Self-Management of Depression

What is Mindfulness? If your notion of mindfulness is a practice starting with a phrase like, "Take a deep breath and close your eyes," then you have mostly bought into the myth that the only effective way of practicing mindfulness is guided meditation .  However, if you know what mindfulness entails, you can incorporate it in your daily routine in an informal way without relying on popular apps that have commercialized a practice known to humans for thousands of years.  Mindfulness-based interventions are well-validated treatment approaches that not only promote well-being and resilience but also have been found to be effective in anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and substance use disorders (Wielgosz et al., 2019). Mindfulness has two components: (a) orienting one’s attention purposefully to the present moment, and (b) approaching one’s experience in the present moment with curiosity, openness, and acceptance (Bishop et al., 2004). The state of mindfulness is described as ...