Mindfulness therapy seen as aid to stress reduction

• Reprints

Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

It’s a simple concept that appears to help people deal more effectively with depression, chronic illness or just the stress of everyday life.

“Mindfulness-based stress reduction” — a modern take on an ancient Buddhist practice — teaches people to be more aware of what’s happening in the moment, instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.

A form of complementary medicine that has increasingly gained acceptance in the mainstream, mindfulness has been linked to a variety of health benefits when added to conventional treatment, including relief from chronic pain, anxiety and digestive disorders.

A study this month in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that mindfulness-based therapy worked as well as antidepressants in preventing relapses of depression over an 18-month period.

“What mindfulness-based stress reduction has in its favor is all of the research behind it, which gives it a decent amount of credibility,” said Maggie Crowley, a clinical psychologist at the Northwestern Center for Integrative Medicine and Wellness.

Crowley noted that mindfulness isn’t a substitute for conventional treatment but can improve the body’s response to stress for reasons that aren’t entirely clear.

Of course, learning how to live in the moment isn’t as easy as it sounds.

“Many of us have practiced sort of dysfunctional ways of thinking for a long, long time, and those habits are very ingrained,” said Robert Farra, director of the Adult Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at NorthShore University HealthSystem.

NorthShore and Rush University Medical Center are among the Chicago area health centers that offer group classes in mindfulness-based stress reduction. Northwestern will also begin offering similar classes next spring, Crowley said.

The goal of these classes is to teach people how to “retrain” their brains through meditation and relaxation exercises to focus on the moment and to accept their emotions without judging them, Farra said.

Meredith Hammer, of Rogers Park, signed up for the four-week mindfulness program at NorthShore six months ago, hoping to find relief from her frequent anxiety attacks.

Though she still experiences these episodes, Hammer, 32, says stressful situations don’t rattle her the way they used to.

“You don’t go to this seminar for four weeks and say, ‘I’m a changed man,’ ” Hammer said. “You have to make the choice to take those skills and continue to use them. I’ve chosen to do that, and it’s made a huge difference in my life.”

Even for people who don’t find all of the mindfulness techniques useful, there’s no real downside to giving it a try, Farra said.

“This is for everybody who wants to live a life that is more joyful and more meaningful,” he said.