Mindfulness for Depression: Techniques & Tips

Mindfulness for Depression

Many people suffering with depression are plagued with negative thoughts about themselves and their relationships with others. This persistent dwelling on negative thoughts is called rumination, and there is evidence it prolongs depression.⁵ Mindfulness for depression can counteract rumination by supporting a focus only on the present moment, not past events or future worries. Engaging in mindfulness activities like meditation for depression allows us to acknowledge and disengage from negative thoughts.

Does Mindfulness for Depression Really Work?

Evidence of the effectiveness of mindfulness-based practices has been reported for multiple concerns, but its effectiveness in reducing symptoms of depression has shown the most consistent results.⁶ Mindfulness exercises for depression have been found to affect front-limbic networks of the brain that support emotion regulation and reduce stress.⁷ Further, default networks in the brain can be altered so that present-moment awareness and self-referential processing can be influenced in such a way that depressive symptoms are lessened.⁷

Mindfulness Techniques for Depression

Mindfulness techniques are not only effective in decreasing symptoms of depression, they can be practiced anywhere. Mindfulness can support focus on the present as well as enhance emotion regulation. Mindfulness practices are indeed practices, however, and they must be used consistently to prevent depression relapse.⁸

Here are nine mindfulness exercises for depression:

1. Mindful Breathing

Mindful breathing is a technique designed to bring awareness to the physical act of breathing in and breathing out. By focusing on the breath, a person is able to anchor their mind and let go of negative ruminations or other thoughts that contribute to or reinforce a depressed mood. You can simply follow your natural breathing or engage in a more intentional breathing practice.

2. Body Scan Meditation

Body scan meditations encourage you to focus on what you are feeling in your body physically, rather than just focusing on your thoughts. It’s a mindfulness meditation for depression that involves mentally scanning the body to cultivate awareness of physical sensations and promote relaxation. Beginning with your attention at your feet or head, move your awareness throughout your body, noticing how each part of your body is feeling.

3. Mindful Walking

Similar to mindful breathing, mindful walking can be accomplished just by raising your awareness. Mindful walks can be structured as walking meditations in which you focus on the sensations of walking and the environment that surrounds you. Mindful walking will focus your thoughts on how your feet hit the ground, how your body moves, and the sights, sounds, and scents around you.

4. Loving-Kindness Meditation

Loving-kindness meditation encourages feelings of acceptance, compassion, and love towards oneself and others to combat negative self-talk and isolation. The focus moves your attention outwardly from the self. You focus on cultivating loving-kindness to yourself, to friends, to strangers, to individuals who create hardship or distress for you, to every living creature on the planet.

5. Mindful Eating

Similar to mindful walking, this mindful eating meditation engages your mind and your senses in a focused activity. Choose a compact food item that you enjoy. It can be a raisin, a piece of chocolate, whatever you prefer. Observe it with your eyes—color, shape, size, whatever you notice. Pick it up and experience it through your tactile senses. Smell it. Shake it or scratch it—does it make noise? Then bite into it—what do you notice? The consistency? The taste? Slowly consume it using all of your senses.

6. Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Similar to a body scan, in this practice you combine awareness with intentional relaxation. In progressive muscle relaxation, you focus your attention on your feet; then intentionally feel them relaxing. Move up your legs, into your torso, chest, arms, neck, jaw, and brow. As you bring your awareness to each part of your body, notice how it’s feeling, then intentionally relax whatever tension it’s holding.

7. Practice Letting Thoughts Go

This meditation involves sitting quietly and comfortably with your eyes closed. As your focus moves inward, begin to notice the thoughts that are running through your head. Take a moment to notice a thought or a feeling; acknowledge its presence; then imagine it floating off like a cloud through the sky. Practice letting these go to avoid detrimental rumination.

8. The RAIN Therapy Technique

Tara Birch developed the RAIN practice.⁹ The RAIN therapy technique  is designed to help you develop compassion for yourself. It involves four steps.

Steps of the RAIN practice include:

1. Recognizing what is happening around you
2. Allowing things to be just as they are
3. Investigating the experience with interest and care
4. Nurturing yourself with compassion

Then, just be still and experience the feelings that the practice stirred.

