Meditation Can Help Reduce Pain`s Emotional Impact

To reach the conclusion, scientists from The University of Manchester recruited individuals into the study who had a diverse range of experience with meditation, spanning anything from months to decades. It was only the more advanced meditators whose anticipation and experience of pain differed from non-meditators.

The type of meditation practised also varied across individuals, but all included `mindfulness meditation` practices, such as those that form the basis of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), recommended for recurrent depression by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in 2004.

`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.

The study, to be published in the journal Pain, found that particular areas of the brain were less active as meditators anticipated pain, as induced by a laser device. Those with longer meditation experience (up to 35 years) showed the least anticipation of the laser pain. (MORE)

Source: Sify