Meditation improves cancer outcome

A study has revealed that creative meditation can incite better responses and outcomes in cancer patients. A new study in the health journal Stress and Health follows The Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine’s experimentation in combining creative art mediation therapy with a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program for women with breast cancer. Results showed changes in brain activity associated with lower stress and anxiety after the eight-week program. Lead author on the study Daniel Monti and his research colleagues have previously published reports on the success of “Mindfulness-based Art Therapy” (MBAT) at helping cancer patients lower stress levels and improve quality of life.  "This type of expressive art and meditation program has never before been studied for physiological impact and the correlation of that impact to improvements in stress and anxiety," Monti explained to Medical News Today. Patients were randomly assigned to the MBAT program, or an education program control group. All had been diagnosed with breast cancer between six months and three years prior and were not in active treatment. The MBAT group followed a MBSR curriculum (awareness of breathing, awareness of emotion, mindful yoga, walking, eating and listening), paired with expressive art tasks to provide opportunities for self-expression and provide a way for participants to express emotional information in a personally meaningful manner. Participants in the MBAT group demonstrated significant changes in cerebral blood flow compared with the control group. The MBAT group also displayed increases in the emotional centers of the brain including the left insula which helps us to perceive our emotions, the amygdala which helps us experience stress, the hippocampus which regulates stress responses, and the caudate nucleus, part of our brain's reward system. These increases correlated significantly with a lowering of stress and anxiety, and were reflected in the results of the pre and post-program anxiety questionnaires undertaken by the MBAT intervention group. The psychological and neuropsychological changes seen in this study are consistent with current literature that suggests that MBSR interventions reduce anxiety, depression and psychological distress. These have been associated with improved immune function, quality of life and coping effectiveness in women with breast cancer. "With the sample size enlarged, perhaps we can extrapolate these results to other disease populations and gain a fuller understanding of the physiological mechanisms by which mindfulness practices confer psychological benefits," said Monti.