What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is a form of meditation that originated in Buddhist practice. The aim of mindfulness is to observe your thoughts and feelings, without trying to change or get caught up in them.In its simplest form, mindfulness involves sitting still and following your breath. In the beginning, as you notice thoughts and feelings going through your mind, you will probably get caught up in them; however, with practice, you will learn to bring yourself back to the breath. This creates a space between yourself and your thoughts that allows you to recognize thoughts without feeling taken over by them.Can mindfulness help with depression? As with almost all depression treatments, one size doesn’t fit all. Mindfulness clearly works for people who experience relief when they can simply feel and observe their depressed feelings, without feeling that they have to change them, or figure out where they came from.There’s a saying in Buddhist circles: “What you resist persists.” If you can learn to become more mindful over time, you can recognize a negative thought without letting it take you over. It’s precisely by recognizing the thought, and not trying to push it away, that it comes to have less power over you.On the other hand, since a lot of depression originates in early relationships, or in traumatic experiences that can happen at any time, relief from depression often involves understanding its roots. This might require help from someone with whom you feel safe exploring your feelings. If this is the case, mindfulness might be a useful adjunct to psychotherapy, but it’s not a replacement for it.What exactly is it about mindfulness that can help relieve some kinds of depression? Depression is painful. One thing that makes it especially painful is that when you’re feeling depressed, you feel like you have always been depressed, and you always will be depressed. One way mindfulness can help is to create some space between you and intense feelings that can seem overwhelming.Mindfulness can help you to experience your depression as one of many feelings—happiness, sadness, excitement, worry—that comes and goes. When depression doesn’t feel like a permanent feature of your emotional landscape, it can be easier to bear.Mindfulness can also help you in a way that, in some sense, is the opposite of creating distance between yourself and your feelings. Depression often feels overwhelming. When you’re depressed, you are often afraid that if you allow yourself to really feel your negative feelings, you will drown in them.When you sit still and don’t avoid your depressed feelings, they often become less frightening. You come to see that as uncomfortable as your thoughts are, you can tolerate them. They are not going to destroy you. Paradoxically, allowing yourself to feel these feelings can relieve you of them in a way that resisting them does not.If you’re interested in mindfulness meditation as a treatment for depression, I think the most important thing is to approach it with an open, experimental attitude. If it works for you, that’s great. If not, don’t despair. Other treatments, such as therapy and/or medication are available to you. The most important thing is to find the treatment that works for you.Are anxiety and procrastination related? Click here to read more. Click to learn more about depression therapy and treatment with Jane Rubin, Ph.D.