An Australian research team says the key to treating depression may lie in a single raisin, The Age reported.
The team, which is from Australia’s Monash University and Southern Health, said Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, or MBCT, modifies traditional cognitive behavior therapy with meditation-like skills.
“Some people call it ‘raisin consciousness,’” Professor Graham Meadows told the newspaper, because the first step involves using the raisin as a way learn meditation and make you aware of your own thoughts and the physical world around you.
Participants in the study literally stare at the raisin, looking at it very closely and then roll it around in their fingers. Then, they explore the raisin’s ridges and let it crinkle next to their ear.
“In traditional cognitive therapy, you train to notice negative thoughts that might provoke depression, debate them and try to change their content,” he added. “But MBCT is about holding your thoughts lightly, not changing the content of the (negative) thought but changing your personal relationship to the thought.”
Meadows’ thought is that the meditation can keep your mind full enough to ward off depression. Also, if you are able to recognize the dangerous thought patterns of depression early enough, you can control your mind before it controls you.
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