Can Meditation and Mindfulness Reduce Suicidal Thoughts? Or Worsen Them?

There are many factors that might make someone decide to commit suicide - genetic, neurotic,
environmental or social. Luckily, trained professionals worldwide are there for anyone struggling
with suicidal thoughts. There is no need to suffer. Help is there, one just needs to reach out for
it. In this article we look into how and when meditation and mindfulness can help those with
suicidal thoughts.

Numerous studies have shown that mindfulness training guided by trained professionals
can help those who feel suicidal. It teaches a person to not identify with and create
distance from their destructive thinking patterns, emotions and moods. It can help them
understand that just like everything else, these too come and go.

However, if the person is too vulnerable or has an episode, mindfulness meditation alone
might not be enough – it can even worsen one's state, because it can be too difficult for
the person to sit with and face their intense inner experiences. For this reason, it's
important to ask for help. The treatment plan usually involves cognitive therapy and
antidepressant medication as the first steps to take. Afterwards, when the individual is
stable enough, they can combine mindfulness training with their therapy to help them
manage their symptoms.

The problem of suicide in the modern age

Over the past decade the world has seen a significant rise in suicide rates. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention findings from 2013, suicide is a more frequent
cause of death in the U.S. than car accidents. Although the problem of suicide has usually been
attributed to adolescents and the elderly, it has been quite suprising to see that the target group
which is most endangered is middle-aged men.

The biggest increase in suicide was among men in their 50's, where the suicide rates soared by
50%. It remains unclear why this happens, but some of the reasons might be economic
problems and the fact that the generation of baby boomers simply has too much on their hands
– they have to take care of both their elderly as well as their children. Research done at Rutgers
shows that the risk of suicide is likely to increase for future generations due to changes in
marriage, family roles and social factors such as isolation.
To make things worse, the previously mentioned data comes from the pre-pandemic era! Now
things have significantly deteriorated, especially among younger members of the population.
Social isolation due to successive lockdowns has brought about a new epidemic of suicidal
deaths among the youth, especially from drug overdose. Last year there was a rise in suicide
among women in Japan, and mental health experts in Europe have reported an increase in the
number of young people with suicidal ideation. During the pandemic one suicide hotline for
young people in Britain has had an increase in calls by 25%. For this reason, it's time to look
into how meditation and mindfulness can and can't alleviate the problem of suicide.

Why mindfulness can help with suicidal thoughts

Psychologists worldwide agree that mindfulness can help patients manage their mental health
issues. For depressed, anxious or suicidal people, it enables them to see when an unfortunate
episode is coming and to take measures against it. By practicing mindfulness, a person is less
likely to identify with their thoughts and/or illness. They can create the mental space inside them
needed to recognize their triggers and respond to them kindly and with compassion. Although
the symptoms might not completely disappear, mindfulness can lower them by helping the
person create a different relationship to them. One becomes more resilient and invested in their
own well-being.

Mindfulness has been shown to be effective in reducing rumination, worry, catastrophizing,

depression, negative self-evaluation, anxiety, and suicidality. It has also been proven to
increase resilience to suicide, emotional regulation, well-being and life satisfaction, self-
compassion, and cognitive flexibility.

The operating definition of mindfulness is that it's a state of nonjudgmental, present-centered

awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises is observed, recognized and
accepted as it is. Let's split this definition into its key components:

· Mindfulness includes noticing present experiences of body sensations, thoughts, and

emotions that come and go. So, when feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness come, a
practitioner of mindfulness recognizes them for what they are – just feelings that come and
go just like everything else.

· Being non-judgmental about these experiences means letting them be as they are
without judging them or reacting to them as good or bad. They just are.

· Mindfulness includes non-identifying with the arising inner experiences. "I am not my
depression, I am much more than that."

· Decentering. Through mindfulness, we take a distance from our inner experiences.

· Mindfulness includes non-reactivity towards these inner experiences.

· Mindfulness involves meta-awareness, which means looking at our inner experiences

"from above", i.e from a higher place of awareness. For example, let's take a thought such
as "My life is not worth living." Instead of engaging in this kind of thinking, our metawareness
is that space from which we observe this arising thought and know it for what it is – negative
and depressive thinking. Meta-awareness means knowing that I am not worthless, I am
merely experiencing the feeling of worthlessness. From a place of meta-awareness, we can
investigate this feeling, observe it and not let it control us.
 · Self-transcendence. Mindfulness serves to help us transcend ourselves and grasp that
our "self" is not permanent; it changes just like everything else. We have many selves: the
office self, the hanging-out-with-friends self, the ruminating self, the self in love, the self
spending time with family and many many more. They all change and depend on a number
of causes and conditions arising at any moment.

