Contemplative Practices as a Form of Stress Management for Patients with Kidney Disease.

Abstract

Increased rates of adverse health conditions across the spectrum of cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and metabolic disease (CKM) have been linked to social, psychological, and environmental stressors. Stress from daily living can elicit protective responses from multiple physiological systems that include psychological/neurocognitive and biological/cellular pathways. Excessive exposure to noxious stress overwhelms normally protective responses and lead to maladaptive psychological and biological activities that can create and/or exacerbate multiple disease processes including chronic kidney disease (CKD) and CKD risk factors. Stress management is a part of a healthy lifestyle that can counteract some of the adverse health effects of stress. Contemplative practices linked to meditation (e.g., yoga, Transcendental Meditation, mindfulness meditation), religion, or other forms of spirituality have been associated with stress management. These practices seek harmony within and across individuals and environments, calm the mind and help restore one's awareness of their interconnectedness to life. Data from an emerging literature suggests that contemplative practices can reduce the clinical complications of stress by attenuating the downstream psychological and biological impact of stress. This paper reviews and illustrates how contemplative practices, which are accessible, low- or no-cost lifestyle interventions, can help prevent the development, progression, and complications of CKD and CKD risk factors.