Treating Depression with Meditation: 5 Facts

Depression is one of the most common mental health problems in the world. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that around three hundred and fifty million people are affected by depression globally. That’s more than the total population of the USA. While there are many approaches to combating depression, in this article we look at treating depression with meditation.

Please note this is not a “how to meditate” piece. We have several articles on meditation and how to meditate that we encourage you to look at. This article is specifically about how using these methods will help people with depression.

1. Meditation Stimulates Serotonin Release

Serotonin is a chemical the body produces that, amongst other things, helps us feel good. It’s a type of neurotransmitter that helps regulate things like sleep, aggression, eating, and mood.

Many antidepressant medications work by regulating the amount of serotonin in the body. These  medications are often called SSRIs — Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. SSRI antidepressants are the most common type of antidepressant and work by preventing the body from reabsorbing serotonin. The more serotonin left floating in the body, the more effective it is.

However, prolonged use of SSRI medications can have some unfortunate side effects. One of these includes a dependency on the medication to regulate serotonin. The body, in effect, loses the ability to do it itself. It needs the medication, or else production and regulation goes wrong.

Luckily, meditation has been shown to naturally stimulate serotonin production. By releasing our own naturally-produced serotonin, we reduce the need for medication. At the very least, we can lessen the dependency on these medications and ensure our bodies remain capable of self-regulation.

This is obviously much preferable to a chemical dependency, and so a nice, sustainable result of treating depression with meditation.

2. Meditation Stimulates Dopamine Release

Dopamine is a popular feel-good chemical that most people have heard of, particularly in relation to exercise. Fitness trainers and athletes frequently credit dopamine with the “high” felt after a good workout. In fact, many studies show that exercise is about as effective as medications at managing depression.

Like serotonin, dopamine can both prevent and combat depressive thoughts. A study in 2002 showed increased dopamine levels during “meditation-induced change of consciousness”. Basically, dopamine levels increased when people successfully meditated. It aided the feeling of detached serenity that marks a successful meditation experience.

If you can reach a proper meditative state, you’ll increase your dopamine levels. This in turn will naturally combat your depression. Together with the serotonin release, it becomes a powerful, naturally-occurring chemical antidepressant.

3. Meditation Focuses Our Thoughts

A lot of stress, anxiety, and depression is the result of psychological, rather than physical, issues. One of the most common culprits is stressing about things that we have no real control over. Worrying about the past and future are frequent causes of people feeling down.

Mindful meditation helps us concentrate on the present. We appreciate what is immediately around us, rather than fearing the future or regretting the past. By focusing our minds away from these negative thoughts, we take fuel away from depressing thought processes.

These benefits even extend beyond when we’re physically meditating. We’ve explained in other articles that meditation helps us concentrate in general. Being able to concentrate on tasks in our day-to-day lives prevents our minds from wandering to unpleasant places.

When treating depression with meditation we not only clear away the negative thoughts, but give ourselves the tools to prevent them from returning.

4. Meditation Separates Depression Thoughts and Reality

People who struggle with depression often find themselves having imagined arguments in their heads. They’ll become paranoid about what people may or may not be thinking about them. They’re also prone to over-analyzing people’s words and actions into meaning something that wasn’t intended.

Meditation helps to separate these paranoid feelings generated by depression from the reality they came from. It gives us a means of sorting what’s just in our heads from what’s really going on.

Really, meditating gives us perspective. This clarity allows people to calm their anxieties and relax. It can be incredibly hard to separate these negative thoughts from reality, but meditation gives us a tool to do just that.

5. Meditating Teaches Us About Ourselves

Perhaps the biggest benefit of treating depression with meditation is it gives people a better understanding of how their minds work. When they can:

• separate depressive thoughts from reality


• calm their anxieties with clear thinking


• free themselves from stressing about the past and future they can start to function more healthily.
• Those who experience the clarity and perspective of meditation can catch the early signs of depressive mindsets early on


• develop tools to help themselves stop problems before they become unmanageable


• calm themselves before they get overly stressed


• clear their thoughts before an anxiety attack hits them.


• cool their temper if they get worked up about something.

Understanding yourself and how you perceive the world is one of the greatest weapons a person with depression can ever get.

We said at the beginning that there were many ways to achieve this. Meditation is one of the few paths that gives us a healthy, free, completely natural way to take care of ourselves. And that’s invaluable.