What is Mindfulness and what does science show it does?

Mindfulness has its origins in Buddhist religious meditation; Multiple studies show it reduces stress, anxiety, depression, cortisol and blood pressure; and it can certainly help patients deal with cancer.

Here are some questions we put to Mindfulness practitioners.

Q1. What is Mindfulness? 

Some people talk about focus. Focusing on now, not things yesterday or that might happen in the future - things you might worry about; things that are stressful.
 
Some people talk about 'staying in the moment'.

Mindfulness is about self-control and particularly controlling your mind so that you focus on now, on your body, a sound, your breathing, not on the things around you.

It maybe hard work at first; people’s minds wander off, get distracted.

Personally, I think it is also about being calm, being at peace with yourself. Like when I do Reiki. I think Mindfulness is 'the still small voice of calm' inside you.

You can practice being in control of your mind to improve your ability to focus. For example,  you can start by deciding to focus on your breathing for a few minutes - do not try to control your breathing, just pay attention to when it’s going in and when it’s going out. You’ll likely be surprised by how difficult this is at first, your mind has a million things it thinks you should be worrying about and it will try and go there again and again. You need to catch your mind wandering around and bring it back into line.

Q2. Why would you want to control your mind?

To focus on the things that are in your control, not the ones you can do nothing about. This reduces and even stops worry and stress.

Worrying about things you have no control over increases your cortisol - the primary stress hormone. There are multiple studies showing that people practicing Mindfulness lower cortisol levels. For example, a 2013 study (1) from a top Thailand University, showed that after just one session of mindfulness, the average serum cortisol levels had fallen from 381.93 nmol/L (SD 97.74) to just 306.38 nmol/L (SD 90.95) - an almost 20% decline. 

Cortisol, sleep, and cancer are interconnected through the body’s stress response and circadian regulation.

Stanford Medicine researchers have shown this in a meta-analysis (2); and that disrupted cortisol rhythms are associated with earlier mortality in metastatic breast cancer. If you have cancer you need to control cortisol.

Cortisol spikes at night wake you up; and they also lower important Natural Killer cell levels in your immune system.

In a meta-analysis of over 120 studies (5), mindfulness was shown to make a major contribution to reducing stress and depression levels in cancer patients, and increasing survival times and the immune response.

Q3. Is Mindfulness the same as Meditation?

Some would suggest they are much the same thing. They are not. Mindfulness is an important step in meditation - the first step of seven.

Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present and aware of the current moment—your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surroundings. But the important 'extra' is to do this without judgment.  It’s the judgment that causes the stress. Other steps in Buddhist meditation are elements like step 5, Tranquility or calmness.

Mindfulness can be strengthened through regular practice - usually a course is 8 sessions. 

Meditation is a formal technique like Mindfulness, using anchors such as focused attention on the breath, bodily sensations, or thoughts, while gently returning attention to the chosen anchor whenever the mind wanders.

These are not the only anchors can you use - sound is another. For example, Monks chant - Tibetan monks chant at 432Hz  - the calming frequency for stress, anxiety and overthinking relief.

Q4. How does mindfulness link to Buddhism?

For Buddhists mindfulness has been an important concept for over 2000 years. The term “Mindfulness” is a translation of a Pali word 'sati', which is a core step in Buddhism. It is the first of the 'Seven Factors of Enlightenment', and Buddhists use Mindfulness to develop self-knowledge and wisdom, in order to eventually achieve enlightenment, or freedom from suffering.

Meditation was originally only practiced by monastics, those who had devoted their life to Buddhism.

There are religious texts about focusing on different parts of your body and being ‘in’ that part of your body; being fully aware of the sensations there. 

Each moment in time, in the world outside, is constantly shifting, things around you, and that's part of why it is so important to be focused on yourself and in the present.

For Buddhists, one way to do that is by focusing on the impermanence of things, including the impermanence of our bodies. Confronting one’s own mortality isn’t really part of everyday Mindfulness, but it is part of Buddhist religious Mindfulness.

Q5.  What are the practical benefits of Mindfulness?

I told you about the benefits for cancer patients above. But there are more,

Neuroscience experts have published many papers on Mindfulness. For example, there are researchers who use Mindfulness training to help combat soldiers deal with PTSD. 

With cancer, emotional and psychological stress, including depression and anxiety are tied to sleep issues in cancer patients, because these cause a dysregulation of HPA axis (the link between your nervous system and your hormones) which normally controls cortisol. Calming the psychological issues (the nervous sensations your brain receives) calms the cortisol. 

We have previously covered how stress enzymes cortisol and epinephrine help cancer spread in an article entitled 'Mental state and cancer'.

Mindfulness researcher, Todd Braver, a professor of neuroscience, psychological and brain sciences, wants to be clear that we can’t ignore its religious roots, but as a scientist he says he tries to keep fit and exercises to maintain health, so why not practice mental fitness too? “Just as I might go for a run or watch what I eat, I'm also going to try to regulate my thinking and improve my ability to do that.”

Interestingly, the Dalai Lama, when he addressed a conference of 30,000 Neuroscientists said, “empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be.”

Q6. Stress, anxiety, depression and lowering cortisol - what else can Mindfulness help?

In a 2019 clinical study (3) on Blood Pressure, showed that one year after starting Mindfulness, the average decline in systolic blood pressure was 6 mmHg; and amongst people starting at over 140 as a systolic level, a 15.1 mmHg was recorded on average.

This followed a 2017 review in the Journal of the American Heart Association that Meditation and Mindfulness reduced a host of risk factors associated with heart disease (6).

Pregnant women with a history of depression often wish to avoid the drugs on offer. A study showed that Mindfulness was an important alternative and prevented depressive relapse (4).

Q7. So how should interested people start?

• Focus on the breath or another anchor (e.g., body sensations, sounds).

• Notice when the mind wanders—and gently return attention to the anchor.

• Practice non-judgment: observe thoughts and feelings without labeling them as good or bad.

• Begin with just 3 to 5 minutes daily, gradually increasing to 10–30 minutes. 

• You can also watch the Sunday Show coming up on 22nd March 2026, where Chris Woollams interviews Mindfulness practitioner Shireen Jilla, who is 6 years on from a diagnosis of breast cancer, which she treated 100% naturally with Chris' help.

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References

1. Effects of mindfulness meditation on serum cortisol of medical students; Wanpen Turakitwanakan et al; Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand, June 2013,  96 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):S90-5

2. Effectiveness of stress management interventions to change cortisol levels: a systematic review and meta-analysis; Olivia Rogerson et al; Psychoneuroendocrinology, Volume 159, January 2024, 106415

3. Mindfulness-Based Blood Pressure Reduction (MB-BP): Stage 1 single-arm clinical trial; Eric B Loucks et al; Clinical Trial PLoS One;  2019 Nov 27;14(11)

4. Staying Well during Pregnancy and the Postpartum: A Pilot Randomized Trial of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for the Prevention of Depressive Relapse/Recurrence; Sona Dimidjian et al; J Consult Clin Psychol, 2015 Dec 14;84(2):134–145.

5. Evidence for the Role of Mindfulness in Cancer: Ria Metha et al; Cureus. 2019 May 9;11(5):

6. Journal of the American Heart Association 2017 (6) - https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1161/JAHA.117.004176