Mindfulness in Therapy with Depression and Depressive Thinking

Understanding the Role of Mindfulness

Mindfulness in Therapy with Depression and Depressive Thinking
Understanding the Role of Mindfulness
Mindfulness is now a catchy phrase and often a household idea. Mindfulness ideology has swept the world and is practiced in nearly every country and group of people. We all engage in mindfulness-like moments with or without realizing it.

This happens when we become hyper-focused on one or a few things and enter a superior present-moment state where we are not full of “stuff” in our heads or attached to a plethora of external stimuli. In that sense, we are mind-full and not mindful.

From a mental health point of view, I firmly believe that mindfulness activity and learned skills in therapy sessions are a benefit to almost any psychological dilemma or diagnosis a person may hold. Mindfulness builds the core skills of the individual self, and the self is the common denominator in any social context — whether the context is family, love, leisure, spirituality, or work.

There are many benefits from practicing mindfulness, and the safe, comfortable space of a counseling environment can be just what is needed to engage in a new, value-based direction of wellness that mindfulness practices may bring.

What Mindfulness Practice Looks Like

Mindfulness can involve a sitting or sometimes lying down meditation that’s practiced in a quiet space. Often you focus on your breathing or sensations in your body. Your mind may wander, and then as best as we can, we remind the mind of the task at hand and continue.

This may happen repeatedly, and reportedly from previous clients of mine who had these difficulties with focus, it got better the more they properly practiced.

Mindfulness can also be integrated into everyday activities like walking, eating, cleaning, and so forth. Actionable practices include guided meditations, such as “leaves on a stream.”

Mindfulness can also be subtle behaviors in key moments — for example, a baseball player taking a deep breath, bending down to grab some dirt, and rubbing it in his hands. In that moment, he is not thinking about three base runners or the hard-hitting batter at the plate with thousands of spectators watching. The next moment is not here. The moment is his while holding the dirt. He has mental control. Everything else is random potential and in the future.

This focus, found through a simple mindfulness act, may help him remain present and focused on one next pitch as he enters that moment with his self most esteemed by this act of mindfulness.

Proven Benefits of Mindfulness

Studies suggest that mindfulness practices can have a positive impact on health and well-being. Mindfulness-based treatments have been shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, and they can have direct health benefits such as lowering blood pressure and improving sleep. It may even help people cope with pain.

Mindfulness for Depression and Depressive Thinking
For people suffering from a depression-based diagnosis, mindfulness practices can be of great benefit. Mindfulness appears to help with depression in two ways:

1. Staying grounded in the present – People with depression may have their attention hijacked into past or future thinking. They might focus too much on past negative experiences or worry about what’s to come in their feared future.
2. Decentering from thoughts – From the “leaves on a stream” guided meditation practice, it’s like sitting on the riverbank and watching thoughts float by. Thoughts become part of your stream of consciousness, not commands you must act on.

Enhancing your ability to notice thoughts as just thoughts — not actionable items — increases psychological flexibility and enriches value-driven actions over time.

People with depressive symptoms often experience thoughts like, “Nothing ever works out for me” or “It’s always going to be this way.” This may keep them stuck or unwilling to choose behaviors that align with what they value in that moment.

Over time, and with practice, you can develop the ability to stand back from these cognitively fused thoughts and be less stuck in your patterns of living. Then, the cycle of listening to these thoughts from the past — and limiting your choices based on them — holds less value and much less influence.

You are not your thoughts. You are much more than that. Everything changes in time, especially when we focus on the present and the process of living a valued life. Mindfulness is a great tool to help us navigate life, especially when we suffer from depressive symptoms like depressive thinking.