Focus on Yourself to Alleviate Social Pain | Scientific American | 2/19/22

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/focus-on-yourself-to-alleviate-soci/

Many people who suffer the pain, depression and negative health effects associated with social anxiety or loneliness do not respond to common therapy tactics or drugs. Two new studies offer hope from an unlikely source: rather than focusing on your relationships with others, turn inward for relief. Mindfulness meditation—which has been around for well over 2,000 years—has many forms, but an extensive body of research supports the effectiveness of one training program in particular. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is an eight-week program developed in 1979 by a U.S. physician. Initially created to help patients suffering from chronic pain, the program has been found to reduce symptoms of stress, depression and anxiety, even among people with cancer and HIV. In one of the new studies, published in the October 2012 Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 55- to 85-year-old adults were randomized to either receive MBSR or be put on a waiting list for the program.

3 Fun Facts:

1. Mindfulness training teaches people to be fully attentive to their present experience in a nonjudgmental way

2. MBSR reduces negative emotions in people with social anxiety disorder.

3. MBSR also reduced inflammation, the cause of loneliness-related health risks such as heart attack or stroke.