Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsHow Meditation Can Help With DepressionHow to Get StartedWhat Types of Meditation Work BestTips for Meditation Success

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How Meditation Can Help With Depression

How to Get Started

What Types of Meditation Work Best

Tips for Meditation Success

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DisclaimerMeditation can help some people mitigate their depression symptoms. According to experts, using meditation as a form of treatment should be in collaboration with your care team and should not be considered a one-stop-shop solution to mental health conditions.

Disclaimer

Meditation can help some people mitigate their depression symptoms. According to experts, using meditation as a form of treatment should be in collaboration with your care team and should not be considered a one-stop-shop solution to mental health conditions.

I don’t know about you but I initially found meditation incredibly difficult to understand. I have a physical disability and multiplemental health conditions, including depression and ananxiety disorder. Even my physical disability,cerebral palsy, is inherently tied to my brain. Some days, to call me a mess is an understatement, but at least my brain damage is visible on a scan. In my mid-20s through five-ish years ago—meditation as a treatment option seemed not just sensible, but inevitable. If everyone else was doing it—even on the Canadian prairies where I live—why wasn’t I?

Thecauses of depressionare complicated and not fully understood, Some point to genetics, others to physiology, and factors such as stress and anxiety.Brent Nelson, MD, adult interventional psychiatrist and chief medical information officer at PrairieCare, says that for him, the focus on the brain is a helpful framework to understand how meditation can help with depression.

“The brain has 100 billion neurons with 100 trillion connections, so it’s very complicated," Nelson says. “And the cause of depression is still yet to be fully understood, but we know it’s a complex process. It’s often interleaved with other things such as anxiety or trauma, and really, for a lot of people, is a function of stress meeting, maybe, an underlyinggenetic predisposition.”

Nelson tells Verywell Mind that he often starts patients with mindfulness meditations.

“A lot of times we will start with mindfulness meditation because what it really can let people do is get their brain to be more connected, kind of in the moment, in the here and now, and less so in the distant past or anxiety over the future, which often can be a challenge in depression,” he adds.

What [mindfulness meditation] really can let people do is get their brain to be more connected, kind of in the moment, in the here and now, and less so in the distant past or anxiety over the future, which often can be a challenge in depression.—BRENT NELSON, MD

What [mindfulness meditation] really can let people do is get their brain to be more connected, kind of in the moment, in the here and now, and less so in the distant past or anxiety over the future, which often can be a challenge in depression.

—BRENT NELSON, MD

Julie Potiker, a certified mindful self-compassion teacher of the UCSD’s Center for Mindfulness believes that meditation is a key reason why she was able to recover from her bouts with depression.

“It’s not at all like loosey-goosey or woo woo, or anything like that… I used to be a clinically depressed person, and I used to take antidepressants, and I hadpostpartum depression, so I’m really a poster child for this…Mindful self-compassion, that’s what I leaned into, and that’s why I became a teacher of it, and then that’s why I became certified in it,” she says.

How to Fight Depression Without Medication

Potiker, who tends to focus initially on aloving-kindness meditation, says that zeroing in onself-compassionand gratitude can be especially valuable for those facing depression, in her experience. In terms of getting started, her recent advice to someone she supports—rather than building up meditation to be a big burdensome practice—was to start small.

“I talked to her about little micro-moments, trying to do it once an hour,” Potiker explains. “Where you either look out the window or you take a walk, or you play one of your favorite songs, or something that makes your body feel good, and you enrich it and absorb it for moments, I don’t mean minutes, and you just really feel because it just folds right into gratitude.”

8-Minute Video Meditation to Becoming More Mindful

A 2015 analysis looked at seven different meditation techniques and their effectiveness. Those included:

Nelson says that, when in doubt, patients should refer back to the medical professionals supporting them. He says this can include asking your care team about local resources, including regional centers tied to local universities that are studying and implementingmeditation strategiesfor those with mental health disorders.

“It’s always going back to your treatment team, and having a multi-specialty treatment team that can really look at this particular unique individual from a few different perspectives and help give good, reliable guidance,” Nelson adds.

How You Should Meditate, According to Your Personality

Meditation can help mitigatedepression symptomswhen used in conjunction with a professional treatment plan. Here are some tips to get the most out of your practice:

5-Minute Video Meditation for Dealing With Anxiety

1 SourceVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Jain FA, Walsh RN, Eisendrath SJ, Christensen S, Rael Cahn B.Critical analysis of the efficacy of meditation therapies for acute and subacute phase treatment of depressive disorders: a systematic review.Psychosomatics. 2015;56(2):140-152.

1 Source

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Jain FA, Walsh RN, Eisendrath SJ, Christensen S, Rael Cahn B.Critical analysis of the efficacy of meditation therapies for acute and subacute phase treatment of depressive disorders: a systematic review.Psychosomatics. 2015;56(2):140-152.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Jain FA, Walsh RN, Eisendrath SJ, Christensen S, Rael Cahn B.Critical analysis of the efficacy of meditation therapies for acute and subacute phase treatment of depressive disorders: a systematic review.Psychosomatics. 2015;56(2):140-152.

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