ScienceDaily (June 2, 2010) — People who meditate regularly find pain less unpleasant because their brains anticipate the pain less, a new study has found. "Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as a way to treat chronic illness such as the pain caused by arthritis," said Dr Christopher Brown, who conducted the research. "Recently, a mental health charity called for meditation to be routinely available on the NHS to treat depression, which occurs in up to 50% of people with chronic pain. However, scientists have only just started to look into how meditation might reduce the emotional impact of pain." The study found that particular areas of the brain were less active in meditators than non-meditators, particularly in anticipation of pain. Dr Brown, who is based in the University's School of Translational Medicine, found that people who meditate also showed unusual activity during anticipation of pain in part of the prefrontal cortex, a brain region known to be involved in controlling attention and thought processes when potential threats are perceived. He said: "The results of the study confirm how we suspected meditation might affect the brain. Meditation trains the brain to be more present-focused and therefore to spend less time anticipating future negative events. This may be why meditation is effective at reducing the recurrence of depression, which makes chronic pain considerably worse." "We found that meditators anticipate pain less and find pain less unpleasant". Journal Reference:Meditation Reduces the Emotional Impact of Pain
Zen Meditation Alleviates Pain
ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2009) — Zen meditation – a centuries-old practice that can provide mental, physical and emotional balance – may reduce pain according to Université de Montréal researchers. A new study in the January edition of Psychosomatic Medicine reports that Zen meditators have lower pain sensitivity both in and out of a meditative state compared to non-meditators.
Joshua A. Grant, a doctoral student in the Department of Physiology, co-authored the paper with Pierre Rainville, a professor and researcher at the Université de Montréal and it's affiliated Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal. The main goal of their study was to examine whether trained meditators perceived pain differently than non-meditators.
"While previous studies have shown that teaching chronic pain patients to meditate is beneficial, very few studies have looked at pain processing in healthy, highly trained meditators. This study was a first step in determining how or why meditation might influence pain perception." says Grant. read more
Mind Over Matter: Alternative Therapies Affect Experience Of Chronic Pain
ScienceDaily (Aug. 30, 2006) — A significant number of people world-wide suffer with chronic pain, which affects every aspect of their lives, and often results in depression.
Researchers at Kent State University and Case Western University, led by Kent State nursing professor Wendy Lewandowski, tracked the experience of 44 patients being treated for chronic pain.
Patients in one group listened to a seven-minute audio tape that helped them to relax, focus on the sensory images their pain evoked, and then guided them to change the sensory images.
This technique, known as "guided imagery," is an effective supplement to medication therapy, the researchers found. Unlike those in the control group, the guided imagery patients in the study described their pain as ultimately more tolerable or easier to control.