Mindfulness Based Therapies for Autoimmune Diseases and Related Symptoms

Abstract

Over the past few decades, there have been minimal advances in effective new behavioral or psychotherapeutic interventions for people living with autoimmune diseases such as systematic lupus erythematosus. This is problematic due to the severe, debilitating and potentially life-threatening nature of these diseases. Mindfulness based interventions, such as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, have demonstrated effectiveness in a wide range of patient populations and we hypothesize such treatment would also benefit patients with autoimmune disorders and related symptoms. We further hypothesize that these therapies will work by impacting physiological mechanisms, such as inflammatory markers, associated with such disease symptoms. We present our findings below.