Meditating may be as effective as antidepressants. Photo: Flickr, D Sharon Pruitt
When it comes to treating depression, meditation and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy may be as effective as taking antidepressants, say experts from Canada.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy involves meditation but also learning how to recognise emotional triggers, that is the things in life that make you happy or sad. And being in better control over your emotions may help prevent a relapse of depression, say the researchers.
Writing in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, the researchers note that only 40 of the patients who were meditating suffered another bout of depression, compared with 46 who were taking a placebo (dummy pill).
Meditation and mindfulness may be an effective alternative to antidepressants like Prozac, say the researchers, especially for people who are wary of constantly taking medication as well as those who aren't too keen on the drugs' side effects.
If meditation and being mindful can help prevent depression in people who have already been diagnosed with the condition, just think what they could do for the rest of us who haven't.
Have you tried them? How did they work for you?