Marissa Cevallos: Meditation appears to be a powerful way to take away pain — just a short session is more potent than even morphine, if we’re to believe the headlines — but let’s take a closer look.
In a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, meditation rookies reported feeling less pain after meditation training than they had felt before the training.
The novice yogis weren’t simply being polite — scans of their brains backed up their “less-hurt” claims.
The study, from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, echoes other research that suggests clearing your mind can reduce pain, but it’s far too early to recommend that chronic pain sufferers toss out their pain-killers.
In the study, an instructor taught 15 volunteers a technique called focused attention, in which one lets go of distracting thoughts and focuses on breathing. Subjects attended four 20-minute classes.
Before and after meditation training, the participants were subjected…
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I have been meditating for 35 years now, and had bilateral knee replacements last summer after 10 years of severe osteoarthritis; I know a bit about pain. I was able to live with my arthritis pain for most of a decade without the help of many drugs, an occasional dose of ibuprophen when I overdid things. I did not attempt to get through the surgery, or the healing afterwards without the help of narcotics, in fact, post surgery I was in pain that I did not recognize as pain… it manifested as dizziness and disorientation. I am grateful for a nurse who recognized that pain was the problem and had the surgeon put me on time release morphine. The morphine enabled me to get back on my feet and do the necessary exercise for the first two weeks of my recovery. If you can manage your pain without medication, that is a blessing. If you need modern medicine to control your pain, it is available, and that is also a blessing.