MBSR - Benefits

Benefits

The program is visited by many individuals, ranging from those who are sick, mentally or physically, to professionals and businesspeople. Mindfulness-based stress reduction programs have been proven to provide a variety of very powerful benefits for those practicing the techniques and meditation offered. The benefits of low exposure to MSBR have been studied with the research highlighting the minimal effort needed to experience benefits. These benefits include an increase in the body's immune system's ability to ward off disease, a shift from a disposition towards right prefrontal cortex, associated with anxiety, depression, and aversion, to the left prefrontal cortex, associated with happiness, flow, and enjoyment. Other benefits include a different and less invasive way of healing patients with chronic pain related illnesses, a reduction in debilitating stress and the hormones that come along with it,(such as cortisol,) and an improvement in one's overall happiness and well-being in life.

In the conclusion of "Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health benefits: A meta-review", the 2003 meta-review mentioned earlier, we read,

Our findings suggest the usefulness of MBSR as an intervention for a broad range of chronic disorders and problems. In fact, the consistent and relatively strong level of effect sizes across very different types of sample indicates that mindfulness training might enhance general features of coping with distress and disability in everyday life, as well as under more extraordinary conditions of serious disorder or stress. Another recently published study employing different inclusion criteria and a somewhat divergent strategy also provides additional support for the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions. In both investigations, improvements were consistently seen across a spectrum of standardized mental health measures including psychological dimensions of quality of life scales, depression, anxiety, coping style and other effective dimensions of disability. Likewise, similar benefits were also found for health parameters of physical well-being, such as medical symptoms, sensory pain, physical impairment, and functional quality-of-life estimates..."

In the past 30 years many studies have been done that show some positive effects of mindfulness practice. There is a wide range of benefits like increased brain function, less pain, help with eating disorders and depression. Practicing MBSR can change the brain and how it works. Many people these days are very busy and they don’t think about what is going on in the now. Thinking about breathing can be helpful but changing the breath isn’t necessary. Jon Kabat-Zinn said “We are driven by the urgent, miss the important and then wind up a lot of the time being unhappy.” When the body is exposed to stress for prolonged periods of time it can become exhausted. It is important to find a way to deal with that stress before it gets to that point or to try and avoid it as much as possible. A study by Shapiro found those participating in MBSR had less anxiety, psychological distress, and depression they also showed an increase in empathy. A study from the University of Massachusetts Medical School showed that after completing a MBSR class the participants showed increased grey matter in areas of their brains important in learning, memory and emotions. The University of Massachusetts Worcester Campus Center for Mindfulness, ed. Most people who go through the program have lasting benefits like increase self-esteem, they are better able to cope in stressful situations, and better ability to cope with pain. A January 2011 study in the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, based on anatomical magnetic resonance images (MRI) of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) participants, suggested that "participation in MBSR is associated with changes in gray matter concentration in brain regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective taking."