The Benefits of Mindfulness When Thinking About Past Events



As much as reminiscing about memories of past events can bring us joy and contentment, thinking about our past can also bring up thoughts and emotions that can be difficult to handle. This is especially true for people who are currently suffering from depression or who have suffered from depression in the past.

In our study, people with a history of depression reported on several different strategies to regulate or manage their emotions in response to memories of past events that spontaneously popped up in their mind in everyday life and memories that they intentionally thought about in response to word cues. This included both strategies that may exaggerate negative emotions and strategies that tend to have more beneficial effects on mood and emotions.

The less-beneficial strategies that they reported on included trying to avoid thinking about past events, thinking about past events in an evaluative and judgmental way, and trying to suppress emotions when thinking of past events. The more-beneficial strategies included changing the way they thought about the situation and being able to think about the memories without having to react to the thoughts and feelings.

1. Engaging in online mindfulness practice increased the use of beneficial emotion-regulation strategies.

Participants who engaged in the online mindfulness program showed increased use of beneficial emotion-regulation strategies when thinking about memories of past events. This emotion-regulation strategy often has beneficial effects on mood. Therefore, an increased use of cognitive reappraisal to handle memories of past events that come to mind spontaneously in everyday life has the potential to reduce negative mood or feelings in the daily lives of people with a history of depression.

2. Engaging in online mindfulness practice did not change the use of less-beneficial emotion-regulation strategies.

While the online mindfulness program did increase the use of beneficial emotion-regulation strategies in response to memories of past events, it did not have an observable effect on the use of less-beneficial emotion-regulation strategies. One possible reason for this is that participants may not have engaged in sufficient mindfulness training for it to reduce their use of less-beneficial emotion-regulation strategies.

3. Engaging in at least four weeks of the mindfulness program led to a reduction in depression symptoms.

Those who engaged in at least four weeks of the mindfulness program showed additional beneficial effects of practicing mindfulness. This included further increases in the use of beneficial emotion-regulation strategies and a substantial reduction in depression symptoms. This shows that with sufficient mindfulness practice, people with a history of depression may both become better able to handle memories of past events and experience less depressed mood.

These findings provide promise for finding ways to help people with a depression history handle memories of past events, reduce negative mood in their everyday lives, and potentially protect against future episodes of depression.

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#Mindfulness #Deperession #Psychology