Mindfulness meditation worked in addition to a typical drug for treating anxiety in the primary head-to-head comparison.
The study tested a widely used mindfulness program that features 2 1/2 hours of classes weekly and 45 minutes of each day practice at home. Participants were randomly assigned to this system or each day use of a generic drug sold under the brand name Lexapro for depression and anxiety.
After two months, anxiety as measured on a severity scale declined by about 30% in each groups and continued to diminish throughout the following 4 months.
Study results, published Wednesday within the journal JAMA Psychiatry, are timely. In September, an influential U.S. health task force really useful routine anxiety screening for adults, and quite a few reports suggest global anxiety rates have increased recently, related to worries over the pandemic, political and racial unrest, climate change and financial uncertainties.
Anxiety disorders include social anxiety, generalized anxiety and panic attacks. Affected individuals are troubled by persistent and intrusive worries that interfere with their lives and relationships. Within the U.S., anxiety disorders affect 40% of U.S. women sooner or later of their lives and greater than 1 in 4 men, in keeping with data cited in U.S. Preventive Services Task Force screening recommendations.
Mindfulness is a type of meditation that emphasizes focusing only on what’s happening in the intervening time and dismissing intrusive thoughts. Sessions often start with respiratory exercises. Next is perhaps “body scans” — interested by each body part systematically, head to toe. When apprehensive thoughts intrude, participants learn to briefly acknowledge them but then dismiss them.
As a substitute of ruminating over the troubling thought, “you say, ‘I’m having this thought, let that go for now,”’ said lead writer Elizabeth Hoge, director of Georgetown University’s Anxiety Disorders Research Program. With practice, “It changes the connection people have with their very own thoughts when not meditating.”
Previous studies have shown mindfulness works higher than no treatment or at the very least in addition to education or more formal behavior therapy in reducing anxiety, depression and other mental woes. But that is the primary study to check it against a psychiatric drug, Hoge said, and the outcomes could make insurers more prone to cover costs, which may run $300 to $500 for an 8-week session.
The outcomes were based on about 200 adults who accomplished the six-month study at medical centers in Washington, Boston and Latest York. Researchers used a psychiatric scale of 1 to 7, with the highest number reflecting severe anxiety. The typical rating was about 4.5 for participants before starting treatment. It dropped to about 3 after two months, then dipped barely in each groups at three months and 6 months. Hoge said the change was clinically meaningful, leading to noticeable improvement in symptoms.
Ten patients on the drug dropped out due to troublesome unwanted effects possibly related to treatment, which included insomnia, nausea and fatigue. There have been no dropouts for that reason within the mindfulness group, although 13 patients reported increased anxiety.
The study “is reaffirming about how useful mindfulness will be when practiced effectively,” said psychologist Sheehan Fisher, an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine who was not involved within the study.
Dr. Scott Krakower, a psychiatrist at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Latest York, said mindfulness treatments often work best for mildly anxious patients. He prescribes them with medication for patients with more severe anxiety.
He noted that many individuals feel they don’t have time for mindfulness meditation, especially in-person sessions like those studied. Whether similar results can be found with online training or phone apps is unknown, said Krakower, who also had no role within the study.
Olga Cannistraro, a contract author in Keene, Latest Hampshire, participated in an earlier mindfulness study led by Hoge and says it taught her “to intervene in my very own frame of mind.”
During a session, just acknowledging that she was feeling tension anywhere in her body helped calm her, she said.
Cannistraro, 52, has generalized anxiety disorder and has never taken medication for it. She was a single mom working in sales during that earlier study — circumstances that made life particularly stressful, she said. She has since married, switched jobs, and feels less anxious though still uses mindfulness techniques.