All of the mentioned components are reasons why mindfulness has been successful in helping
people with suicidal thoughts; through regular practice, ideally under the guidance of a
competent therapist, the person with suicidal thoughts can detach from their destructive thought
patterns and reprogram their brain for a more self-loving self and a more positive future outlook.

Studies confirming positive effects of mindfulness and meditation on suicidal thinking

The studies attesting to the powerful effects of mindfulness practices in reducing suicidal
tendencies in individuals are too many to count. One study by Har gus et al., (2010) pretested
27 depressed participants who reported having a suicidal crisis. The participants were divided
into two groups, a Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy group (MBCT) and a treatment as usual
(TAU) group. After they were retested after three months, the results showed that the MBCT
group exhibited higher levels of metawareness; they were able to reflect on their previous crises
from a new perspective, which is likely to prevent similar future crises.

In a study by Collins et al., 2018, participants were tested before and after an eight week long
mindfulness course. The findings showed a new zest for life and resilience to suicidal thoughts.
Even a short mindfulness meditation can help. In another study, sixty-four college students with
high suicidal tendencies were assigned to either a brief mindfulness meditation (BMM) group or
a control group. Most of them completed a pretest, one month of intervention and a posttest.
The results showed that the BMM group had a significant decrease in suicidal tendencies.

One study was concerned with spiritual aspects of mindfulness practice. The process of
searching for inner wisdom during the mindfulness-based meditation has proved to be highly
successful. Participants of the study reported positive experiences related to connecting with
their inner knowledge. It was unclear though whether these insights came from a deeper part of
oneself or from the person guiding the meditation.

In another study meditation was proven to be as effective as antidepressant medications in

treating suicidal patients. The researchers from the University of Toronto Centre for Addiction
and Mental Health used mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) on one group of
participants, antidepressant therapy on the second group and placebo treatment on the third
group. The researchers followed the three groups of patients over the course of 18 months. It
turned out that the effects of MBCT and antidepressants were almost the same -- the relapse
rate for the group treated with antidepressants was 27%, and 28% for the MBCT group.

Word of caution: when meditation and mindfulness alone are not enough

Although studies confirming positive effects of meditation are far greater in number, there are
those that reveal its adverse effects; i.e. participants, some of whom had no previous history of
mental health problems, showed feelings of anxiety, depressions and cognitive anomalies.
However, it still remains unclear if these negative experiences were simply constitutive elements
of the meditative practice and not its negative effects. More research is needed.

One of my meditation teachers, who has had over 40 years of experience teaching meditation,
once admitted to us, his students, that when he was younger he was struggling with suicidal
thoughts for several years. "All I wanted was to die," he told us. There was a history of mental
health issues in his family that he probably inherited and meditation was not helping him. So, he
turned to a psychiatrist who gave him antidepressants and after a while he was his old self and
never had this problem again.

Lodro Rinzler, meditation teacher and author of the best-selling book "The Buddha Walks into a
Bar," admitted to having had a similar experience – he was suicidal. He was feeling too low to
meditate. Luckily, with the help of his friends, he started going to therapy and taking
medications. Soon after he was well enough to go back to meditating.

Meditation and medication do not have to be an either-or choice, it might be best to combine the
two. And there are moments when meditation should be avoided altogether. Someone
struggling with severe depression (and a clear link between depression and suicidality has been
proven) does not have the energy or the mental capacity to sit and breathe through their intense
emotions and inner experiences. Moreover, they might feel only worse afterwards. If the person
is too vulnerable, direct exposure to the symptoms of their illness during a mindfulness practice
can trigger them into feeling even more depressed or suicidal.

So, here is when meditation and mindfulness alone are not enough:

· If there is a chemical imbalance in your brain, as it often can be the case with suicidal
people, best do not go it alone; instead, ask for help from a trained professional and use
medications prescribed by them.

· Suicidal people often have what is known as tunnel vision, meaning they see life only
from one point of view, and this view is often pessimistic, hopeless and destructive. Since
they are not able to see things clearly and accurately, it might be better to turn to a
competent therapist, someone who understands their problem and knows how to help them.

· When struggling with severe levels of depression, it can be hard to sit with one's
thoughts and just let them be. Even worse, it can take one on a downward thought spiral of
self-destruction. So, if you are feeling suicidal, it might be best not to meditate but ask for
professional help instead. Your treatment will probably consist of antidepressant medication
and cognitive therapy. And once your mood is stable, you and your therapist can include
mindfulness training.
Conclusion:

Your life is the most precious possession you have. Do everything you can to keep it. Asking for
professional help is much better than dealing with the problem by yourself. Chemical imbalance
in the brain is a real thing and we shouldn't expect it will miraculously disappear. Although
mindfulness practices have proved to be powerful in helping suicidal patients, there is a time
and place for everything. Moreover, such studies were all done under the guidance of trained
mental health therapists.