Using Mindfulness for Pain Management

The power of mindfulness is undeniable, and many people are embracing its potential to help manage pain. It takes compassionate courage to bring attention to the pain experience but doing so can be enlightening and empowering. Mindfulness brings awareness to your reactions to pain and can free you from unintentional suffering.

What Is Pain?

Chronic pain is pain that lasts more than several months (more than three to six). 50 million adults in the U.S. and 1.5 billion worldwide suffer from chronic pain. It’s estimated that one in four children and adolescents also live with chronic pain. It isn’t just a physical experience. It’s a matrix of mind-body experiences. Your thoughts, experiences, and emotional reactions can influence the physical pain and make it worse.

How to Use Mindfulness for Pain Management

Mindfulness is being in the present moment, just as it is, with a kind relationship to whatever sensations, thoughts, and emotions are being experienced. Research has demonstrated that when people pay attention to their thoughts and feelings and become more aware of their sensations, it can help reduce pain levels.

To get started with mindfulness for pain management, it’s important to commit to a regular practice. Practice is essential to experiencing the changes and benefits mindfulness offers. Start building a routine by setting aside an allotted amount of time each day to practice meditation, breathing exercises or mindfulness walks.

Focus on being present in the moment. Take note of any pain you’re feeling, as well as any emotions associated with the pain. Pay attention to the physical sensations and the area of the body where it’s located. Allow yourself to acknowledge the pain without pushing it away or trying to fix it.

Incorporate kindness. When we have pain, it’s natural to react in a flight, fight or freeze mode. However, with practice, we can begin to recognize our negative thoughts, emotions and behaviors from the physical pain. With an attitude of kindness, we start to see how these sensations deepen pain.

Through being present to what is happening with kindness we learn to let the added mind-body suffering arise and pass along without entangling or engaging with it. This practice frees us from the unintentional added suffering that is often part of the pain experience.

Rewire our brain. Mindfulness has long been known for its effect on neural plasticity, also called neuroplasticity or brain plasticity. This allows the brain to consistently rewire itself and change its connections. It can reorganize itself both in structure and how it functions. This also does something else; it changes the brain’s automatic response to the pain and in turn can ease the physical experience.

Additional Ways to Reduce Pain

In addition to practicing mindfulness, you may want to include other methods for managing pain into your routine:

• Exercise
• Massage
• Acupuncture
• Yoga

You can also eat a healthy diet, get plenty of rest and talk to a professional if you feel overwhelmed.

It’s important to remember that managing pain is an ongoing process and requires a commitment to taking the steps necessary for reducing and managing your symptoms.

To learn more about mindfulness for pain and bring hope back into your life, sign up for Mindfulness for Managing Pain: An Introduction. The online class is taught by trained and certified instructors.

Guest Blogger: Ginny Wholley, Certified MBSR Teacher

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