Thirty minutes of meditation a day may keep anxiety and depression at bay, according to research released by Johns Hopkins on January 6, 2014.
Madhav Goyal, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine says that meditation is not considered mainstream therapy, “But in our study, meditation appeared to provide as much relief from anxiety and depression symptoms as what other studies have found from antidepressants.” Dr. Goyal and his colleagues found that mindful meditation techniques were also promising for pain symptoms (fibromyalgia) and stress. The researchers accounted for any possible placebo effects. It should be noted that the patients who participated in the study did not typically have full-blown anxiety or depression.
In the Johns Hopkins article, Dr. Goyal states that to many people meditation means sitting down and doing nothing. But of course, this is not true. Meditation is an active mind training exercise to increase awareness and different meditation programs approach it in different ways. From my readings and experience, people suffering from extreme anxiety and a full-blown depression should not seek to treat themselves with meditations alone and should seek expert medical help.
Source: “Meditation for Anxiety and Depression?”
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/meditation_for_anxiety_and_depression
Mahasri Yoga 
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