meditation ... more powerful than medication

[mzteris]

According to a new study, meditation practice is actually more powerful than medication in terms of its ability to relieve pain.

Researchers from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina worked on this breakthrough study to take a closer look at the type of impact meditation had on pain, and how much relief it could provide.

Meditation is extremely complex, but breaking it down into simpler terms, it is a state you put your body in where your mind of free from the world around you. The idea was to see how meditation compared to pain relief medication.

In a lab setting, researchers applied heat probes to male and female participants at a temperature of 120F. They did this first while they were on medications or pain relief drugs, and then while they were meditating. What researchers found is that the meditation allowed for further pain relief than the medication. Participants in meditation during this were 57% less unpleasant under these painful circumstances. They also stated that the heat was not as intense.


The study has been published in the Journal of Neuroscience. http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/14/5540.abstract

[PDJane]

1. I have found it mostly true,

Although I'm in enough pain that I sometimes do both. On the whole, though, I have found mindfulness to be a blessing.

[Jeroen]

2. Jon Kabat-Zinn leads a session on Mindfulness at Google

Jon Kabat-Zinn leads a session on Mindfulness at Google:
http://youtu.be/3nwwKbM_vJc

A wonderful introduction on mindfulness - and guided meditation.

[PDJane]

3. There is a woman in Toronto at St. Michael's Hospital

who works with Kabat-Zinn. There are a number of clinics who do this here, but I prefer her voice for the guided part *shrug* personal preferences!

I have been using guided meditation for three years or so; it does make a difference in chronic pain levels. Interestingly, I have also used accupuncture, which I find gives very short-term benefits, if any.