Mindfulness And Chronic Pain

This is the eighth of a 15 part series of A Month of Mindfulness Posts.

Studies have shown that mindfulness can help with chronic pain and my own experience bears this out. I have arthritis in my right hand, and have used mindfulness meditation to improve this. I have also taken the eight week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programme quoted in the mindful.org article quoted below.

If you want to take a look at some of the studies, have a read of this article on NIH website.

In the previous post in this series, Mindfulness And Immune Response, we looked at how stress can raise cortisol levels. A regular mindfulness practice will help to lower these levels.

Lowered chronic stress levels can reduce levels of inflammation, which can reduce the risk for many diseases including heart attack, stroke and cancers, as well as lowering chronic pain.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction

This is from an article on Mindful.org:

“Jon Kabat-Zinn, the pioneer who brought mindfulness to the West as a possible psychological intervention, was the first to study the connection between mindfulness meditation and pain. In his 1985 study, 90 chronic pain patients were trained in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Results indicated statistically significant reductions in measures of present-moment pain, negative body image, inhibition of activity by pain, mood disturbance, and psychological symptomatology, including anxiety and depression. Additionally, pain-related drug utilization was reduced. Since that study, there have been many more with similar findings”.

Not A Quick Fix

This isn’t a quick fix. You won’t get instant relief from chronic pain with a few minutes of meditation every now and again. But taking the time to learn about the stress response and how to lower it can certainly help. As can learning to pay attention to the mind and body with mindfulness exercises.

When pain is chronic, there can be a tendency to worry and fret about it. Mindfulness exercises can help to focus the mind, in a non-judgmental way, which can lead to less focus on the pain. Jon Kabat-Zinn speaks of how our thoughts around the pain are not pain. Such thoughts as ‘this is killing me’, ‘this is ruining my life’ can add to the suffering. So we can learn to distinguish between the pain sensation itself and the total suffering.

When we can learn to accept the pain, rather than resisting it, that itself may cause a reduction in pain.

The Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction book and workbook are available to buy, and if you are suffering with chronic pain they could be well worth investing in. Or if you can find an eight week course available locally, take a look into that.

Body Scan

A body scan can be particularly helpful for dealing with pain. This one from Jon Kabbat-Zinn on YouTube is excellent: Body Scan Meditation

Whether you choose to focus on your breath, do a body scan, or work through the MBSR programme, I am sure you will find mindfulness helpful in reducing your chronic pain.

Gill Washington does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information