"It does suggest that both treatments are helpful, and about equally so," says Michael Mrazek, a research associate professor at the University of Texas, Austin and the co-founder of the Center for Mindfulness & Human Potential at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Researchers and clinicians who treat anxiety praised the study. The new study provides another piece of evidence of the potential of the approach. MBSR is widely used to reduce stress among health care professionals and in clinical settings and has been studied as an intervention for pain, depression and several other conditions. "When the thought comes up, then the person can learn to experience that as just a thought, not the truth or anything that needs to be acted on," she says, and that can calm anxiety. "Somebody with anxiety tends to worry about bad things that may happen, like failing an exam," she says. It suggests a way to look at their negative thoughts with less judgment, explains Hoge. It teaches students to focus on the breath and direct attention to one body part at a time to see how it feels, and encourages them to try to focus on what is happening now, rather than the past or the future. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR, the technique taught in the study, was developed more than 40 years ago by Jon Kabat-Zinn and is based on the principles of meditation established in Buddhist vipassana meditation. She says her intent is to add new treatment options, and ultimately, provide evidence that would get insurance companies to cover mindfulness-based interventions for anxiety. Hoge notes that she's not suggesting that meditation replace escitalopram - she herself prescribes the drug regularly to her anxiety patients. "The fact that we found them to be equal is amazing because now that opens up a whole new potential type of treatment," says study author Elizabeth Hoge, director of the Anxiety Disorders Research Program at Georgetown University Medical Center.
The study participants who took the drugs and those who participated in the meditation program were evaluated at the end of eight weeks using the same clinical scale, and both groups showed about a 20% reduction in the severity of their symptoms.
Life Kit Stressed? Instead of distracting yourself, try paying closer attention One group received a 10 to 20 mg daily dose of Lexapro – a standard beginning dose. Researchers took 276 adults diagnosed with untreated anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety, panic disorder, or social anxiety, and split them into two randomized groups. The study was published in JAMA Psychiatry on Wednesday, and the research began long before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, when it could still be conducted in person. (Talk therapy, another effective treatment for anxiety for some people, was not addressed in this study.) They found that both interventions worked equally well in reducing debilitating anxiety symptoms. Meditation is a well known method of calming anxiety, but now there's new evidence showing it to be effective at managing anxiety.įor the first time, scientists compared patients who took an intensive eight-week mindfulness meditation program to patients who took escitalopram, the generic name of the widely-prescribed and well-studied anxiety drug Lexapro. Many people get relief using psychiatric medications, but finding the treatment that works best is an individual journey, and some look to find additional ways of coping with their symptoms. A new study on anxiety in JAMA Psychiatry shows a mindfulness program works as well as the popular anti-anxiety medication Lexapro.Īnxiety symptoms like restlessness, feelings of worry and dread, and sleep problems, can interfere with daily life, relationships and career goals.
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