The Self-kindness Component of Mindfulness Meditation: A Helpful Strategy to Enhance Emotion Regulation and Reduce the Depression and Distress Symptoms in Women with Breast Cancer

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that one of the components of mindfulness meditation, called self-kindness, plays a prominent role in alleviating distress perception, and reducing depressive symptoms, especially among younger women with breast cancer (BC), who represent a particularly vulnerable patient population, often struggling not only with a serious illness but also with numerous family and work-related obligations. This chapter will describe in detail self-kindness as a technique to help ease distress, anxiety, and depressive feelings, as well as enhance resilience and establish objective health-related expectations or goals for patients with cancer, including women with an aggressive subtype of BC, such as triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

Keywords: Anxiety, Distress, Depression, Emotion regulation, Mindfulness meditation, Mindful awareness practice (MAP), Mindfulness-based interventions (MBI), Resilience, Rumination, Self-kindness.