How It Works, Tips, Expert Insights

I don’t know about you but I initially found meditation incredibly difficult to understand. I have a physical disability and multiple mental health conditions, including depression and an anxiety disorder. Even my physical disability, cerebral palsy, is inherently tied to my brain. Some days, to call me a mess is an understatement, but at least my brain damage is visible on a scan. In my mid-20s through five-ish years ago—meditation as a treatment option seemed not just sensible, but inevitable. If everyone else was doing it—even on the Canadian prairies where I live—why wasn’t I?

However, when I was first asked to try mindfulness meditation, I was at a loss. What do you mean you want me to sit here, and imagine the traffic floating by, and contemplate my thoughts without getting into those imaginary cars? What if I wanted to get into one of those cars? What if they were going somewhere cool? What if the vehicle was self-driving? What if they were going to San Francisco? I’d love to go to San Francisco. Sometimes, my mind would float away to my to-do list, or my day job at the time working at an arts non-profit, or the weather, or anything but the calmness I was supposed to focus on.

I eventually did find a mindfulness practice that worked for me, yoga nidra, but that was after many months of trial and error. Here’s hoping this article can help you find a meditation practice for your mental health a little smoother and easier. 

How Meditation Can Help With Depression

The causes of depression are complicated and not fully understood, Some point to genetics, others to physiology, and factors such as stress and anxiety. Brent Nelson, MD, an interventional psychiatrist and the chief medical officer at PrairieCare, says that for him, the focus on the brain is a helpful framework to understand how meditation can help with depression.

“The brain has 100 billion neurons with 100 trillion connections, so it’s very complicated,” Nelson says. “And the cause of depression is still yet to be fully understood, but we know it’s a complex process. It’s often interleaved with other things such as anxiety or trauma, and really, for a lot of people, is a function of stress meeting, maybe, an underlying genetic predisposition.”

Nelson tells Verywell Mind that he often starts patients with mindfulness meditations.

“A lot of times we will start with mindfulness meditation because what it really can let people do is get their brain to be more connected, kind of in the moment, in the here and now, and less so in the distant past or anxiety over the future, which often can be a challenge in depression,” he adds.

Julie Potiker, a certified mindful self-compassion teacher of the UCSD’s Center for Mindfulness believes that meditation is a key reason why she was able to recover from her bouts with depression.

“It’s not at all like loosey-goosey or woo woo, or anything like that… I used to be a clinically depressed person, and I used to take antidepressants, and I had postpartum depression, so I’m really a poster child for this…Mindful self-compassion, that’s what I leaned into, and that’s why I became a teacher of it, and then that’s why I became certified in it,” she says.

How to Get Started

Potiker, who tends to focus initially on a loving-kindness meditation, says that zeroing in on self-compassion and gratitude can be especially valuable for those facing depression, in her experience. In terms of getting started, her recent advice to someone she supports—rather than building up meditation to be a big burdensome practice—was to start small. 

“I talked to her about little micro-moments, trying to do it once an hour,” Potiker explains. “Where you either look out the window or you take a walk, or you play one of your favorite songs, or something that makes your body feel good, and you enrich it and absorb it for moments, I don’t mean minutes, and you just really feel because it just folds right into gratitude.”

What Types of Meditation Work Best

A 2015 analysis looked at seven different meditation techniques and their effectiveness. Those included:

Nelson says that, when in doubt, patients should refer back to the medical professionals supporting them. He says this can include asking your care team about local resources, including regional centers tied to local universities that are studying and implementing meditation strategies for those with mental health disorders.

“It’s always going back to your treatment team, and having a multi-specialty treatment team that can really look at this particular unique individual from a few different perspectives and help give good, reliable guidance,” Nelson adds.

Tips for Meditation Success

Meditation can help mitigate depression symptoms when used in conjunction with a professional treatment plan. Here are some tips to get the most out of your practice:

• Speak to a professional: Meditation is only a smaller part of a broader care plan including medication, therapy, and lifestyle changes. Make sure you are working with an accredited and recommended practitioner.
• Focus on something you can sustain: You don’t need to have a perfect meditation practice and it may take time to find the right type of meditation that works for you.
• Make sure you’re in a safe space: If you’re triggered by the type of meditation you are doing, and if you feel unsafe, find a way to self-regulate. This might look like leaving the session, getting a drink of water, or trying an entirely different type of meditation.