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Dueling with Depression: Meditate on This

Dueling with Depression: Meditate on This

I close my eyes and wrap my hands around a set of headphones secured tightly around my head. I listen to the singing of birds and the relaxing rush of a mountain stream, visualizing the running water as it’s gently meandering its way around a few steadfast boulders.

Then a female’s voice begins to speak, asking me (very politely) to place my palms on my thighs and focus on the sensation of my back against the chair. “Let any tension dissolve away,” she says when I suddenly remember I need to renew the tags for my truck by the end of the week.

“Become mindful of your own breathing.” Crap! I have to get an emissions test, first. Where the hell is that place? “Focus on your hands and your feet.” And what’s the deadline for my next article? “Now focus on your entire body.” Crap! The damn deadline’s tomorrow, isn’t it? I should get started right away. “You are alive and present in the moment.” How much longer does this lady ramble on about meditation?

This happens almost every time. My brain refuses to shut off, no matter how politely the nice lady asks it. And when depression is suffocating my mind with its tentacles, the very nice lady’s voice is drowned out by a blitzkrieg of existential dread: Your article’s going to suck. No one really loves you. Suicide would fix all your problems.

What’s more frustrating is that I’m told over and over that meditation is not only helpful, but a cure for depression.

What!? There’s an actual cure!? Meditation is the vaccine to this life-crippling, mental-health crisis that kills over 42,700 Americans every year?! That’s almost five suicides an hour we could stop with the nice lady’s voice! Someone call the Pope, it’s a miracle!

Such grandiose claims smack of subterfuge. I’ve mentioned before I’m a bit of a skeptic, adhering to the maxim made famous by the late Carl Sagan: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” (We miss you, Carl.)

That’s not to say there isn’t scientific evidence supporting the more nuanced claim that meditation is effective in bolstering mental health. The Journal of the American Medical Association published a paper in 2014 examining the results of 47 different meditation trials with over 3,500 participants who suffered from anxiety and/or depression.

“Clinicians should be aware that meditation programs can result in small to moderate reductions of multiple negative dimensions of psychological stress,” the study reads.

However, the article acknowledges the potential biases of the participants and adds that there’s no evidence to support any claim that mediation works better than other treatments such as anti-depressants or exercise.

Regardless, it’s encouraging to hear that for some, meditation can be just as effective as medication — without those pesky side effects. And there are plenty of websites that offer free, guided meditation — without those pesky demands for money in exchange for fabricated happiness (that’s what alcohol is for).

And I’m willing to admit that meditation is a skill I need to sharpen in order to slice away those tentacles of depression so deeply embedded in my brain. Practice makes perfect, right? I’ll push aside my own trepidations and give meditation another try.

“Let any tension dissolve away.” Crap! I need to finish this damn article before the deadline.

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