An experienced psychiatrist, Dr. Sridhar Yaratha caters to adults with chronic mental illnesses at Gateway Homes, a Chesterfield, Virginia-based provider of mental health services in a residential environment. In addition to his clinical practice, Dr. Sridhar Yaratha has delivered multiple lectures and seminars, including on elderly depression.
Harvard Medical School’s consumer health education division reports that depression continues to be a critical health issue among the elder and affects about 20 percent of people 65 years of age or above. While antidepressants and psychotherapy are the go-to depression treatments, ongoing research has indicated that regular meditation can also ease depression, including in the following three ways:
1. Helps ignore stress and anxiety
Scientists have associated depression with the joined hyperactivity of two brain regions: the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), also called the “me center,” and the amygdala or the “fear center.” The first processes information about oneself, including worries and stress about the future and the past. The latter serves as a defense mechanism against fear and perceived danger. Research has demonstrated that meditation facilitates breaking the connection between the mPFC and the amygdala. Thus, it enables people to ignore such negative sensations and major triggers of depression as stress and anxiety.
2. Improves memory
Meditation also helps to protect another area of the brain involved in memory: the hippocampus. Research has shown that the hippocampus of people with recurrent depression is smaller. Another study found that people who meditated daily for half an hour for eight weeks succeeded in increasing the volume of gray matter in their hippocampus.
3. Shifts thinking
Meditation is not about evading stress or blocking out negative thinking but about noticing them and understanding that no action is needed. People can close their eyes and repeat a certain phrase or word or count their breaths. Doing so allows them to distance themselves from the negative thoughts and stressful feelings and realize that while they may affect them, they are not them.
Harvard Medical School’s consumer health education division reports that depression continues to be a critical health issue among the elder and affects about 20 percent of people 65 years of age or above. While antidepressants and psychotherapy are the go-to depression treatments, ongoing research has indicated that regular meditation can also ease depression, including in the following three ways:
1. Helps ignore stress and anxiety
Scientists have associated depression with the joined hyperactivity of two brain regions: the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), also called the “me center,” and the amygdala or the “fear center.” The first processes information about oneself, including worries and stress about the future and the past. The latter serves as a defense mechanism against fear and perceived danger. Research has demonstrated that meditation facilitates breaking the connection between the mPFC and the amygdala. Thus, it enables people to ignore such negative sensations and major triggers of depression as stress and anxiety.
2. Improves memory
Meditation also helps to protect another area of the brain involved in memory: the hippocampus. Research has shown that the hippocampus of people with recurrent depression is smaller. Another study found that people who meditated daily for half an hour for eight weeks succeeded in increasing the volume of gray matter in their hippocampus.
3. Shifts thinking
Meditation is not about evading stress or blocking out negative thinking but about noticing them and understanding that no action is needed. People can close their eyes and repeat a certain phrase or word or count their breaths. Doing so allows them to distance themselves from the negative thoughts and stressful feelings and realize that while they may affect them, they are not them.
