Anxiety and Mindfulness

In this article, we discuss some issues in the relationship between anxiety and mindfulness.

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What is anxiety

Anxiety is a common mental disorder present in young people (Bernstein et al., 1989).

Anxiety is among the most frequent disorders in young people and most anxiety disorders originate in childhood (Beesdo & Pine, 2009).

The DSM-5 criteria (Andrews et al., 2010) for generalized anxiety disorder includes the following:

1. restlessless
2. fatigue
3. difficulty in concentrating
4. irritability
5. muscle tension
6. sleep disturbance associated with anxiety or worry that the person finds difficult to control.

Anxiety occurs in a variety of forms including panic disorders and phobias, with young people being especially prone to social anxiety (Garcia & O’Neil, 2021). Anxiety in childhood is associated with later risks of depression, substance abuse and suicidal behaviour (Beesdo & Pine, 2009).

What are some ways to measure anxiety

A variety of measures exist to measure anxiety levels and symptoms across different studies. These include the following:

1. Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV
2. Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale
3. Social Phobia Scale (SPS)
4. Social Interaction Scale (SIAS)
5. Beck Anxiety Inventory
6. Spielberger’s State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAI-C)
7. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory
8. Anxiety subscale of the SCL–90–R
9. Multidimensional anxiety scale (MASC2)
10. Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN)
11. Depression Anxiety Stress Scale 21 (DASS‐21)
12. Youth anxiety measure for DSM-5 or YAM-5 (Muris et al., 2017)

What is mindfulness

Mindfulness refers to purposefully paying attention to whatever arises in our awareness in the present moment, without reacting and non-judgmentally (Kabat-Zinn, 2015).

Elements of mindfulness such as non-judgmentally observing thoughts, sensations and emotions in the present moment have benefits for mental health.

Mindfulness has successfully been used to treat a number of mental health issues including anxiety among adolescents and others (Hofmann et al., 2010).

What are the strengths of mindfulness as a treatment for anxiety

The strengths of mindfulness for anxiety treatment include the following:

1. Aspects of mindfulness including the nonjudgmental aspect and the present moment experience aspect are helpful in contributing to the treatment of anxiety (Cash & Whittingham, 2010).
2. The preventative nature of mindfulness (Steffen & DeBarros, 2017) is one of its strengths.
3. Another strength is the use of mindfulness as a self-management strategy (Khusid & Vythilingam, 2016).
4. Mindfulness is relatively cheaper to administer.
5. Mindfulness treatments can be delivered in a variety of ways, including face to face and remotely on the web (Farris et al., 2021).

What are the different forms of mindfulness interventions

Mindfulness interventions encompass a variety of forms, including the following:

1. Structured forms of mindfulness courses: Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) (Kabat-Zinn, 2003)
2. Structured forms of mindfulness courses: Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) (Segal et al., 2004)
3. Unstructured forms of mindfulness such as Vipassana meditation (Krygier et al., 2013)
4. Online apps based on mindfulness (Duraimani et al., 2019).

Alternative types of anxiety treatments

Interventions for anxiety include mindfulness (Beauchemin et al., 2008), pharmacotherapies and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) (Arch et al., 2013).

Alternative treatments for anxiety include the following:

1. Evidence based therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) (Arch et al., 2013)

2. Pharmacotherapies for anxiety (Koen & Stein, 2022).

What are the weaknesses of mindfulness interventions

However, mindfulness based interventions also suffer from weaknesses, including the following:

1. Expectation bias (Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015)
2. Lack of studies where mindfulness has not worked.
3. Dunning et al. (2018) and Van Dam et al. (2018) have argued that the enthusiasm for mindfulness treatments has gone ahead of the evidence for its efficacy.
4. Mindfulness can amplify traumas and cause adverse events such as anxiety, depression and psychotic symptoms in certain cases (Farias et al., 2020, Farias & Wikholm, 2016, Britton, 2019).
5. Further work is needed to understand the difficulties that children or young adults have in practicing mindfulness, since they might be more prone to being distracted.

Conclusion

In this article, we have briefly discussed what is anxiety and mindfulness and the strengths and weaknesses of mindfulness interventions for anxiety.

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