I started to get stressed out when my sister got cancer. I had headaches, back pain, panic attacks, developed agoraphobia and so on - all the spectrum of mental issues. I tried to approach all of them with weeding them out one by one(and did not look on all of that as a whole picture), so I tried medications, that were meant to cure my insomnia, then headaches(some of them made it even worse), got brain scanned etc. and could not understand the reason and why nothing worked. I just could not calm down, because thoughts that were occupying my mind in background could not just go pooh and vanish. More or less ALL of those symptoms(in most severe states) now are gone and I am now almost back to normal ~1 year later after my sister died. Because now I can afford not to think about her state - now I am able to achieve mindfulness about that situation, that now has gone, and I can occupy my mind with other thoughts, but it has become possible only because now it is too late to worry.

So, it is perfectly correct, that author of this article is talking about mindfulness in regards with imaginary threats and that is very useless for me, as that type of threats actually does not make me stressed out, but inability to save close relative from death I can't perceive as imaginary threat, but it is (pardon my french) sh!t advice to suggest mindfulness in extreme cases(that require most help on anxieties), for example - for someone who would be freaking out over someone close who has died in car accident. The first step would be getting away from that place and not sing kumbaya on that spot.

Knowing that humans have evolved as most violent primates(with everyday aggression amongst themselves), I don't think that meditation is that good, compared to inability to release frustration and anger - from my experience I got a break after I had to deal with situations that required violent solution, so I realized, that for me it had better therapeutical effect and more properly wired to my brains, than "coping" with stress and staying alive and healthy by inability to do anything and trying to meditate.