Mindfulness worked as well for anxiety as drug in study
Associated PressMindfulness meditation worked as well as a standard drug for treating anxiety in the first head-to-head comparison. In September, an influential U.S. health task force recommended routine anxiety screening for adults, and numerous reports suggest global anxiety rates have increased recently, related to worries over the pandemic, political and racial unrest, climate change and financial uncertainties. Instead of ruminating over the troubling thought, “you say, ‘I’m having this thought, let that go for now,’’’ said lead author Elizabeth Hoge, director of Georgetown University’s Anxiety Disorders Research Program. The study “is reaffirming about how useful mindfulness can be when practiced effectively,’’ said psychologist Sheehan Fisher, an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine who was not involved in the study. Olga Cannistraro, a freelance writer in Keene, New Hampshire, participated in an earlier mindfulness study led by Hoge and says it taught her “to intervene in my own state of mind.’’ During a session, just acknowledging that she was feeling tension anywhere in her body helped calm her, she said.
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