Parkinson's: Mindfulness Helps

A Journey Into Parkinson's With Nancy Mellon

Coordination By My BB (Best Brit) Friend Corrine Bayraktaroglu

I just started a 4 week, FREE, Mindfulness zoom course with the OhioHealth Mindfulness Program. 

I have always been interested in Mindfulness but have never made it a regular practice.  “Regular” and “Practice” are the key words for me.  It is very hard for me to do anything regularly.  Even taking my pills at the same time each day is a stretch.

BUT, and it is a very big but, Parkinson's has made me sit up and take notice.  A Mindfulness practice is very helpful for People with Parkinson's. (It's good for Everyone else too!)

We're all stressed. We've all know that stress can negatively impact mental and physical health. Mindfulness training can be the answer. (At the end of this post, if you are interested, you can read about a large study, done on Parkinson's and Mindfulness) 

Prepare to be gobsmacked with how much free Mindfulness help is out there.

The lovely ladies (Ana, Linnea and Jennifer,) at the Ohio Health Mindfulness Program, will meet with us 4 times to teach us different ways to practice Mindfulness.  They sent a wonderful packet with: Practice Logs, a page of Resources for continuing your mindfulness practice with OhioHealth and other Mindfulness programs-(most are Free!), a page called Attitudes of Mindfulness, a checklist of Stress Symptoms, and a page of instructions.  I had to meet with Ana before starting to go over the rules and to check on my zoom set up. 

The thing that made it the most helpful for me was that we were asked to practice every day for a month.  Before joining the class they asked if you could practice every day. Um, yes, I can. Just what I need- I made a promise and I'll keep it.  Steven is doing it with me. Which is even better.

Thank you Ana, Linnea and Jennifer!

Cheers,

Nancy and the Snark

For anyone who like to see the science behind the thought:

A recent study in the Journal, Parkinson’s Disease, “Stress and mindfulness in Parkinson's disease - a survey in 5,000 patients” (van der Heide, Speckens, et al., 2021) sought to investigate four questions: 

•       Do people with PD experience more stress than a control group?

•       Which personality and disease characteristics are associated with stress? 

•       Which PD symptoms are especially sensitive to stress? 

•       What strategies might successfully help reduce stress for people with PD — with particular attention to mindfulness (defined in the study as moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness). 

•       Study participants included 5,000 people with PD

•       average age of 67.3 years,

•       average time living with PD 5.9 years

•        48% women

 A multitude of well-respected, validated scales were used to measure perceived stress, anxiety, awareness of one’s thoughts and feeling in the moment (dispositional mindfulness), excessive and intrusive negative thoughts (rumination), and self-compassion.

Results

Understanding the effects of stress:

•                 People with PD scored significantly worse than those without PD in nearly every category,

•                Stress worsened all PD symptoms measured in the survey, including sleeping problems, depression, dyskinesia (involuntary movements), freezing of gait (feeling stuck in place), and bradykinesia (slowness of movement).

•                 People with PD also added to the list of stress symptoms cognitive impairment, loss of focus, confusion, impaired executive function, speech and communication issues, emotional symptoms (anger and frustration, anxiety, nervousness, and apathy, and pain).

Studying stress management methods:

•                 Exercise (walking, cycling, swimming, sports, yoga, Pilates, or Tai Chi) was most frequently used to reduce stress (83.1%) – with beneficial effects reported on all motor and non-symptoms.

•                 Mindfulness was linked to improvements in both motor and non-motor symptoms — most notably 60.2% noticed improvement in depression and 64.7% in anxiety. 

•                 The more often mindfulness was practiced by people with PD, the greater the perceived improvement in their Parkinson’s symptoms; approximately half (53.2%) practiced mindfulness at least once a week, and 21.5% practiced once a month or less.

•                 Mindfulness was experienced as helpful, regardless of PD medication use, and regardless of how long a person had been diagnosed with PD.

Footnotes From Best Brit Jafapal

I looked at a few mindfulness exercises and one of them is breathing.  I do a few breathing exercises because of asthma and to strengthen my lungs for hiking but any kind of sitting and focusing on breathing I can't do. It sends me into a panic. However mindful activities such as art making, journaling, walking or photography that consumes my attention is easy peasy. Anytime I am stuck in a doctors office I go into mindfulness mode and focus on hearing the sounds of the place. I suppose it is sort of dadirri (deep listening) except not in nature. It is very calming, especially when waiting in a doctors office ;)