Search results
Aug 18, 2021 · As some of the previously discussed research indicates, music can help reduce anxiety in both adults and children before and during medical procedures.
- Donald Collins
Feb 19, 2016 · Music therapy can calm anxiety, ease pain, and provide a pleasant diversion during chemotherapy or a hospital stay. It's almost impossible to find someone who doesn't feel a strong connection to music.
- hhp_info@health.harvard.edu
Apr 8, 2022 · How You Can Ease Your Aches and Pain With Meditation. Five minutes of quiet, focused time can help. When everything hurts, the last things on your mind are mantras and deep breathing. But ...
- Overview
- Meditation retrains the brain
- Does meditation help chronic pain?
- Why meditation for pain management?
- Types of meditation to start with
- The takeaway
When your chronic pain persists after you’ve tried conventional treatments, it may be worth a look at meditation. Even if you’re skeptical, you may find a type of meditation that helps you.
The scientific studies on whether meditation works to lower chronic pain have had mixed results. The wide variety of studies and methods makes them hard to compare.
But the bottom line is that some studies show meditation lessens chronic pain and stress for some people. Studies also show that meditation can work for beginners.
Read on to find out more about the scientific evidence on chronic pain and meditation and how to incorporate different meditation techniques.
Meditation uses different brain pathways to deal with pain from those used by other pain treatments. Over time, meditation can change your brain structure to better deal with pain.
Here’s what some studies reported:
•A 2018 study of meditation, mindfulness, and the brain suggested that in the long term, meditation can change the structure of your brain. The resulting change in cortical thickness in some brain areas makes you less pain-sensitive.
•The neural mechanisms meditation uses to modify pain are different from those used by other techniques. For example, a 2012 study determined that meditation promoted cognitive disengagement and an increased sensory processing of the actual pain.
•Meditation also induces the body’s own opioid system. A very small, randomized, double-blind study from 2016 used the opioid blocker naloxone or a placebo and studied pain reduction with meditation. The group with the placebo experienced significantly less pain than the group that had the opioid blocker.
Research is ongoing to look at the exact physiological mechanisms involved with meditation.
Yes, for some people. Here are what some studies found:
•A small controlled study in 2012 found that people who practiced mindfulness were able to reduce pain by 22 percent. They were also able to reduce anticipatory anxiety by 29 percent.
•A 2014 meta-analysis of mindfulness and pain found “insufficient evidence” that mindfulness reduced pain intensity. But the same study found that it eased depression and anxiety in people with chronic pain. The study recommended that healthcare professionals integrate meditation into their pain treatment programs.
•A 2017 review of nonpharmacological treatments reported that mindfulness-based stress reduction was able to improve lower back pain in a trial of 350 adults by more than 30 percent. The results were found to last a year after treatment.
•A 2017 study of 864 people with lower back pain found that meditation was associated with short-term improvement of pain intensity and physical functioning.
•A 2018 white paper on nonpharmacological pain care concluded that nonpharmacological treatments are underused. The paper noted that mindfulness practices show positive effects for people with chronic pain from headache, fibromyalgia, and irritable bowel syndrome.
In recent years, the research on meditation and chronic pain has greatly expanded. Studies are looking at what works for different types of chronic pain, such as back pain or chronic diseases.
There are many types of meditation techniques and many tools to help you get started. Here are a few examples:
•books
•meditation apps
•podcasts
•online videos
Mindful meditation
Mindful meditation can help you manage stress, pain, and anxiety. You can do this by yourself or with an instructor to guide you. Basically, you quietly concentrate on your thoughts without passing judgment on them. It’s one of the most popular types of meditation. It’s also been the most studied type of meditation over the years. A variety of apps can help you mindfully meditate via your phone or another device. You can find a guide to meditation apps here. The Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has a free 19-minute audio session and transcript to guide your meditation.
Visualization meditation
Guided imagery or visualization meditation combines visualizing something positive while you meditate. The aim is to focus your thoughts, calm you down, and reduce stress and pain. Headspace has an app that can guide you through this.
Breathwork meditation
Breathwork meditation involves using a type of breathing exercise to change your breathing pattern and relax your mind. It’s sometimes used with mindfulness meditation to help you focus. Many types of breathwork techniques are available. The Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at UCLA has a free 5-minute guided audio recording to take you through this.
Scientific studies on the effectiveness of meditating to relieve chronic pain show mixed results. One problem is that it’s hard to compare studies involving particular sources of pain and different types of meditation.
But evidence exists that meditation does help some people with pain. How? Research shows that meditation uses neural pathways that make the brain less sensitive to pain and increases use of the brain’s own pain-reducing opioids.
- Marjorie Hecht
Jun 6, 2024 · Your brain wants a lullaby, not a rock concert. Instrumental: Instrumental music without lyrics prevents the brain from being distracted by words, allowing for deeper relaxation. Genres such as classical, ambient, and meditation music are often recommended for pain management.
Aug 24, 2020 · Mind-body therapies can help you reframe awareness of pain, whether recent or chronic, and rethink your response to it. There are several different techniques, some of which involve guidance or working with a therapist; others require nothing but focus and a small amount of time.
People also ask
Can music therapy help with anxiety?
Can music help with meditation?
How can meditation help you manage stress & anxiety?
Can relaxing music reduce pain perception?
Can music help relieve stress?
Jun 28, 2023 · Music is a tool that can help people cope with stress or distract them from a bad mood. Evidence shows that music interventions can be beneficial in treating patients with chronic...
