Mindfulness Meditation and Mental Health

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.If you are anxious you are living in the future.If you are at peace you are living in the present.”

―Lao Tzu

You may have heard that mindfulness meditation can be beneficial for our mental health. But how does it actually work?

Let’s break it down.

Our minds play a central role in our mental health

The word mental comes from the Latin mentalis, meaning “of the mind”. Our minds—and particularly the way we relate to our thoughts, feelings and experiences—play an important role in both our psychological wellbeing and the development and treatment of many mental health difficulties.

Yet most of us receive very little education about how our minds actually work.

We are often taught how to look after our physical health, but not how to understand our thoughts and emotions. As a result, it is easy to assume that whatever thought appears in our mind must be true, important, or worth acting on.

But thoughts are not always accurate.

Our thoughts are influenced by our past experiences, expectations, fears and beliefs. This can be

helpful when our past experiences provide a useful guide to the present. But it can also become problematic when our past is no longer a good predictor of what is happening now.

When the past follows us into the present

Imagine, for example, that you are in a relationship with a partner who is very controlling and becomes angry whenever you want to go out.

Over time, you might start going out less often—or stop going out altogether—to avoid their anger.

In that relationship, the thought “My partner will get angry if I go out” may be a fairly accurate prediction. It makes sense that your mind would learn to anticipate this outcome.

But what happens when you leave that relationship and later begin a healthy relationship with someone else?

You may find yourself continuing to think, “My partner will get angry if I go out,” even though your new partner has given you no reason to expect this.

Without realising it, you may continue avoiding going out as often as you would like.

The old thought made sense in the original context. The problem is that your mind has continued applying the old lesson to a new situation.

This is one reason our thoughts can be both understandable and unhelpful at the same time.

We don't always notice our thoughts

There is another important piece to understand: we are not consciously aware of everything our minds are doing.

Think about your own experience. How many thoughts have you had today? How many of them have you deliberately chosen?

Our minds are constantly generating thoughts, making predictions, remembering the past, planning for the future, noticing things around us and responding to what is happening.

Many of these mental processes happen automatically and outside our immediate awareness.

This means that we can sometimes be influenced by a thought without even realising that we are having it.

And this is where mindfulness becomes particularly interesting.

So, what actually happens when we practise mindfulness?

A typical mindfulness meditation practice might involve sitting comfortably, closing your eyes or softening your gaze, and bringing your attention to something simple—such as your breathing.

You might practise for five minutes, twenty minutes, or longer.

The task itself is remarkably simple:

Notice your experience, and gently bring your attention back to the present moment.

But there is a catch. Your mind will wander.

You might start thinking about something that happened yesterday. Then you might begin planning what you need to do tomorrow. Perhaps you suddenly remember an email you forgot to send. Before you know it, you are several minutes into a completely different train of thought.

This isn't a sign that you are “bad at meditation”.

The wandering mind is the practice.

The moment you notice, “Oh, I've been thinking about something else,” you have actually become mindful.

You then gently bring your attention back to the breath—or whatever you have chosen as the focus of your meditation.

And then it happens again.

And again.

And again.

The “monkey mind”

This tendency for the mind to jump from one thought to another is sometimes described as the “monkey mind.”

Another useful analogy is an untrained puppy.

Imagine letting an energetic puppy off its lead. It might run towards a tree, then a bird, then a smell, then another dog. You don't expect it to calmly sit in one place simply because you asked it to.

Our minds can be a little like that.

A thought appears, and our attention follows it. Then another thought appears, and we follow that one. Before long, we can find ourselves down an entire mental rabbit hole.

Mindfulness doesn't require us to stop the puppy from running.

Instead, we are learning how to notice where it has gone—and gently bring it back.

From believing your thoughts to observing them

This is one of the most important skills mindfulness can teach us.

The thoughts that arise during meditation are not fundamentally different from the thoughts that arise

during everyday life.

The difference is that meditation gives us an opportunity to practise noticing them.

Instead of immediately becoming absorbed in a thought, we can learn to recognise:

“I'm having the thought that something bad is going to happen.”

Rather than:

“Something bad is going to happen.”

That small shift can be surprisingly powerful.

We begin to see thoughts as mental events, rather than facts that automatically require our attention or action.

We don't necessarily need to get rid of difficult thoughts. Instead, we can learn to change our relationship with them.

What happens to the brain and body?

Mindfulness can also influence our physiological state.

When we become caught up in threatening or stressful thoughts, our body's stress response can become activated. Our attention narrows, our muscles may tense, and we can become increasingly focused on detecting danger.

Mindfulness provides an opportunity to interrupt this cycle.

By deliberately bringing our attention back to present-moment experiences—such as the sensation of breathing, sounds around us or sensations in the body—we can disengage, at least temporarily, from the mental story that was occupying our attention.

With practice, mindfulness can help us become more aware of when our minds are caught in patterns of worry, rumination or threat—and give us greater flexibility in deciding where to place our attention.

Importantly, mindfulness isn't about forcing yourself to relax or making uncomfortable thoughts disappear.

It is about learning to notice what is happening without automatically getting pulled into it.

Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

This is also where mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) can complement one another.

CBT often helps us identify and examine unhelpful patterns of thinking. We might ask questions such as:

Is this thought accurate?

What evidence supports it?

Is there another way of looking at this situation?

Mindfulness approaches the problem somewhat differently.

Rather than primarily changing the content of our thoughts, mindfulness can help change our relationship with our thoughts.

In simple terms, CBT may help us ask:

“Is this thought true or helpful?”

Mindfulness may help us first notice:

“I'm having this thought.”

Both skills can be valuable.

In my clinical experience, some people who initially find it difficult to apply CBT strategies find them easier to use once they have developed greater mindfulness and awareness of their thoughts.

Bringing mindfulness and CBT together

This integration of mindfulness and CBT has been developed into structured therapeutic approaches, including Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (MiCBT).

MiCBT was developed by Bruno Cayoun and integrates mindfulness practices with principles and techniques from CBT. The approach is designed to help people develop greater awareness of their internal experiences while also learning practical psychological skills for responding differently to difficult thoughts, emotions and situations.

Ultimately, mindfulness is not about emptying your mind or achieving a state in which you never have another negative thought.

It is about developing a different kind of awareness.

You notice the thought.

You notice the emotion.

You notice what is happening in your body.

And instead of automatically following wherever your mind takes you, you practise coming back to the present moment.

The goal isn't to control your mind. It's to become more aware of it—and, with practice, have greater choice in how you respond.

Check out if I am running any MiCBT courses here.

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