Trendy mindfulness practices are as effective as medication at alleviating anxiety, a study has foun
Public Group active 3 years, 1 month agoTrendy mindfulness practices are as effective as medication at alleviating anxiety, a study has found.People who meditated every day and did yoga once a week saw their anxious thoughts and feelings ease by almost a third after six weeks.In the first head-to-head comparison, a second group given Lexapro — which works by boosting ‘happy hormone’ levels in the brain — saw similar results.It is the . Mindfulness is thought to lower levels of the hormone cortisol — nature’s built-in alarm system — in turn reducing inflammation in the body.There are also no side effects, unlike Lexapro which can cause drowsiness, insomnia and impotence or other sexual problems after prolonged use.Dr Elizabeth Hoge, a psychiatry professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC and first author of the latest study said: ‘A big advantage of mindfulness meditation is that it doesn’t require a clinical degree to train someone to become a mindfulness facilitator. ‘Additionally, sessions can be done outside of a medical setting, researchave.com such as at a school or community center.’It comes after — even if they do not have symptoms — amid fears the Covid pandemic has left millions suffering in silence. In the latest study, 102 patients completed a comprehensive mindfulness program and 106 took the popular antidepressant Lexapro.
After two months, people in both groups saw anxiety severity plummet about 30 per cent (file image) RELATED ARTICLES
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Lexapro works by boosting ‘happy hormone’ levels in the brain <div class="art-ins mol-factbox floatRHS health" data-version="2" id="mol-4c071ff0-6057-11ed-a4fb-719415cc5ffe" website is just as effective as LEXAPRO in treating anxiety
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