Mindfulness as an intervention for depression and anxiety.

“paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p.4).

Mindfulness has been used as a recreational and educational tool in schools in recent years. “children and young people, undergo experiences of information overload as their attention is ceaselessly solicited from multiple sources.” (O’Donnell, 2015, p.190) Mindfulness has been a way of teaching children how to focus their minds and become more focused learners who are able to be both critical and objective. Mindfulness has also been a tool for creativity and holistic learning.“In education, we do not spend enough time in the present. We do not reflect enough or put children (or ourselves) in situations where awe and wonder are normal responses. True involvement, deep engagement in a subject or an activity, often takes us out of ourselves into a zone where time does not matter so much and distractions or current worries lessen. As teachers, we need to seek out more opportunities for ourselves and for our children to experience these degrees of immersion. If we do we should expect deeper learning, better relationships and a happier learning community.” (Barnes, 2018, p.87) There is a vast and generally positive outlook on the potentials for mindfulness in education. Many practitioners I have worked with have used mindfulness in the classroom, even if it is not the main focus of a lesson, it would be used as a tool that is integrated into the day. For example, when the children came in from doing their ‘daily mile’ jog, they were asked to focus on their breathing and heart rate. The children were able to focus on their body’s response to the exercise and later discussed what they had noticed and why they thought that was. This enabled for an in-depth conversation about the way our bodies function which the children were engaged in.

“mindfulness in educational settings could come to be viewed in a different light if we reflect upon the ways in which school environments and curricula can promote mindfulness, awareness, sensitive inquiry, and contemplative practices through the day, rather than offering it as a discrete intervention focused on the self and wellbeing.” (O’Donnell, 2015, p.187)Here O’Donnell suggests that mindfulness should be used as not just an intervention focused on self and wellbeing, this may have been relevant in 2015 although I believe that we have moved away from wellbeing being the focus. The main focus now mindfulness is used in schools is creativity, deeper learning, focus and a happier learning community. Ritchhart and Perkins (2000) (p. 29) suggested the educational potential of mindfulness lies in the development of "deep understanding, student motivation and engagement, the ability to think critically and creatively. and the development of more self-directed learners".

Tang et al. suggest that there is extensive evidence that demonstrated that mindfulness-based interventions can effectively improve positive emotion and reduce depression in both clinical and nonclinical populations (Tang et al., 2007). Tang et al. discussed this in 2007 since then research had further extended our knowledge of the benefits of mindfulness on improving positive emotion. Even though this evidence suggests that mindfulness should be used regularly as an intervention for depression and anxiety, it still seems to be being used more for education. I believe many people are still sceptical of mindfulness despite extensive research that shows its success. Although, as its use in the classroom increases and children start to reap the benefits of mindfulness more, people may become more open to it regularly being used as an intervention.

A Pilot Study Examining the Effect of Mindfulness on Depression and Anxiety for Minority Children 

Liehr and Diaz used an experimental design to compare depressive and anxious symptoms of minority children who received mindfulness intervention (MI) to those who received health education intervention. (HEI). Seventeen children from a summer camp participated in the study with a mean age was 9.5 years old. As this was a pilot study and only seventeen children were used, the finding should be used to influence future research rather than drawing major conclusions from it directly. Although this sample size is small, the design and use of psychometrically sound measures add reliability to the findings of this pilot study.

The mindfulness intervention used a program designed specifically for children by Mindful Schools (Mindfulschools.org). This program includes attention to breath, mindful movement, and generosity. Mindfulness was taught by an experienced teacher who had a daily mindfulness practice. This ensured that the mindfulness sessions the children were experiencing were true to what mindfulness is. The HEI was standard lessons prepared by a health educator, including the importance of activity, healthy foods, and stress management. These lessons represent the standard procedure that children would experience outside of the research. The interventions consisted of ten 15-minute classes, one every day for 2 weeks. 

The researchers measured the children’s depressive symptoms by using ‘The Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire’(Angold et al., 1995). The questionnaire is a 13-item self- report that assesses depressive symptoms for children in the ages of 8–16 years old. The researchers measured the children’s anxious symptoms by using ‘The State Anxiety Inventory for Children’(Speilberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970). The questionnaire is a 20- item self-report designed to assess anxiety symptoms in children and adolescents. This could be considered a less intrusive way than a scientific method that measures a physiological response to the interventions. Children should not feel any stress as a result of the study, researchers should, therefore, use methods that children are comfortable with even if less reliable.

Children receiving mindfulness reported lower levels of depressive symptoms over time compared to those receiving health education. Both groups had decreased anxiety symptoms over time, and descriptive data indicated that the MI group had greater decreases than the HEI group. Not only do these findings suggest that mindfulness is a successful intervention for depressive and anxious symptoms but that it was more successful than an intervention that is widely used. If these results can be replicated on a larger scale, it can be a way of introducing mindfulness as not only a recreational or educational tool but also as a tool to support children’s health and well-being. These results show promise for the use of mindfulness to decrease depressive and anxious symptoms in minority children. As mindfulness is a free/inexpensive intervention, it could be easily introduced and incorporated in schools even if they do not have sufficient funding for interventions. 

Mindfulness enhances positive affect and reduces negative affect, and maladaptive automatic emotional responses (Hofmann et al., 2012). To conclude, it is well known in the world of mental health as well as education that mindfulness is a proven, successful intervention for anxiety and depression. However, it needs to be looked at further to find a way to use this intervention more often. Mindfulness is easy and inexpensive to teach and do, it should be utilised in place of more expensive and less effective interventions. It is beneficial that schools are using mindfulness as a teaching tool which is also able to help children’s health and well-being. But there should also be a more focused version of mindfulness to be used with children that do struggle with depression and anxiety.

Here are some guidelines on how to look after your mental health using mindfulness:

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/how-look-after-your-mental-health-using-mindfulness

This will give you an idea of the specific strategies that can be used to target specifically mental health.

Here is a video that discusses how mindfulness can help mental health further.

References:

Barnes, J. (2018)  Applying cross-curricular approaches creatively. London: Routledge.

Hofmann, S.G., Sawyer, A.T., Fang, A. and Asnaani, A., 2012. Emotion dysregulation model of mood and anxiety disorders. Depression and anxiety, 29(5), pp.409-416.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go. There you are: mindfulness meditation in everyday life.London: Hachette Books.

Langer, E. J., &Moldoveanu, M. (2000). The construct of mindfulness. Journal of Social Issues, 56(1), 1-9. 

O'Donnell, A. (2015). Contemplative pedagogy and mindfulness: Developing creative attention in an age of distraction. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 49(2), 187-202.

Ritchhart,R., & Perkins, D. N. (2000). Life in the mindful classroom: Nurturing the disposition of mindfulness. Journal o f Social Issues, 56(1), 27-47. 

Tang, Y.Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S., Lu, Q., Yu, Q., Sui, D., Rothbart, M.K., Fan, M. and Posner, M.I., 2007. Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(43), pp.17152-17156.