Even brief engagement with mindfulness meditation reduces pain:
A few days ago, the Journal of Pain published a study carried out by scientists at the University of North Carolina. In this studies participants took part in a 3-day mindfulness meditation practice of 20 minutes per day and evaluated the pain experienced in response to electrical stimulation. Participants rated the pain much lower after the meditation training than before.
Several control manipulations were tested to confirm that the observed effect was due to the mindfulness meditation. However, the authors point out that in this study, due to the very short mindfulness training, the full potential of this approach has not been reached, and a longer mindfulness training may have had a more pronounced effect.
As such, the study mainly shows that pain reduction through mindfulness meditation is possible.
Reference
- Zeidan, F., Gordon, N. S., Merchant, J. & Goolkasian, P. (2010). The effects of brief mindfulness meditation training on experimentally induced pain. The Journal of Pain, 11(3), 199-209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2009.07.015
