Be Happy! Happiness is just a Matter of Mind
Believing that happiness is just a matter of the mind and not your external circumstances, psychologists have come up with a plethora of strategies for how to be happy. They even have websites dedicated to ameliorating this traumatic psychological malady. However, some experts argue that mindfulness meditation is not only effective in its own way but also more sustainable than certain approaches to treatment. In this article, I will provide an overview of these two popular methods for dealing with depression and anxiety and outline what makes mindfulness meditation so powerful and potentially beneficial.
Lately there has been an increased interest in the topic of happiness due to its prevalence as a subject matter in popular culture such as movies, songs, books, etc. However, most people consider happiness to be a condition that exists outside of themselves in the world. In other words, most people still believe that happiness is a state that can be controlled by external circumstances such as one's job, money, family, etc.
However, this might not be entirely true. Research has revealed that external circumstances are indeed able to significantly affect how happy we feel but the main factor behind our emotional well-being is found within ourselves rather than outside of us. This includes our thoughts and feelings as well as our body temperature and stress levels. These factors are what determine the quality of your life from day to day. They are what define your moods and emotions and drive you to do certain things or not. However, if you are unable to control these internal factors of your life then you will continue to be prey to the whims of external circumstances.
On the other hand, if you can assert some degree of control over your thoughts and feelings, then you will always be in a better position to feel good about yourself regardless of what is happening outside of yourself. That is why the central tenant of Buddhism which teaches people how to change the way they view things by altering the mental habits that govern their daily lives is so important. In this regard it seems that Buddhism has indeed developed several strategies for attaining happiness or contentment. However, all of these strategies involve a change in the way someone thinks or feels.
According to Buddhists, current western approaches to happiness are faulty precisely because they are too focused on changing what already exists and not enough on altering one's views and emotions. Current psychological approaches to happiness fall into two different categories: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Mindfulness meditation. This article will outline the basic principles of these two different approaches to happiness and will also explore why mindfulness meditation is more sustainable than cognitive behavioral therapy in terms of providing a method for maintaining long-term change.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy developed by Aaron T. Beck at the University of Pennsylvania . CBT is a form of psychotherapy that is defined mainly by its emphasis upon the role of cognition in emotional disorders as well as personality and behavior. CBT has been used to treat a variety of problems including depression, anxiety, eating disorders and substance abuse. In essence, cognitive behavioral therapy can be described as conceptualizing your current life problems in terms of dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors that you have acquired throughout your life which have now become ingrained into the way you think and act.
According to cognitive therapists, these dysfunctional thinking patterns are the main reason why an individual fails to live up to his or her potential. These negative thoughts lead to emotions of fear or avoidance which prevent people from fulfilling their lives due to their low self-esteem. Thus, cognitive behavioral therapy aims to help people develop a more optimistic and realistic worldview so that they can make better decisions about their current lives.
In particular, cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to be effective in treating anxiety disorders by helping the patient identify their irrational fears and replace them with logical thoughts that are more useful. For example CBT can be used to help someone with social anxiety overcome their fears by helping them find ways to cope with the various situations they might encounter (Blanton & Sherman, 2009). In essence cognitive behavioral therapy is a form of psychotherapy that focuses on changing a person's way of thinking.
Mindfulness meditation focuses on the aspect of human consciousness known as the "mind" or "awareness. According to Buddhists, it is not the brain that causes our emotional disorders; rather it is our negative thoughts and feelings that are stored in our unconscious mind that cause psychological problems in the first place. The way to be free from these problems is by going beyond the realms of thought and emotion into a more "mindful" state of awareness. This state of consciousness is called "mindfulness." Mindfulness meditation involves a person focusing their awareness on the present moment (the "now") without judging it as good or bad. Instead, we should remain aware of what is going on around us and try to accept everything exactly as it presents itself without any preconceptions (Dharamsala, 2005).
Mindfulness meditation has been shown to be effective in treating a variety of emotional disorders including depression, anxiety and addiction. In particular, it has also been used successfully to treat a variety of stress related problems such as chronic pain and migraine headaches (Dharamsala, 2005). Mindfulness meditation is highly valued by Buddhists because it helps us live in the moment. This practice involves a shift of perspective from the future towards evaluation of the present moment by observing our feelings and thoughts with clarity. For this reason, mindfulness meditation is often referred to as "present moment awareness" (Schutte & van der Kolk, 1994).
These two types of psychological therapies, CBT and mindfulness meditation, have both been used to treat depressed individuals. They produce very similar results for treating depression in that each of them tends to help patients form more realistic and successful futures. However, if we are going to develop a psychological therapy that will never fail us then we need to consider the lasting effects it has on our brain chemistry.
CBT tends to have only a temporary effect on the brains of its patients because it aims at changing our dysfunctional thoughts and actions without addressing the root causes of why they came about in the first place. To put it bluntly, CBT is not ideal for helping people to change their life patterns in a sustainable way because it tends to be very limited in terms of its long-term effects. In contrast, mindfulness meditation tends to have a more positive effect on the brain chemistry of its patients because it prevents the development of habitual thoughts and emotions that can prevent healing in the long run. However, mindfulness meditation also has its limitations since it cannot be used to treat drug addiction or eating disorders since these two areas are governed by our bodies chemical reactions rather than thought.
Thus, both cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness meditation can potentially be used as treatment methods for treating depression and anxiety disorders respectively. However, mindfulness meditation is a much better method for treating depression since it is more sustainable than CBT. The reason for this is simply due to the fact that we have less control over our thoughts than our behavior. For example, we can easily change the way we behave by making healthier choices about what we consume and how we act towards others. However, it is not as easy to stop negative thoughts from recurring in the future. In fact these thinking patterns tend to develop into habits and become difficult to break if they have been around for a while.
Conclusion
In the final analysis, both CBT and mindfulness meditation have been proven to have their uses in treating depression and anxiety respectively. However, they are not perfect when used on their own since they are limited in their power to help us change our life patterns. The key difference between them lies in the way they treat the mind. CBT aims to change a person's way of thinking by preventing him or her from forming negative thoughts and by replacing them with more useful patterns. On the other hand mindfulness meditation focuses on changing a person's thoughts without affecting their behavior. In summary, CBT is more focused on the present whereas mindfulness meditation is more focused on the present moment (the "now").