Mindfulness meditation, according to a team of researchers at Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Medicine, does alleviate such worries. The study’s findings demonstrate alterations in the activity of brain areas associated with anxiety

Unfortunately, many family members, acquaintances, and ce­lebrities have suffered from an­orexia nervosa, or AN, a severe mental condition characterised by excessive worries about weight, form, and self-esteem. An eating disorder, dietary re­striction, purposeful vomiting, and acute emaciation are all symptoms of AN.

Mindfulness meditation has already become a widely accepted treatment for AN. Its usefulness in clinically treating neurogenic emaciation, on the other hand, had not before been investigated.

Mindfulness meditation

Mindfulness meditation, ac­cording to a team of research­ers at Kyoto University’s Grad­uate School of Medicine, does alleviate such worries. The study’s findings demonstrate al­terations in the activity of brain areas associated with anxiety.

The team’s mindfulness meditation program has seen a significant decrease in ob­sessive thoughts about the test subject’s self-image and brain activity associated with related emotions.

“Our results suggest that the participants in the study be­came better at accepting their anxiety as it is,” says lead au­thor Tomomi Noda.

Mindfulness and medita­tion work hand-in-hand. The former teaches practitioners to hone their awareness of their present experience and their ability to not judge and rather accept their circumstances. The latter is the medium by which mindfulness can be approached.

“We focused on the possi­bility that patients with AN try to avoid their crippling anxiety about weight gain and self-im­age by restricting food or vom­iting,” adds co-author Masanori Isobe.

Mindfulness intervention program

A 4-week mindfulness in­tervention program examined neural changes using tasks designed to induce weight-re­lated anxiety. The researchers then regulated this anxiety by helping patients accept their current situations and experi­ences at face value, instead of avoiding them.

The researchers used func­tional magnetic resonance im­aging -- or fMRI -- to analyze attention regulation in relation to eating disorders. The study’s results support the subjective experiences of the researchers. However, it was unexpected to them that several global events, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian war, were significant factors in pa­tients’ anxieties.

“We anticipate practical implications of our results in clinical psychiatry and psychol­ogy and broader research into mitigating suffering through mindfulness, using the strategy of self-acceptance to regulate attention,” concludes group leader Toshiya Murai.

SOURCE: ANI