Mindfulness Meditation and Aromatherapy to Reduce Stress and Anxiety

Abstract

Coping with symptoms of stress and anxiety is a challenging experience and continues to tax the resources and limits of modern conventional health care. In the past 25–30 years, western medical science has turned increasing attention to the psychological and physical correlates of meditation, with mindfulness becoming quite popular in recent years. An extensive literature review was performed; the majority of articles were rated at level ll evidence based on a scale of l–Vll (l being the best evidence). Findings of the literature review support the evidence-based practice project of using mindfulness meditation as an intervention to reduce both stress and anxiety levels ( Lee et al., 2007 Lee S.H. Ahn S.C. Lee Y.J. Choi T.K. Yook K.H. Suh S.Y. Effectiveness of a meditation-based management program as an adjunct to pharmacotherapy in patients with anxiety disorder. Journal of Psychosomatic Research. 2007; 62: 189-195 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (73) Google Scholar , Leite et al., 2010 Leite J.R. De Moraes Ornellas F.L. Amemiya T.M. De Almeida A.A. Dias A.A. Afonso R. et al. Effect of progressive self-focus meditation on attention, anxiety, and depression scores. Perceptual and Motor Skills. 2010; 110: 840-848 Crossref PubMed Scopus (19) Google Scholar , Malini et al., 2011 Malini Srivastava Uddip Talukdar Vivek Lahan Meditation for the management of adjustment disorder, anxiety and depression. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice. 2011; 17: 241-250 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (19) Google Scholar , Piet and Esben, 2011 Piet Jacob Esben Hougaard The effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for prevention of relapse in recurrent major depressive disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review. 2011; 31: 1032-1040 Crossref PubMed Scopus (526) Google Scholar , Ramel et al., 2004 Ramel et al. The effect of mindfulness meditation on cognitive processes and affect in patients with past depression. Cognitive Therapy and Research. 2004; 28: 433-455 Crossref Scopus (362) Google Scholar , Schreiner and Malcolm James, 2008 Schreiner Istvan Malcolm James P. The benefits of mindfulness meditation: Changes in emotional states of depression, anxiety and stress. Journal of Psychosomatic Research. 2008; 25: 158-168 Google Scholar , Toneatto and Nguyen, 2007 Toneatto T. Nguyen L. Does mindfulness improve anxiety and mood symptoms? A review of the controlled research. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 2007; : 260-266 PubMed Google Scholar ). There was no prior research using a mindfulness intervention combined with aromatherapy to reduce stress and anxiety for hospitalized psychiatric patients.