Could om take the edge off of ouch?
A new study suggests that mindfulness meditation is an effective strategy for pain relief.
The research, published in Biological Psychiatry, analyzed pain signatures in MRI scans to determine the relationship between mindfulness and the body’s experience of pain.
When asked to rate their pain, participants trained in mindfulness meditation reported less discomfort than those who did not receive the instruction.
According to the American Psychological Association, mindfulness meditation, derived from ancient Hindu and Buddhist practice, is the process of training attention to achieve a state of calm concentration.
The APA said the practice can “help people avoid destructive or automatic habits and responses” by observing their thoughts, emotions, and other present-moment experiences without judgment or reaction.
Mindfulness meditation has long been lauded as an effective tool for both body and mind. Research shows that meditation can reduce blood pressure, intensify orgasms, improve overall health and increase social connections. When practiced in the workplace, mindfulness meditation guards against anxiety, stress and burnout.
But can the power of the mind and the mind/body connection be leveraged to manage pain?
“The mind is extremely powerful, and we’re still working to understand how it can be harnessed for pain management,” anesthesiologist Fadel Zeidan from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) explains.
Zeidan, UCSD neuroscientist Gabriel Riegner and a team of researchers set out to examine how the brain processes pain and if the effects of mindfulness meditation could lessen our experience.
As the researchers note, “Pain is shaped by the interplay between one’s experiences, current cognitive-affective states and expectations.”
The study included 115 participants who were divided between two separate clinical trials. In both trials, participants were touched on the right calf with a heated probe that produced waves of painful but harmless heat.
Ahead of the experiment, a number of participants were trained in mindfulness meditation.
In four separate, 20-minute sessions, this group learned to focus on the changing cadence of their breath and acknowledge and accept the ebb and flow of thoughts and feelings without reaction or judgment.
Another group was given a sham training that consisted only of deep breathing; others were given a placebo cream they were told would reduce pain, and a further group listened to an audiobook in lieu of meditation instructions.
MRI brain scans were used before and after the pain experiments, and participants were asked to rate the intensity of their pain on a scale of zero to 10.
The MRI scans provided information on several pain signatures, including the nociceptive-specific pain signature (NPS), which is associated with intensity; the negative affective pain signature (NAPS), which measures our emotional experience of pain; and the stimulus-independent pain signature (SIIPS-1), which relates to our expectations of pain.
The meditative group’s MRI scans revealed a more significant reduction in both NPS and NAPS compared to the placebo cream group and the other participants.
The only treatment that produced a significantly lower response in SIIPS-1 was the placebo cream.
According to researchers, those results suggest that mindfulness meditation’s pain-mitigating effects are based on properties beyond placebo; otherwise, the meditation would have had a significant impact on SIIPS-1.
Zeidan explains, “It has long been assumed that the placebo effect overlaps with brain mechanisms triggered by active treatments, but these results suggest that when it comes to pain, this may not be the case. Instead, these two brain responses are completely distinct, which supports the use of mindfulness meditation as a direct intervention for chronic pain rather than as a way to engage the placebo effect.”
Zeidan and his team are hopeful their findings will help reshape treatment and improve the quality of life for people who experience chronic pain.
“By separating pain from the self and relinquishing evaluative judgment, mindfulness meditation can directly modify how we experience pain in a way that uses no drugs, costs nothing, and can be practiced anywhere,” Zeidan says.
Zeidan continues, “We are excited to continue exploring the neurobiology of mindfulness and how we can leverage this ancient practice.”
