Meditation reduces the emotional impact of pain

[Guest guest]

Meditation reduces the emotional impact of pain

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-06/uom-mrt060210.php

People who meditate regularly find pain less unpleasant because their brains

anticipate the pain less, a new study has found.

Scientists from The University of Manchester recruited individuals into the

study who had a diverse range of experience with meditation, spanning anything

from months to decades. It was only the more advanced meditators whose

anticipation and experience of pain differed from non-meditators.

The type of meditation practised also varied across individuals, but all

included 'mindfulness meditation' practices, such as those that form the basis

of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), recommended for recurrent

depression by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)

in 2004.

" Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as a way to treat chronic illness

such as the pain caused by arthritis, " said Dr Brown, who conducted

the research. " Recently, a mental health charity called for meditation to be

routinely available on the NHS to treat depression, which occurs in up to 50% of

people with chronic pain. However, scientists have only just started to look

into how meditation might reduce the emotional impact of pain. "

The study, to be published in the journal Pain, found that particular areas of

the brain were less active as meditators anticipated pain, as induced by a laser

device. Those with longer meditation experience (up to 35 years) showed the

least anticipation of the laser pain.

Dr Brown, who is based in Manchester's School of Translational Medicine, found

that people who meditate also showed unusual activity during anticipation of

pain in part of the prefrontal cortex, a brain region known to be involved in

controlling attention and thought processes when potential threats are

perceived.

He said: " The results of the study confirm how we suspected meditation might

affect the brain. Meditation trains the brain to be more present-focused and

therefore to spend less time anticipating future negative events. This may be

why meditation is effective at reducing the recurrence of depression, which

makes chronic pain considerably worse. "

Dr Brown said the findings should encourage further research into how the brain

is changed by meditation practice. He said: " Although we found that meditators

anticipate pain less and find pain less unpleasant, it's not clear precisely how

meditation changes brain function over time to produce these effects.

" However, the importance of developing new treatments for chronic pain is clear:

40% of people who suffer from chronic pain report inadequate management of their

pain problem. "

In the UK, more than 10 million adults consult their GP each year with arthritis

and related conditions. The estimated annual direct cost of these conditions to

health and social services is £5.7 billion.

Study co-author Professor said: " One might argue that if a therapy

works, then why should we care how it works? But it may be surprising to learn

that the mechanisms of action of many current therapies are largely unknown, a

fact that hinders the development of new treatments. Understanding how

meditation works would help improve this method of treatment and help in the

development of new therapies.

" There may also be some types of patient with chronic pain who benefit more from

meditation-based therapies than others. If we can find out the mechanism of

action of meditation for reducing pain, we may be able to screen patients in the

future for deficiencies in that mechanism, allowing us to target the treatment

to those people. "