9. Five Senses Meditation

In the five senses meditation, or 5-4-3-2-1 meditation, mental focus is directed to what your senses are picking up in the space around you. You begin by quieting the mind and letting go of negative thoughts. Then, focus on 5 things you can see; four things you can feel—like the texture of your clothing, the arms of the chair you’re sitting in, etc.; three things you can hear; two things you can smell, like a scent from outside or the scent of a candle; and one thing you can taste—like a sip of tea or water, or a mint or bite of food at hand.

Mindfulness-Based Therapy for Depression

One of the most challenging aspects of depression is the tendency to ruminate on negative thoughts. This type of thinking can become ingrained and further intensify feelings of hopelessness and low self-worth. Training the brain to focus on the present moment, through the addition of mindfulness practice combined with depression therapy, can help diminish negative thinking.

Some mindfulness-based therapy options for depression include:

• Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR): MBSR is the original mindfulness program that was developed in 1979 by Jon Kabat-Zinn.¹⁰ It was developed to support individuals dealing with medical issues by supporting enhanced self-awareness and responding more effectively to stress.
• Mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy (MBCT): MBCT is based on principles of MBSR, but it was specifically designed to treat depression. The training focuses on addressing negative thinking and depressed mood early in the training and helps prevent depression relapses.
• Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT): ACT for depression has been shown to be effective through the development of greater psychological flexibility.¹⁰ Psychological flexibility helps people cope with a world that is unpredictable and with symptoms of depression by simply accepting them and committing yourself to choosing to live a full and meaningful life regardless.

How to Incorporate Mindfulness Techniques for Depression Into Your Routine

While mindfulness activities can be extremely helpful in the moment, they also should become a regular practice. By making them part of your daily routine, you are building up your defenses against depression and rumination. An effective way to embed mindfulness exercises for depression into daily life is to find practices that easily fit into your daily routine.

For example, you could start and end your day with a specific mindfulness practice. Perhaps start your day with a body scan or loving-kindness meditation before you even get out of bed. Add an element of mindful walking or mindful eating to your mid-day routine. Including a progressive muscle relaxation to your nighttime routine can help you prepare for a good night’s sleep.

Common Mindfulness Challenges & How to Overcome Them

While mindfulness practices seem simplistic, there are several challenges they pose to mastery. One significant challenge that is often faced is a person’s desire for things to be “different,” whereas mindfulness is designed to help people accept things as they are. While mindfulness for depression is a way to reduce depression symptoms, results will not be immediate. Learning to sit with difficult emotions may be an initial obstacle, but is also a goal of your mindfulness practice.

Basic challenges of integrating mindfulness into your daily routine include:

• Finding time to practice: Building time into your daily routine to overcome this obstacle. Add a few minutes of mindfulness before you get out of bed in the morning, on your lunch break, and or before you go to bed at night.
• Sleepiness: If you find meditating or practicing mindfulness for depression in the afternoon makes you sleepy, try to minimize that obstacle by changing up the time of day you practice.
• Internal or external distractions: When bringing your awareness to the present moment, sometimes internal or external distractions can interfere with the practice. Treat distractions as “new information”, acknowledge it, allow it to become part of the practice, and then release it.

Where to Find Professional Help for Depression

Practicing mindfulness techniques independently may be sufficient to help you manage your depressive symptoms. However, you may want to seek out a therapist to treat your depression if your individual practice is not effective in helping you feel better. Professionally delivered mindfulness-based therapy for depression can be found in virtual or face-to-face settings and in groups or in individual treatment.

You may want to start your search for a therapist by asking family or friends if they have any recommendations if you are aware that they have worked with a therapist. You might also contact training centers and ask for recommendations. Asking for a brief consultation meeting prior to deciding to work with someone can be very helpful. You want to make sure that you feel comfortable with the therapist and that they feel confident that they can help you. An online therapist directory can be a helpful resource as they provide extensive listings of therapists as well as their areas of specialization. Online therapy for depression platforms can also be great options for people who have a hard time leaving the house or who live in more remote areas.