Meditation helps with mental illness

Meditations are remedies for various ailments of the mind and the body for many years and are firmly anchored in the complementary medicine. Now researchers have demonstrated that meditations actually have a positive effect in certain mental illnesses.

Meditations proven help to relax and can contribute to a better way of life. But they can also relieve serious mental disorders such as anxiety and depression. This question, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore investigated in a meta-analysis. The result: Regular meditation can actually reduce anxiety and depression, and even relieve pain.

According to the authors of study, the effects of meditation it’s reduce of anxiety and mild depressive symptoms can be quite measured with the effect of antidepressants. For an effect on other psychological problems such as sleep disorders, addiction or pathological obesity researchers could find no evidence in meditation technique.

Mindfulness meditation is most effective.

When comparing the different forms of meditation is a clear benefit of mindfulness meditation in front of other forms of meditation, such as Transcendental Meditation, in which, among others, a mantra is repeated. Mindfulness meditation, which is also common in Buddhism, showed strong evidence in most mental disorders.

Overall the scientists stated that so far are too little of scientific studies dedicated on the effects and limitations of meditations. However, compared to many drugs meditations has a unique advantage, namely the substantial absence of side effects.