Manage chronic pain with meditation

Study: Manage chronic pain with meditation. Though it might seem as though focusing on “being in the moment” without judgment would make pain worse, several studies now show that a form of meditation called “mindfulness”—which encourages people to do just that—can be a painkiller. “Don’t reflect on the past and don’t anticipate the future: If you can do that, you are essentially being mindful without even the meditation component,” Zeidan says. His research found that college students given just three 20-minute training and meditation practice sessions actually raised their pain thresholds. Before the study trials began, each person was tested to see how much electrical current applied to the forearm would be experienced as “high” and “low” pain. Afterward, it took much more current to cause similar levels of pain—but only in the group that was trained in meditation. “Meditation had a very comprehensive effect on altering the perception of pain,” Zeidan says. “We had to turn juice up to get them to feel pain even when they were not meditating.” Source: health.msn.com