A new study suggests that if you’ve struggled with depression, a certain type of meditation might help improve your memory.
The meditation encourages you to be kind to yourself and others. The results were published in PLOS ONE, a well-known journal.
What is Autobiographic Memory?
Autobiographic memory is about remembering personal events. It’s a key part of our lives, helping us understand who we are, manage our emotions, and solve problems.
Some studies have shown that people who have had depression might have trouble with this type of memory.
The Study and Its Participants
The study was done by Amanda Lathan and Barbara Dritschel from the University of St. Andrews in the UK. They worked with 50 students who had a history of depression.
The students had to write about personal memories based on certain words. Then, they were divided into two groups.
The Two Groups
The first group, or the “control group,” had 25 students. They colored a digital picture every day. Coloring has been found to help lower anxiety.
The second group also had 25 students. They did a 10-minute meditation every day. The meditation made them think about different people and repeated a mantra about happiness, health, kindness, and peace.
Results After Four Weeks
After four weeks, the meditation group showed more improvement in remembering specific memories than the coloring group.
Over time, they could remember more specifics and spent less time thinking negative thoughts. Both groups showed improvement in recalling positive memories. However, it wasn’t clear how the meditation affected memories from long ago.
Conclusion from the Authors
The authors think that meditation focused on kindness and self-compassion could help improve autobiographic memory. It could make memories more specific and positive for people with a history of depression.
They add that the kindness meditation could improve memory retrieval, which could lower the chance of future depression. The meditation could also help when memories trigger negative thinking.
In simple terms, being kind to yourself and others through meditation could help you remember more and stay positive, especially if you’ve had depression before.
If you care about mental health, please read studies about 6 foods you can eat to improve mental health, and B vitamins could help prevent depression and anxiety.
For more information about mental health, please see recent studies about how dairy foods may influence depression risk, and results showing Omega-3 fats may help reduce depression.
The study was published in PLoS ONE.
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