A single 20-minute session of mindful breathing significantly reduced pain intensity, pain unpleasantness, and anxiety in adult cancer inpatients with moderate to severe pain, compared with a supportive listening control group. The randomized controlled trial at the University of Malaya Medical Centre enrolled patients with a pain score of 4 or higher on a 10-point scale. The findings suggest that brief mindfulness exercises can be integrated into routine cancer care to provide rapid, holistic benefits for pain management.
A 20-minute guided mindful breathing exercise, practiced twice a week for two weeks, improved depression symptoms and quality of life in people with epilepsy. In a pilot randomized controlled trial with 20 participants, those who performed the exercise showed significantly greater improvement in depression scores at two weeks compared to a waitlist control group, though this difference was no longer significant at four weeks. Anxiety improvements were not statistically significant. Quality of life scores were significantly better in the intervention group at both two and four weeks, and mindfulness scores improved at four weeks. The exercise had an immediate effect on depression and quality of life.
A 20-minute session of mindful breathing rapidly reduces multiple symptoms in kidney transplant recipients. Patients who practiced mindful breathing showed a significantly greater decrease in symptom scores compared to a control group, with an average reduction of nearly 5 points on the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale. The findings suggest that a brief mindfulness exercise can provide quick symptom relief for this population.