Mindfulness Mental Health

On our first day of eighth grade, we were introduced to the word mindfulness. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn (the founder of modern day mindfulness), “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; On purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” Mindfulness involves a conscious direction of awareness about everything that is happening around you. But, there is a difference of being aware of something to being mindful about something. To be mindful, you have to be purposely aware of something, not just vaguely aware.

Mental health is an important aspect of everyday life. It refers to the psychological and emotional wellbeing of a person. A mental disorder is described as ongoing patterns of disrupted thoughts, emotions, and behavior that cause distress and impair day-to-day functioning. Mental health needs to become a top priority in the public health community because it is an issue that has the potential to affect anyone no matter age, race, socioeconomic status, or gender. For some disorders, there are no certain criteria for which you have to fit into to become at risk. Depression and anxiety are just two examples of very common psychological disorders that go hand in hand. Those with family members dealing with these issues have a biological predisposition

According to research supporting using mindfulness techniques to decrease stress in students and health professionals has been done in support of the phenomena. Goodman et al. (2014), defines mindfulness as “mindfulness-based interventions teach tolerance and acceptance of negative thoughts, feelings and emotions” (p.339). Of

Stephen Levine, author of A Gradual Awakening, says that mindfulness is a " moment to moment awareness of whatever arises, whatever exists."

In modern day San Francisco the term of mindfulness is nothing new to the residence here. Meditation, acupuncture, yoga, and herbal remedies are heard about almost as often as news of the California drought. The difficult part of all of these terms is attempting to figure out what, if any of them, are right to incorporate into a daily life practice. The hype about mindfulness meditation in particular starts to become clearer as more research findings show the astounding benefits.

Mindfulness meditation is referred to as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, or MBCT. MBCT is increasing in popularity among new techniques in therapy around the globe. Studies have proven that mindfulness meditation can help to reduce daily turmoil such as depression, anxiety, and stress. It has been stated that “mindfulness is believed to promote good health, and many studies have associated mindfulness with decreases in depression and anxiety. (Good Therapy, 2016). There are many factors that cause one to experience depression, anxiety, or stress. During MBCT individuals are taught new techniques to control their emotions, which plays a big role in depression, anxiety, and stress.

It is important to do some formal mindfulness meditation practice, understanding thoughts are mental events, not truths, living in the present moment not past or future, increasing self-knowledge, becoming and accepting of emotional states; for formal practice of meditation helps people find a special place, day and time every day and remembering to feed the body, not the emotion or the mind for people suffering an eating disorder. Informal practice, the individual as to do their best to remember to remain mindful every time they need to eat. Release outside influences such as the media and their image of a perfect body, the goal is the relationship to food changes over time with mindful attention.

Mindfulness puts all attention and efforts on the present time regarding one’s feelings, ideas, and awareness. Being mindful requires one to watch and observe how people act and react, without intervening or casting any judgment upon them. This has been used for many years as a therapy method that helps one become more aware of others feelings, thoughts, and actions. Mindfulness studies the ranges of treatment that results from allowing mindfulness as a way of theoretical occurrences of observing one’s character. Mindfulness is related to being open to suggestions in training sessions and can be used as in addition to therapy for any patient or psychotherapist.

Mindfulness meditation is an alternative way to treat symptoms related to psychological disorders. Neuroscientists define meditation as a grouping of emotional and attentional training regimes developed to cultivate well-being and improve emotional regulation (Khusid & Vythilingam, 2016). Traditional cultures view meditation as a practice to train the mind to achieve spiritual and health benefits. Although there are many types of meditation, mindfulness meditation shows the most evidence for mental health (Khusid & Vythilingam, 2016). Khusid and Vythilingam (2016) describes mindfulness as the ability to maintain open, accepting, nonjudgmental awareness in each moment. Mindfulness meditation

Over 20 million people in America deal with an alcohol or drug addiction. 6.8 million people who struggle with alcohol and drug dependency also suffer from a mental illness. Many things have been used to help treat the addiction and the mental diseases that may have caused or developed from the addiction. A growing trend in the field is using meditation as a tool in curing addiction. Mindful meditation is the most commonly used form of meditation at rehab centers.

There is a large quantity of research regarding the physical and psychological health benefits of mindfulness and mindfulness training or meditation. Mindfulness meditation positively influences aspects of physical health including improved immune function, reduced blood pressure and cortisol levels, and increased activity in telomerase enzymes which act as an anti-aging enzyme (Holzel et al., 2011). Many of these physical benefits in turn help reduce stress and fatigue, which in the long run may improve psychological well-being and cognition. Mindfulness meditation has also been found to improve mood as well as emotional regulation, and Zeidan et al. (2010) points out that this may be due to MM decreasing stress and improving immune functioning. Furthermore, there is a large body of research documenting the efficacy of mindfulness and mindfulness-based practices

Mindfulness practice is the purposeful, nonjudgmental, moment-to-moment awareness that a person has. The goal of mindfulness meditation is to get the person better acquainted with their thoughts and feelings in the present moment of experiencing them (Corts, Dolderman, Krause, & Smith, 2015). People must take an attitude of acceptance and openness towards themselves and they must detach from negative or troubling thoughts. The effects of mindfulness mediation on cancer patients or survivors correlates with a better well-being for these people. The ability to engage in mindful awareness is associated with improved psychological distress and physical health symptoms in populations with chronic illness, including cancer.

fixating feelings of loneliness or a low sense of purpose (Shonin et al., 2014a). Mindfulness training is effective because it provides coping skills to reduce impulses, emotions and stress associated with gambling urges (Reid, DiTirro & Fong, 2014).

Research around the construct of mindfulness has exploded in the past few decades. Even though mindfulness is increasingly being incorporated in many modern day psychotherapeutic approaches and daily lives, it is still unclear as to how and why it has its many beneficial effects on a range of physical and psychological health variables. This study was undertaken to explore two possible mediators of the mindfulness-mental health relationship, namely decentering and nonattachment. Because of the nascent stage of this research and previous mixed findings obtained in the area, the authors took a more exploratory approach in investigating this mediation.

Mental health is as important as physical health. Mental health is a state of successful performance of mental function, resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships with other people and the ability to adapt to change to cope with adversity.