# Meditation and mindfulness are hugely beneficial for mental health



## TheMeditatingCat (Jan 8, 2015)

Hey everyone J, how's it going?

I've been mindfully meditating for 3 years now, and have amassed quite a bit of experience in this subject. I've seen first hand how it has massively helped me in many areas of life, including overcoming depression, anxiety and helping me become happier, more spiritual and cultivating peace of mind.

Meditation and mindfulness are getting quite a reputation these days, and there's many people who have heard of it's 'strange and ethereal' benefits, to the point where they have no idea what it will do for them or how to actually meditate.

Whatever your goals are with meditation, there is so much mounting scientific evidence that it is incredibly beneficial for the human mind and even body that it's ridiculous.

Sure, it's not a 100% cure-all, but it is HUGELY beneficial in regards to mental health, and for general wellbeing I believe it's a skill that everyone should learn.

Stay awesome


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## Moises (May 20, 2000)

This book is listed on amazon.com as being targeted at readers age 10-18.

I have found mindfulness practice to be very helpful. I have been doing it for about four years.

I should stress that mindfulness practice has not led to any diminution of my symptoms. Rather, it has increased my ability to tolerate discomfort.

When I meditate, my symptoms actually worsen. That is, I feel more gut discomfort during meditation than I typically feel when I am not meditating. A big part of mindfulness meditation for me has been learning how to deal with intense sensations in my gut. This has not been easy. Confronting pain never is.

I have found two books to be enormously helpful.

1. Mark Williams and Danny Penman. Mindfulness: An Eight-Week for Finding Peace in a Frantic World.

2. Ronald D. Siegel. Mindfulness Solution.

The Siegel book is excellent and it does have a section where it claims that IBS is often cured by mindfulness practice. I would reiterate that that has not been my experience. I must still severely limit what foods I can consume and I still have digestive discomfort day and night. I recommend the Siegel book nonetheless because it does have many wonderful ideas that can easily be applied to those with IBS.

If you want to try mindfulness I would recommend starting with the Williams and Penman book. You can get a sense of what they are doing by listening to these audio tracks:

http://rodalebooks.s3.amazonaws.com/mindfulness/index.html

If you find their methods helpful, you can then advance to the Siegel book. Here are some tracks from his book:

http://www.mindfulness-solution.com/DownloadMeditations.html

I should add that just because mindfulness practice did not lead to a reduction in my symptoms, it may be the case that it can lead to a reduction in your symptoms. And, even if it does not, it can be beneficial in other ways.


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## annie7 (Aug 16, 2002)

i've been meditating daily since the mid 70's. i agree wholeheartedly with what Moises said--meditation did not reduce my symptoms but it definitely did increase my ability to tolerate them. and it has helped my life in other ways as well. for one thing, it is very grounding. it has made an immense difference in my life.


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