Mindful Meditation

One in five adults in the United States suffer from some kind of chronic pain. Chronic pain occurs due to multiple factors including communication between nerves and emotional factors. Chronic pain differs for each adult affected by it and there is currently no cure. It is usually managed by over the counter medications that are recommended by doctors. Recent research suggests that chronic pain can be better managed through mindful meditation.

Mindful meditation can help reduce the severity of the pain by disrupting the connection between the pain processing part of the brain, which is the thalamus, and the part of the brain responsible for self-referential processing, which is the process of relating information from the external world to the self. Mindful meditation can especially provide relief from chronic back pain and migraines.

A clinical trial with 40 healthy and pain free individuals was conducted where the pain levels of the individuals were tested with different stimuli. After another activity, the individuals underwent a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, to measure their brain activity. One group was told to meditate while their pain was tested and the control group had to keep their eyes closed. At the end of the trial, researchers found that mindful meditation reduced the pain level by 33% while the control group indicated an 18% increase in pain levels. Mindful meditation also reduced the pain processing in multiple regions of the brain.

Meditation affects the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which regulates the processing of moment to moment information. Mindful meditation deactivated the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which then reduced the amount of paint the individual was going through. After further research, scientists found that meditation also caused the decoupling of the thalamus and precuneus. The thalamus is the part of the brain that deals with sensory impulses (including pain) and the precuneus is a part of the brain that is activated when individuals are in self reflection. The communication or the interconnectedness between the thalamus and the precocious is the main cause of chronic pain. Since mindful meditation helps reduce the communication between these two regions, the pain also significantly decreases.

The mind-body connection is an important one and can be used to regulate heart beat and blood pressure. By further exploring the connection between meditation and chronic pain, an alternative, drug free method can be used to treat chronic pain.