Meditation works as well as a commonly prescribed drug to ease symptoms of anxiety, according to a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry.
The multiinstitution study led by a researcher at Georgetown University Medical Center found that “mindfulness-based stress reduction was a well-tolerated treatment option with comparable effectiveness to a first-line medication for patients with anxiety disorders.”
To compare meditation to the antidepressant drug escitalopram, 276 adults with anxiety disorders were randomly assigned to either eight weeks of a weekly meditation class or treatment with the medication. They found that meditation was “noninferior” to the medication.
Escitalopram is sold as Lexapro and Cipralex, as well as other names.
As CNBC puts it: “After monitoring the two groups for eight weeks, researchers found that people using mindfulness meditation saw their anxiety improve nearly as much as people who were taking the antidepressant.”
The mindfulness group took weekly classes, meditated for 45 minutes a day using what they learned there and also had two full-day weekend retreats during the eight weeks.
Those in the drug arm of the research initially took 10 mg of escitalopram daily for a week, then the dose was raised to 20mg if it didn’t cause any issues.
Joy Harden Bradford, an Atlanta psychologist who hosts the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, told NPR she was “surprised but not shocked” that the two were comparable. But she added, “The thing I would hate to have happen is for people to pit medication against the mindfulness-based resources.” She said that someone with panic attacks could react more quickly to the medication, while meditation could take weeks to make a difference.
And NPR also wrote: “It’s worth noting that longer term adherence to the treatments was higher for participants taking Lexapro than for the meditators. At 24 weeks, just 28% of the MBSR arm were still doing daily meditation, compared to 52% taking the drugs.”
Anxiety a major crisis
Anxiety has long been recognized as a growing crisis, particularly among teenagers and young adults. In 2018, the Deseret News reported on anxiety’s toll on youth in a yearlong series called Generation Vexed and offered a downloadable toolkit to help those who struggle.
A study in Lancet Psychiatry says as many as 301 million people worldwide deal with anxiety, which is the most common mental illness.
Generation Vexed showed that girls often show recognizable anxiety, while boys may instead act out, so parents sometimes mistake their anxiety for behavior problems.
Anxiety also travels with other mental challenges, including obsessive-compulsive behavior or depression.
Experts also told the Deseret News that teens learn to cope with anxiety, rather than “outgrow” it, but it can be managed. They also said that those suffering may over-perform or under-perform, sleep too much or too little and behave fearfully or recklessly.
Many experts at that time said that meditation is a great help in coping with anxiety. But it takes some practice.
How to meditate
Online, there are scads of sites that teach one how to meditate and that tout the benefits. Mindful.org, for instance, says meditation lowers stress, helps people understand their pain, lets them comment better and helps improve focus.
There are steps that seem simple, but require some practice, as most people are easily distracted.
As The Associated Press explained, “Mindfulness is a form of meditation that emphasizes focusing only on what’s happening at the moment and dismissing intrusive thoughts. Sessions often start with breathing exercises. Next might be ‘body scans’ — thinking about each body part systematically, head to toe. When worried thoughts intrude, participants learn to briefly acknowledge them but then dismiss them.”
Study lead author Elizabeth Hoge, who directs the Georgetown University Disorders Research Program, said that practice “changes the relationship people have with their own thoughts when not meditating.”
She told AP that the findings may make insurers more willing to cover the cost of meditation classes.