Mindfulness can help people with MS learn to distinguish between actual physical discomfort and the stories they tell themselves about the pain (like “I’ll never feel better”), says Diana Winston, director of mindfulness education at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) and coauthor of the book Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness. Mindfulness can also help improve the anxiety and depression people with the disease may experience, she says. RELATED: Depression, Anxiety, and MS: What’s the Connection?
What Is Mindfulness? It May Not Be What You Think It Is
Mindfulness is simply the act of being continually aware of what is happening in the present moment. This includes your thoughts and feelings and also the sights, sounds, smells, and other inputs you are receiving. Importantly, this attention involves not judging the thoughts and emotions that arise, but rather observing them from a place of dispassion. The practice of mindfulness is based on the idea that your views of an experience determine how your body responds. Changing the way you perceive any difficulties, primarily by distancing your emotions from them, reduces your stress level, affecting your mind and your body.
How Mindfulness Helps in People With Multiple Sclerosis
One of the key ways mindfulness may be helpful to people with MS is by reducing stress, which for many people is associated with more severe MS symptoms. “A mindfulness-based intervention, which targets the multiple components of the body’s stress response, can decrease overall pain severity and increase quality of life,” says Michael Irwin, MD, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California in Los Angeles and the director of MARC. Mindfulness has also been shown to help with other common accompaniments to MS, including sleep disturbances and depression. For example, in one of Dr. Irwin’s studies, published in JAMA Internal Medicine in April 2015, people with moderate insomnia who practiced mindfulness had better sleep quality and, as a result, less depression and fatigue, than a control group.
Research on Mindfulness and MS
People with MS who are the most mindful may also experience less pain. A 2018 study in the International Journal of MS Care asked people with MS to fill out both a mindfulness and a pain questionnaire. Those scoring highest on the mindfulness queries were significantly less likely to have their pain get in the way of their daily life. In fact, the authors note that 26 percent of the variability in pain interference scores could be explained by mindfulness. However, this study did not show cause and effect. That’s to say, it didn’t show that being mindful reduces pain, although it may. A review of three small studies on mindfulness training for people with MS, published in the journal BMC Neurology in 2014, concludes that this training is especially helpful for improving mental health and quality of life. In one study described in the review, which was published in 2010 in the journal Neurology, anxiety, depression, and fatigue improved — and were still better six months later. Importantly, none of the studies showed any adverse effects from this practice. Yet another study, published in BMC Neurology in 2017, tested whether a standard, eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program was feasible and effective for people with MS. Of the 25 people who started the course, most were able to complete it. And those who did reported less anxiety and felt more positive emotions than a control group. No matter your physical challenges, you can practice mindfulness, Winston says, because it can be done whether the body is still or in motion. “If the body is in motion, we can notice the sensations without getting lost in ruminations,” she says. And if you want to do a stationary practice, you can do it sitting up or lying down.
Options for Taking an MBSR Course
The classic MBSR program was pioneered by the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Mindfulness in Shrewsbury. It is offered there, as well as by MBSR-certified trainers around the world or live online. This is an eight-week program, with classes two and a half hours a week plus one all-day class on a weekend. There is also extensive homework. Information about the course in Shrewsbury or online can be found on the center’s website. To find a certified MBSR program near you, search the center’s database using your city or ZIP code. These courses are expensive, running as high as $725, but tuition assistance is available to people with household incomes below $75,000. UCLA’s MARC runs a similar but much less expensive course called Mindful Awareness Practices, in Southern California. Its classes run six weeks for two hours weekly (plus mindfulness homework) and costs $200. A similar version of the program is offered online by MARC. Although the online course is self-paced, the prerecorded lessons are expected to be viewed during a specific time frame because they are supplemented by optional weekly live chats with the instructors and other participants. Find information on these programs on MARC’s website.
Other Options for Learning More About Mindfulness
Many books, downloads, and websites can allow you to try a mindfulness practice without a steep investment of money and time. Leading books on the topic include:
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, founder of the MBSR program. The paperback is available for less than $16.
The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh. This classic, by a renowned Zen master, teaches mindfulness skills through practical exercises like mindfully washing the dishes or peeling an orange. The paperback sells for around $12.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: The MBSR Program for Enhancing Health and Vitality by Linda Lehrhaupt and Petra Meibert. This book was written by two European experts on MBSR. It is structured like the official eight-week MBSR course, with exercises (body scans, yoga, sitting meditations) and discussions. The paperback is available for $11.
Finally, each week MARC holds a free 30-minute guided mindfulness session at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. These are archived as a podcast that you can download at any time. Each session has a unique theme, such as seeing things as they are or staying present in difficult moments. You can find them for free on MARC’s website or on iTunes.
