Im starting to feel uncomfortable with the "mindfulness" movement. At first, I couldn't put my finger on it. Then I heard a story of a client trying to access emergency mental health services. Essentially, they were told to go and do something "mindful". This sounds outrageous but I am hearing more and more stories like this. It deeply concerns me. mindfulness has its place in our lives and is a useful tool to assist us in many ways. I think we can all agree that person reaching out in desperation does not need to be told to be "mindful".
As our mental health system becomes burdened with increasing numbers of people arriving on its doorsteps in crisis and clinicians are overworked and under resourced - professionals grasp for anything that will provide some relief whether it works or not!
What follows is an exploration into the unknown pitfalls, damage and side-effects to practicing mindfulness.
Mindfulness like Road Cones?
In Christchurch, we experienced a major earthquake in 2011. It devastated our city and ruined much of our infrastructure. One of the biggest inconveniences was the disruption to traffic. Trying to get somewhere on time was a nightmare as the city rebuilt and repaired damaged roading.
Over time we became intolerant of road cones and they became less effective in warning drivers of impending road works. Many people would speed past like they didn't exist!
like road cones in Christchurch has mindfulness become innocuous? Are we are unaware of the real dangers? From Corporates hiring mindfulness coaches to GPs handing out prescriptions for courses -Is mindfulness the panacea to all our woes?
Some evidence suggest that mindfulness, under certain conditions can actually cause panic, increase depression and cause people to re-live trauma.
I am always sceptical of trends that promise a plethora of benefits and the answers to all our problems. I am especially cautious when I see numerous instances of mindfulness being peddled as the antidote to all of life's woes. Of course mindfulness has benefits and the research supports this. There is also growing evidence that mindfulness is not useful in certain situations and can re-traumatised or even increase mental distress.
Mindfulness as a treatment
Mindfulness is being used to treat all number of issues from eating disorders through to anxiety and addiction, often in conjunction with other treatments or as a stand-alone programme.
In one study, researchers looked at the impact of a mindfulness programme involving teens, mindfulness did not have any meaningful effect on the participants (Johnson,C 2016). This study was looking at using mindfulness as a tool to combat anxiety, depression and eating disorders. In fact this study found at a 3 month follow up the control group for males was higher in anxiety than before.
We would all love to help our young people "head off" the development of these issues. Unfortunately mindfulness does not seem to be the answer. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just teach everyone to meditate from birth and fix all of life's problems?
Additionally, researchers have found that the practice of certain aspects of mindfulness can trigger anxiety producing hormones (Alder,C et al 1987).
Cortisol is a hormone released when our body is triggered into state of stress. Too much cortisol can have detrimental effects on our bodies and psyche. When people are practicing mindfulness the whole point is to relieve stress and promote a state of calm. One study found that:
Further confirming the role of body awareness in increasing arousal in meditation, a recent RCT found that body-focused interoceptive training (body scan, breath awareness) produced the largest cortisol stress reactivity compared to other forms of meditation (Britton,2019).
It is not uncommon for people who suffer from anxiety to find mindful practices very challenging. For some mindfulness can actually turn up the volume on a person's sensitivities and actually exacerbate their condition.
What I believe to be most worrisome is using mindfulness for people who have experienced trauma. Having experienced trauma myself I know the fragility of being in this state. In other words, my brain and body are highly reactive and I am really vulnerable of doing stupid things like: drinking too much, over shopping, over using sex for comfort and a myriad of other dumb stuff. Traumatised people need to be cared for carefully by professionals.
For trauma survivors mindfulness can actually do damage. One aspect of dealing with trauma is experiencing flashbacks. Flashbacks are memories associated with a traumatic event and can seem like reliving the experience all over again. Quietening the mind can open the door to re- experiencing flashbacks.
High levels of interoception and/or insula activation are associated with a wide range of undesirable effects, including increased arousal and emotional intensity, depression, sadness, anxiety, panic, traumatic flashbacks, and clinical pain syndromes [23–27], and all of these effects have been reported in the context of mindfulness meditation training (Britton,2019)
Further to this, Cheetah House a service for distressed meditators offers this perspective:
For practitioners with a trauma history, it was not uncommon for them to report a re-experiencing of traumatic memories, and even practitioners without a trauma history similarly reported an upwelling of emotionally-charged psychological material (Cheetahouse 2022).
Mindfulness overuse
I have practiced various forms of meditation and mindfulness for over 25 years. I have known meditators for that length of time. In one person my hunch was that they were using meditation to disconnect from life and their emotional pain. On the face of it this seems like a good idea. But the level of disconnection I observed removed them from functioning well and left them unable to socialise or really get to grips with their emotional pain. Research has backed up this hunch and saying that:
"Multiple studies have found that mindfulness meditation training can result in reduced inten-sity, blunting, or complete loss of both positive and negative emotions and dissociation in some people (Britton 2019)".
Emotional blunting is when someone appears flat and has little emotional reactivity. They appear distant and not connected to reality. Dissociation is where a person is transported by a break in their thinking to disconnect from their thoughts, emotions and feelings. At its worst people are not conscious of their behaviour or actions and can "wake up" later to find they did and said things and have no memory of it.
