There are many factors that might make someone decide to commit suicide – genetic, neurotic, environmental or social. Luckily, trained professionals worldwide are there for anyone struggling with suicidal thoughts. There is no need to suffer. Help is there, one just needs to reach out for it. In this article we look into how and when meditation and mindfulness can help those with suicidal thoughts.
Numerous studies have shown that mindfulness training guided by trained professionals can help those who feel suicidal. It teaches a person to not identify with and create distance from their destructive thinking patterns, emotions and moods. It can help them understand that just like everything else, these too come and go.
However, if the person is too vulnerable or has an episode, mindfulness meditation alone might not be enough – it can even worsen one’s state, because it can be too difficult for the person to sit with and face their intense inner experiences. For this reason, it’s important to ask for help. The treatment plan usually involves cognitive therapy and antidepressant medication as the first steps to take. Afterwards, when the individual is stable enough, they can combine mindfulness training with their therapy to help them manage their symptoms.
To understand better what the difference between mindfulness and meditation is, head over to this article.
The problem of suicide in the modern age
Over the past decade the world has seen a significant rise in suicide rates. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention findings from 2013, suicide is a more frequent cause of death in the U.S. than car accidents. Although the problem of suicide has usually been attributed to adolescents and the elderly, it has been quite surprising to see that the target group which is most endangered is middle-aged men.
The biggest increase in suicide was among men in their 50’s, where the suicide rates soared by 50%. It remains unclear why this happens, but some of the reasons might be economic problems and the fact that the generation of baby boomers simply has too much on their hands – they have to take care of both their elderly as well as their children. Research done at Rutgers shows that the risk of suicide is likely to increase for future generations due to changes in marriage, family roles and social factors such as isolation.
Suicide and Suicidal Thoughts Have Gotten Worse Due to The Global Pandemic
To make things worse, the previously mentioned data comes from the pre-pandemic era! Now things have significantly deteriorated, especially among younger members of the population. Social isolation due to successive lockdowns has brought about a new epidemic of suicidal deaths among the youth, especially from drug overdose. Last year there was a rise in suicide among women in Japan, and mental health experts in Europe have reported an increase in the number of young people with suicidal ideation. During the pandemic one suicide hotline for young people in Britain has had an increase in calls by 25%. For this reason, it’s time to look into how meditation and mindfulness can and can’t alleviate the problem of suicide.
Why mindfulness can help with suicidal thoughts
Psychologists worldwide agree that mindfulness can help patients manage their mental health issues. For depressed, anxious or suicidal people, it enables them to see when an unfortunate episode is coming and to take measures against it. By practicing mindfulness, a person is less likely to identify with their thoughts and/or illness. They can create the mental space inside them needed to recognize their triggers and respond to them kindly and with compassion. Although the symptoms might not completely disappear, mindfulness can lower them by helping the person create a different relationship to them. One becomes more resilient and invested in their own well-being.
Countless studies and research prove that mindfulness is effective in reducing rumination, worry, catastrophizing, depression, negative self-evaluation, anxiety, and suicidality. Additionally, it increase resilience to suicide, emotional regulation, well-being and life satisfaction, self-compassion, and cognitive flexibility.
If you’re struggling with depression, perhaps try the following mudras for a minute or more each day – be consistent. It’s possible that they can help, depending on the severity of your state. And as for anxiety, do take a look and experiment with these breathing exercises. Deep, long breathing is what keeps anxiety at bay through the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, that part of the nervous system in charge of rest and relaxation.
The operating definition of mindfulness is that it’s a state of nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises is observed, recognized and accepted as it is. Let’s split this definition into its key components.
Key Components of Mindfulness
- Mindfulness includes noticing present experiences of body sensations, thoughts, and emotions that come and go. So, when feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness come, a practitioner of mindfulness recognizes them for what they are – just feelings that come and go just like everything else.
- Being non-judgmental about these experiences means letting them be as they are without judging them or reacting to them as good or bad. They just are.
- Mindfulness includes non-identifying with the arising inner experiences. “I am not my depression, I am much more than that.”
- Decentering. Through mindfulness, we take a distance from our inner experiences.
- Mindfulness includes non-reactivity towards these inner experiences.
- Mindfulness involves meta-awareness, which means looking at our inner experiences “from above”, i.e from a higher place of awareness. For example, let’s take a thought such as “My life is not worth living.” Instead of engaging in this kind of thinking, our meta-awareness is that space from which we observe this arising thought and know it for what it is – negative and depressive thinking. Meta-awareness means knowing that I am not worthless, I am merely experiencing the feeling of worthlessness. From a place of meta-awareness, we can investigate this feeling, observe it and not let it control us.
- Self-transcendence. Mindfulness serves to help us transcend ourselves and grasp that our “self” is not permanent; it changes just like everything else. We have many selves: the office self, the hanging-out-with-friends self, the ruminating self, the self in love, the self spending time with family and many many more. They all change and depend on a number of causes and conditions arising at any moment.
