20-minute mindful breathing could effectively alleviate variety of symptoms in kidney transplant recipients: Study

A new study published in the journal of BMC Nephrology showed that 20 minutes of focused breathing may quickly alleviate a variety of symptoms in kidney transplant recipients.

Even after receiving a kidney transplant, many recipients still experience a variety of symptoms, despite the fact that this is the preferred therapy for people with end-stage renal failure. Dialysis patients had an average of nine symptoms, while kidney transplant patients had an average of seven symptoms.

Many symptoms persisted after transplantation, including weakness (55%), sleep disturbances (45%), dyspnea (42%), drowsiness (35%), anxiety (36%), weight gain (33%), body image dissatisfaction (35%), and depression (32%), even though some symptoms, like pruritus, fatigue, xeroderma, cramps, and anorexia, undoubtedly improved after the procedure.

Since a high symptom load may impact the patient's and the transplant's prognosis, it is critical to identify and treat symptoms in transplant recipients. It could exacerbate melancholy and anxiety. The cultivation of mindfulness involves paying attention in the present moment in a certain way, as open-heartedly, non-judgmentally, and non-reactively as possible. Pain acceptance, exhaustion, sleeplessness, stress, anxiety, and depression have all been demonstrated to improve with mindfulness-based therapies, such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT).

The effectiveness of short mindfulness exercises in the transplant context is yet unknown, despite the fact that a traditional 8-week mindfulness intervention has been shown to be successful in lowering anxiety, depression, and sleeplessness symptoms in solid organ transplant recipients. Therefore, this replication research is to ascertain if a single 20-minute mindful breathing exercise may effectively reduce a variety of symptoms in kidney transplant recipients.

From November 2020 to May 2021, adult kidney transplant recipients who had at least one symptom with an Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) score of ≥ 4/10 were sought for. Participants were randomized to either the control group or the 20-minute mindful breathing session.

After recruiting 60 individuals, they were randomized to either the control group (N = 30) or the intervention group (N = 30). When compared to the control group, the intervention group's overall ESAS score decreased by a statistically significant amount.

Overall, kidney transplant recipients can experience rapid alleviation from a variety of symptoms after only one 20-minute mindful breathing practice. In addition to participating in a typical 8-week mindfulness program to get long-term symptom reduction, 20-minute mindful breathing provides kidney transplant recipients with an additional low-cost alternative for quick symptom alleviation.

Source:

Lim, K. W., Ng, K. P., Ooi, S. H., Siow, W. S., & Tan, S. B. (2025). Symptom reduction in kidney transplant patients from 20-minute mindful breathing: a randomized controlled trial. BMC Nephrology, 26(1), 194. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12882-024-03820-7