What’s happening when a client suffering from symptoms of depression is willing to follow the therapist’s voice with eyes closed? According to Zindel Segal—expert on mood disorders—that simple act is a commitment to choicefulness and a first step towards shifting the perceptions that make depression so hard to shake.

When we're faced with a crisis, or when we're emotionally crashing, and there's no time to gather our thoughts, mindfulness can seem like a hopeless luxury, impossible to achieve. The program for depression my colleagues Mark Williams and John Teasdale and I developed, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), integrates the eight-week group approach of MBSR with basic principles of cognitive therapy. The act of observing our bodies is good training for when we feel bad---anxious or depressed---because it gives us a kind of emotional detachment, which acts as a stable emotional platform, preventing us from being overwhelmed by our feelings.

There's increasing evidence that mindfulness helps depressed people fight relapse.