Meditation For Pain Management
December 4th, 2009
Meditation, a non-drug stress reduction method, improves health by reducing the sympathetic nervous system activation that is associated with stress. By decreasing the stress response to acute and chronic pain conditions, meditation can reduce adverse effects on the cardiovascular, respiratory, endocrine, and immune systems.
In addition to pain, people use meditation for various health problems, such as:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Stress
- Insomnia
Meditation changes the brain’s response to pain by producing a physiological state capable of modifying various kinds of pain. A new study examining the perception of pain and the effects of various mental training techniques has produced findings indicating that meditation training can improve pain management.
The new pain study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte shows that a single hour of training spread out over a three day period can produce an analgesic effect, reducing a person’s awareness and sensitivity to pain.
“This study is the first to demonstrate the efficacy of such a brief intervention on the perception of pain,” said Fadel Zeidan, lead author and doctoral candidate in psychology at UNC Charlotte. “Not only did the meditation subjects feel less pain than the control group while meditating but they also experienced less pain sensitivity while not meditating.”
Harmless electrical shocks were administered to study participants in gradual increments; the researchers measured the effect of brief sessions of meditation training on pain awareness measuring responses. Subjects who received meditation training were compared to groups using relaxation and distraction techniques for pain management. The meditation activity had a stronger reducing effect on pain.
“We knew already that meditation has significant effects on pain perception in long-term practitioners whose brains seem to have been completely changed. We didn’t know that you could do this in just three days, with just 20 minutes a day,” Zeidan said. “All you have to do is use your mind, change the way you look at the perception of pain, and that might help alleviate the feeling of pain.”
In addition to meditation, acupuncture can aid in the treatment of many acute and chronic pain conditions including: Back pain, joint pain, neuralgia, frozen shoulder, bursitis, tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, sciatica, myofascial pain, and fibromyalgia.
For information about acupuncture for the treatment of acute and chronic pain conditions call Dr. Richard Browne, Acupuncture Physician, at (305) 595-9500.
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