Mindfulness and Meditation Have Many Benefits and Has Been Successful in Helping People With Suicidal Thoughts
All of the mentioned components are reasons why mindfulness has been successful in helping people with suicidal thoughts. Through regular practice, ideally under the guidance of a competent therapist, the person with suicidal thoughts can detach from their destructive thought patterns. Then, they can reprogram their brain for a more self-loving self and a more positive future outlook.
Studies Confirm Positive Effects of Mindfulness and Meditation on Suicidal Thoughts
The studies attesting to the powerful effects of mindfulness practices in reducing suicidal tendencies in individuals are too many to count. One study by Har gus et al., (2010) pretested 27 depressed participants who reported having a suicidal crisis. The participants were divided into two groups, a Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy group (MBCT) and a treatment as usual (TAU) group.
After they were retested after three months, the results showed that the MBCT group exhibited higher levels of meta-awareness. They were able to reflect on their previous crises from a new perspective. Consequently, this is likely to prevent similar future crises.
In a study by Collins et al., 2018, participants were tested before and after an eight week long mindfulness course. The findings showed a new zest for life and resilience to suicidal thoughts.
Even a short mindfulness meditation can help. In another study, sixty-four college students with high suicidal tendencies were assigned to either a brief mindfulness meditation (BMM) group or a control group. Most of them completed a pretest, one month of intervention and a posttest. The results showed that the BMM group had a significant decrease in suicidal tendencies.
One study was concerned with spiritual aspects of mindfulness practice. The process of searching for inner wisdom during the mindfulness-based meditation has proved to be highly successful. Participants of the study reported positive experiences related to connecting with their inner knowledge. It was unclear though whether these insights came from a deeper part of oneself. Or, the insights may have come from the person guiding the meditation.
One Study Shows Meditation and Mindfulness to Be Equally Effective As Antidepressants for Treating Suicidal Patients
In another study, meditation was proven to be as effective as antidepressant medications in treating suicidal patients. The researchers from the University of Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health used mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) on one group of participants. The second group received antidepressant therapy. The third group received placebo treatment.
The researchers followed the three groups of patients over the course of 18 months. It turned out that the effects of MBCT and antidepressants were almost the same. The relapse rate for the group treated with antidepressants was 27%, and 28% for the MBCT group.
Word of Caution: When Meditation and Mindfulness Alone Are Not Enough
Although studies confirming positive effects of meditation are far greater in number, there are those that reveal its adverse effects; i.e. participants, some of whom had no previous history of mental health problems, showed feelings of anxiety, depressions and cognitive anomalies. However, it still remains unclear if these negative experiences were simply constitutive elements of the meditative practice and not its negative effects. More research is needed.
Medication Can Be Very Helpful For Those With Severe Depression and Chemical Imbalances in the Brain
One of my meditation teachers, who has had over 40 years of experience teaching meditation, once admitted to us, his students, that when he was younger he was struggling with suicidal thoughts for several years. “All I wanted was to die,” he told us. There was a history of mental health issues in his family that he probably inherited and meditation was not helping him. So, he turned to a psychiatrist who gave him antidepressants and after a while he was his old self and never had this problem again.
Lodro Rinzler, meditation teacher and author of the best-selling book “The Buddha Walks into a Bar,” admitted to having had a similar experience – he was suicidal. He was feeling too low to meditate. Luckily, with the help of his friends, he started going to therapy and taking medications. Soon after he was well enough to go back to meditating.
Meditation and medication do not have to be an either-or choice, it might be best to combine the two. And there are moments when meditation should be avoided altogether. Someone struggling with severe depression (and a clear link between depression and suicidality has been proven) does not have the energy or the mental capacity to sit and breathe through their intense emotions and inner experiences. Moreover, they might feel only worse afterwards. If the person is too vulnerable, direct exposure to the symptoms of their illness during a mindfulness practice can trigger them into feeling even more depressed or suicidal.
So, here is when meditation and mindfulness alone are not enough:
- If there is a chemical imbalance in your brain. This is often the case with suicidal people and here, it’s best do not go it alone. Instead, ask for help from a trained professional and use medications prescribed by them.
- Suicidal people often have what is known as tunnel vision. This means they see life only from one point of view. Often, this view is often pessimistic, hopeless and destructive. Since they are not able to see things clearly and accurately, it might be better to turn to a competent therapist. A trained therapist understands their problem and knows how to help them.
- When struggling with severe levels of depression, it can be hard to sit with one’s thoughts and just let them be. Even worse, it can take one on a downward thought spiral of self-destruction. So, if you are feeling suicidal, it might be best not to meditate but ask for professional help instead. Your treatment will probably consist of antidepressant medication and cognitive therapy. And once your mood is stable, you and your therapist can include mindfulness training.
Since mindfulness is not always efficient, there is a new approach called embodied mindfulness and many have found that it gives better results. Check out this article on embodied mindfulness and how to practice it.
Conclusion:
Your life is the most precious possession you have. Do everything you can to keep it. Asking for professional help is much better than dealing with the problem by yourself. Chemical imbalance in the brain is a real thing and we shouldn’t expect it will miraculously disappear. Although mindfulness practices have proved to be powerful in helping suicidal patients, there is a time and place for everything. Moreover, such studies were all done under the guidance of trained mental health therapists.
Tatjana Glogovac, Senior Contributor At L’Aquila Active
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