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To calm anxiety, researchers find meditation as effective as Lexapro : Shots


A new study on anxiety in JAMA Psychiatric Department showed a mindfulness program that worked as well as the popular anti-anxiety drug Lexapro.

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If you are suffering from anxiety, those negative thoughts and bad feelings can overwhelm you and interfere with your daily life. And while there are effective treatments, some people don’t want to take medication or see a therapist — or don’t respond well to such treatments. Now, there is new evidence that supports another option.

For the first time, scientists compared patients who participated in an eight-week intensive mindfulness meditation program with patients who participated in escitalopram, the generic name of the widely prescribed and well-researched anxiety drug Lexapro. They found that both interventions were equally effective at reducing symptoms of debilitating anxiety.

But don’t throw away the last pill. There are some caveats to run through.

Meditation versus drug study published in JAMA Psychiatric Department on Wednesday, and the study began long before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, when it could still be conducted in person.

Elizabeth Hogedirector of the Anxiety Disorders Research Program at Georgetown University Medical Center, and other researchers wanted to find out if mindfulness might work as well as drugs.

They took 276 adults diagnosed with an untreated anxiety disorder such as generalized anxiety, panic disorder or social anxiety and divided them into two groups at random. One group received 10 to 20 mg of Lexapro daily – the standard starting dose. The other half were assigned weekly two-and-a-half-hour mindfulness classes at a local clinic, 45 minutes of daily meditation homework for eight weeks, as well as a one-day retreat class. around the fifth or sixth week.

The meditation course is called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR, a method developed over 40 years ago by Jon Kabat-Zinn and is based on the meditative principles established in Buddhism insight meditation.

It teaches students to focus on the breath and direct attention to each body part to see how it feels, and encourages them to try to focus on what is happening right now, instead of past or future.

Hoge explains that it suggests a way to look at their negative thoughts with less judgment.

“Some people with anxiety tend to worry about bad things that could happen, like failing an exam,” she says. “When thoughts arise, the person can learn to experience that it’s just a thought, not a fact or anything to deal with,” she says, and that can ease anxiety. settle.

MBSR is widely used to reduce stress among healthcare professionals and in clinical settings, and Has been studied as an intervention to relieve pain, Depression and some other conditions.

Study participants taking medication and those on a meditation program were assessed at the end of eight weeks using the same clinical scale, and both groups showed a reduction in symptom severity. about 20%.

“The fact that we see them as equals now opens up a whole new kind of potential treatment,” says Hoge.

Other researchers and clinicians who treat anxiety have lauded the study for similar reasons.

“It shows that both treatments are helpful and to an equal extent,” Michael MrazekAssociate Professor of Research at the University of Texas, Austin and co-founder of the Center for Mindfulness & Human Potential at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“Importantly, research shows that MBSR can achieve the same results with far fewer side effects,” Mrazek told NPR in an email. Side effects of escitalopram include suicidal ideation in severe cases, but more commonly diarrhea, loss of libido or sex drive, nausea, and constipation.

Although many participants in the study’s drug group had side effects such as trouble sleeping and nausea, no patients in either group left the trial because of side effects.

Joy Harden BradfordAn Atlanta-based psychologist who hosts the podcast Therapy for Black Girls, says she’s “surprised but not shocked” when the meditation treatment works like medicine and is delighted that a new treatment may be more widely available.

Harden Bradford warns: “What I don’t want to happen is that people use drugs against mindfulness-based resources. For example, someone experiencing panic attacks can get relief from those attacks much faster with escitalopram, rather than waiting weeks for a pause in meditation practice, she says.

Hoge, who prescribes the drug regularly for her anxious patients, says her aim is not to replace escitalopram, but to add new treatment options. Her goal is to get insurance companies to cover mindfulness-based interventions for anxiety.

There are shortcomings to the study. First, the majority of participants were single, white, well-educated women with full-time jobs. “Not everyone can clock at 5 o’clock to arrive at 6 [meditation] Harden Bradford noted.

However, women have higher rate anxiety disorders than men. And “there are many existing evidence Mrazek says that MBSR can benefit a wide range of audiences, so there’s not much reason to doubt the generalizability.

Also MBSR is very intense. Many people may not have the time or money to join an eight-week guided program, and scrolling through meditation apps or trying a free course at the YMCA isn’t exactly comparable.

Meditation is a skill that takes time and dedication and practice. “If you want to take it seriously, you have to have a teacher,” says Hoge.

It was also notable that adherence to the treatments was longer in the participants taking Lexapro compared with those who meditated. At week 24, only 28% of the MBSR group still meditated daily, compared with 52% taking the medication.

Hoge is drawing on her research to determine if using online guided meditation can help reduce anxiety, although she emphasizes the value of learning meditation in a classroom.

“I really don’t think apps will offer the same benefits as face-to-face training. … The benefit of having a meditation teacher is that you can ask questions,” Hoge said.

Still, “giving people something is better than nothing,” says Harden Bradford.

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