Self-help Aspect
I think what riles me the most regarding this topic is the emphasis on the self. The self-help aspect to mindfulness and mindfulness practices are a way to avoid addressing issues and provides a bland bandaid to patch up significant issues in ones life and society as a whole.
“Cultivating mindfulness can distract people from their own transgressions and interpersonal obligations, occasionally relaxing one’s moral compass (Hafenbrack,cited in Purser 2019)
Its much easier to do a body scan than to take responsibility for behaving poorly and digging into the root causes and learning strategies to deal with life.
Instead of getting real treatment you can listen to a guided meditation, eat a mandarin mindfully, do some yoga and all is fixed. The number of times I have heard people say that they are doing mindfulness and that has been the answer to fixing deep emotional problems.
Kind of like going to church every week to excuse sleeping with your wife's best friend.
Are We Blind?
This happens on a broader scale too, like corporations training their employees to be mindful - to boost productivity. Yet corporations are blind to the real issues such as workplace bullying, unfair work targets and pressure to perform. So the real issues making employees distressed are not addressed. Mindfulness can be a convenient veil to hide the real issues.
Additionally, mindfulness with the emphasis on self can blind people to the real problems by thinking that "I am doing something wrong because this is not curing me of anxiety and depression" placing the blame squarely on the individual. In turn causing more anxiety.
As a society we are obligated to look after each other and work together as communities to help stem the flow of issues causing mental health problems such as poverty, isolation and substance abuse.
It seems a stretch to blame mindfulness for our lack of community response to mental illness. And it is, but the point is: we live in a society where the emphasis is on the individual to fix themselves, which in turn keeps us from working together to fix broader societal problems which are the root of these problems.
Cultural aspects
Having studied Cultural Anthropology, I am always alert to when western society incorporates practices from another culture. What often happens is that we take what we want and discard the rest and end up with a privaleged practice for the upper echelons of society. Similar to yoga Ankita Rao suggests
...given its similar trajectory from the East to West—the majority of practitioners are white and college-educated, with an income higher than the national average(Ankita Rao,2018).
Mindfulness has its roots in Buddhism, we have singularly turned this practice into a secular, whitewashed ideology that suits us. The app "Calm" is worth a cool 250 million dollars. Who can afford this subscription? White, middle-class and high income earners.
What is the answer?
Globally, mental health issues are one of the biggest contributors to disease and disability. This issue cuts across all strata of society - meaning it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor or if you come from a developing or a developed country, mental health issues are increasing at an exponential rate. Of course we are desperate to find answers and mindfulness has become a convenient cure-all. Its relatively easy to provide and there is a huge swell of apps, teachers, clinicians willing to service the need.
Like any medicine a doctor prescribes there are side effects. With medication the side effects can be easily researched and we can then proceed with knowledge enabling us to make a decision. Unlike medication there are no warnings regarding mindfulness, it is thought to be harmless. As we have seen Mindfulness is not without serious risk. It can cause more anxiety and lead to dissociation, flattening of emotions and hyper arousal. As a treatment for these issues it needs to be used with cautions. Risks need to be indentified and shared with consumers. At this point in time we go blindly offering this practice as the panacea to all of modern illness.
Can we liken this to prescribing valium to all those mothers in the 50s? Just a veil to diguise the unhappiness we feel under the pressure of modernity.
Of course, reductions in stress and increases in personal happiness and wellbeing are much easier to sell than serious questions about injustice, inequity and environmental devastation (Robson,2022).
Im not saying that mindfulness is all bad and certainly a significant amount of people get many benefits from this practice. Im offering information and knowledge from a different perspective to bring some concerns to light and to release those trapped in a fog of mindful confusion! Be free.
Alisa Woodruff
Therapist
Ngakau Therapy
m: 0272547296w:
Bibliography
Alder, C. M., Craske, M. G., & Barlow, D. H. (1987). Adler, C. M., Craske, M. G., & Barlow, D. H. (1987). Relaxation-induced panic (RIP): When resting isn't peaceful. Integrative Psychiatry, 5(2), 94–100. Relaxation-Induced Panic (RIP): When Resting Isn't Peaceful, 5(2), 94–100.
Ankita Rao. (2018). To Some, Mindfulness Feels too Whitewashed to Embrace [web log]. Retrieved 2022.
Britton, W. B. (2019). Can mindfulness be too much of a good thing? the value of a middle way. Science Direct. Retrieved October 22, 2022, from https://www.brown.edu/research/labs/britton/sites/britton-lab/files/images/Britton_2019_Can%20mindfulness%20be%20too%20much%20of%20a%20good%20thing.pdf
Help for meditators in distress. Cheetah House. (n.d.). Retrieved November 13, 2022, from https://www.cheetahhouse.org/
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Johnson, C., Burke, C., Brinkman, S., & Wade, T. (2016). Effectiveness of a school-based mindfulness program for Transdiagnostic Prevention in young adolescents. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 81, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2016.03.002
Purser, R. (2019, June 14). The mindfulness conspiracy. The Guardian. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/14/the-mindfulness-conspiracy-capitalist-spirituality
Robson, D. (2022). How mindfulness can make you a darker person. BBC Worklife. Retrieved November 11, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220302-how-mindfulness-can-make-you-a-darker-person
Wilson, J. (2014). Mystifying mindfulness: How is mindfulness made available for appropriation? Mindful America, 43–74. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827817.003.0003
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