The difference between mindfulness and meditation therapy

Mindfulness is a "state of awareness and trainable ability without judgment of the present moment", while meditation therapy is "a collection of psychological intervention techniques with deliberate attention regulation exercises as the core". The two are the essential difference between "ability/state" and "intervention method". Most of the time, the connection is just that "mindfulness often uses structured meditation as a training carrier".

When I participated in the Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) system training organized by the Shanghai Mental Health Center two years ago, the teacher dropped this issue in the first class. Nearly 80% of the more than 30 students in the audience said that "mindfulness is a type of meditation." Among them was an HR who had been an employee EAP for three years. He said that he gave 15-minute mindfulness meditation classes to his colleagues every day, and by default the two were the same thing.

Tracing back to its roots, the concept of mindfulness originally came from the Eightfold Path of Theravada Buddhism. It is essentially a state that can be used throughout all daily behaviors - you don't have to cross your legs, close your eyes, or find a quiet room. When you wash the dishes, you can clearly feel the temperature of the water flowing through your fingers and the touch of the detergent foam. You are not distracted by thinking about the quarrel with your partner in the morning, nor are you anxious about the report to be submitted in the afternoon. Then you are in a state of mindfulness at the moment, and it has nothing to do with whether you sit and meditate.

The boundaries of meditation therapy are much broader. As long as it is a structured practice that achieves emotional regulation and cognitive adjustment through active control of attention, it can be included in this category. Mindfulness breathing and body scanning that we often see on the market belong to "mindfulness meditation therapy", but there are also a large number of meditation techniques that have nothing to do with mindfulness: such as transcendental meditation, which focuses on quick relaxation, and relies on repeating specific mantras to put the brain into a low-arousal state. ； For example, compassion meditation guides you throughout the process to direct your attention to the kind blessings to yourself and others. ； Even many sleep-aid meditation guides use progressive muscle relaxation + scene imagination. The entire process requires you to follow the guide and "wander" to the seaside or the forest. You are not required to remain "aware" at all. Nature and mindfulness have nothing to do with it.

Regarding the relationship between the two, there have always been different voices in the academic and clinical circles. A study published by Massachusetts General Hospital in the "Journal of Behavioral Medicine" in 2021 showed that for people with mild to moderate anxiety, they only need to deliberately practice "non-judgmental present awareness" for 1 minute each time in fragmented scenes such as commuting, eating, and washing hands 10 times a day for 8 weeks. The reduction in anxiety levels was not significantly different from that of the group that did structured mindfulness meditation three times a week for 30 minutes each time. This is why many mindfulness counselors do not require visitors to do meditation exercises. After all, mindfulness is the core goal and meditation is just an optional tool. However, many clinical practitioners of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) believe that for clients whose attention is severely distracted and whose anxiety levels are so high that they cannot control their ruminations, it is simply unrealistic to directly ask them to find a state of mindfulness in daily life. They must first use structured meditation exercises as a "scaffolding" and practice the ability to anchor attention on breathing before they can slowly transfer mindfulness into life.

A typical interview I received from an Internet operator was that she suffered from severe insomnia because she was busy with big sales for three consecutive months. At the beginning, I assigned her 15 minutes of mindful breathing exercises every day. She reported that she couldn't sit still for a week. When she closed her eyes, her mind was full of unfinished plans, and the more she sat, the more annoyed she became. Later, I simply asked her to stop meditating, and just make coffee slowly every morning. Spend 3 minutes feeling the temperature of the coffee cup and smelling the aroma of the coffee. When drinking, I swallowed slowly and felt the heat of the liquid sliding across my throat. There was no need to do anything else. After practicing such a simple practice for 10 days, she reported that her "buzzing" before going to bed was much better, and she fell asleep in less than 20 minutes after lying down. You see, she has not meditated once in the past two weeks, but she is already practicing mindfulness.

To be honest, I was confused when I first came into contact with these two concepts. A few years ago, I followed the trend and bought an annual pass for a certain head meditation APP. I followed the guidance and sat for 20 minutes every day. After sitting for almost a month, I felt that it was of no use. Only later did I realize that when I sat down, all I could think about was, "How many more minutes are left until the end?" Did I not follow what the guide just said? 」, the whole process was about judging whether I was doing well or not, and there was no "non-judgmental awareness" at all. To put it bluntly, I just sat there stupidly for 20 minutes. I neither touched the edge of mindfulness nor achieved the intervention effect of meditation therapy. It was a pure waste of time.

In fact, for ordinary users, there is no need to worry too much about the conceptual boundaries between the two, and there is no need to worry about "whether it is authentic". If you feel that you are relaxed when you sit and meditate, then take some time to sit and meditate every day. ； If you can't sit still, don't check your phone while eating, taste the food, feel the softness of the cat's fur when petting the cat, and listen to the sound of the wind while commuting. These are all solid mindfulness exercises, which are much more useful than forcing yourself to sit for half an hour and lose your mind. After all, whether it is mindfulness or meditation therapy, the core purpose is to help you live more comfortably, not to make you complete one more KPI, right?