert Benson found that meditation reduced activity in the sympathetic nervous system, which controls the “fight or flight” reaction. More recently, attending a mindfulness course has been shown to reduce activity and grey matter volume in the amygdala—a key indicator of how strongly this reaction is triggered. With mindfulness training also comes a thickening in parts of the pre-frontal cortex—the region directly behind the forehead—which may be connected to a strengthening of the body’s capacity to regulate stress. Connections between the amygdala and other parts of the brain weaken after mindfulness training.

To read more of  Ed Halliwell's article,please click here.