Which is better, mindfulness or meditation therapy?

In fact, there is no absolute superiority or inferiority. The core depends on your current needs and suitability. Many people confuse the relationship between the two when they first come into contact with it. In fact, mindfulness is originally a branch of meditation therapy. What we often call conventional meditation now also includes concentration meditation, compassion meditation, transcendental meditation and many other categories.

Last month, I met a girl who worked as a content operator in a large factory. After three consecutive weeks of big sales, she collapsed. She couldn't sleep while lying down, and couldn't sit still. She followed an online meditation blogger for a week of "clearing her brain" exercises, and the more she practiced, the more irritable she became. She sat there for half an hour, and her mind was filled with collaborations with misaligned experts and unfinished detail pages. The more she forced herself not to think about it, the more anxious she became. Finally, she cried and said that she couldn't even learn meditation. It was so useless. Later, I adjusted her to a three-minute mindful breathing exercise. She didn’t need to find a quiet place or force herself to be empty. She could do it even at her work station or in the subway. She just paid attention to the breathing at the tip of her nose. When her thoughts drifted to work, she didn’t need to scold herself, she just pulled her back gently. After practicing for five days, she told me that she was finally able to sleep for six hours.

There are also different voices in the circle. Many teachers who have practiced traditional meditation for 20 or 30 years feel that the popular mindfulness nowadays is too "instrumental" and is essentially an "emotional painkiller" to help people relieve stress. It has lost the core of meditation's original inward exploration and pursuit of mental growth, and cannot help people solve deeper inner problems. This actually makes sense. I have met many clients who have emerged from states of acute anxiety and depression. When they later want to sort out their intimate relationship patterns and childhood complexes, the role of mindfulness is indeed limited. If you switch to guided inner exploration meditation, you can often dig deeper.

It sounds like you choose sports. Mindfulness is like brisk walking or jogging. Regardless of whether you have any exercise background, you can just wear a pair of shoes when you go out. It has an immediate effect on improving sub-health and relieving daily fatigue. It is also less prone to sports injuries. Corresponding to psychological adjustment, it is the most evidence-based and currently the mainstream mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy. (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) are supported by decades of clinical data. They have clear effects on daily stress relief, anxiety and depression adjustment, and even auxiliary treatment of chronic diseases for the general population. The threshold is also low. You don’t need to set aside a long period of time or find an absolutely quiet space. You can practice it anytime and anywhere. Other meditation therapies in a broader sense are more like advanced programs such as weight lifting and aerial yoga. If you have a clear need for self-exploration and are guided by a professional guide, they can help you achieve deeper inner growth and even achieve cognitive improvements. However, if you blindly follow the fragmented content on the Internet, you may run into problems - there have been clients with unprocessed trauma who did so-called "inner child meditation" at home, which directly triggered a trauma response and sent them to the hospital for a panic attack.

I have been doing clinical psychological intervention for almost seven years. I have seen mothers of two children overcome postpartum depression through an eight-week mindfulness course. I have also seen entrepreneurs who persisted in traditional meditation practice for a year and finally reached reconciliation with their deceased father. If you really want to decide which is better, there is no need to get entangled. First, look at what you need most at the moment. If you just want to relieve the recent overtime pressure and adjust your sleep, then it is right to start with mindfulness.； If you have dealt with the current emotional distress and want to go deeper, it is perfectly time to try other types of meditation.