Stress Levels Are Lowered
The frequent exposure to racism and discrimination gives Black people a regular increase in stress that we may not realize affects our health, according to the American Psychological Association.
Black people may be affected by to pervasive racism, and mindful meditation — focusing on what’s happening at that specific moment — can be helpful when dealing with anxiety disorders, a National Institutes of Health clinical trial revealed. Tech Times reported that the trial took 89 patients and randomly divided them into two groups. One group had eight weeks of mindfulness training with a focus on meditation, while the other took stress-management education classes.
A Trier Social Stress Test reviewed stress response markers in each patient’s blood, zeroing in on a stress hormone and inflammatory proteins. Patients who meditated showed large decreases in those markers, while the education group had small increases in the markers that reveal heightened test-taking anxiety.