One new study shows that pain can be decreased with only brief training in meditation. Another study reveals that our emotions may help us deal with pain.

“We knew already that meditation has significant effects on pain perception in long-term practitioners whose brains seem to have been completely changed — we didn’t know that you could do this in just three days, with just 20 minutes a day,” said Fadel Zeidan, a doctoral candidate in psychology at UNC Charlotte and the lead author of the research reported in The Journal of Pain.

It seems that short and simple mindfulness meditation training can have strong positive effects on pain management. People in the study who practiced meditation felt less pain than the control group while meditating. They also felt less pain sensitivity even when not meditating. For this study, pain was induced by harmless electrical shocks.

Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on the present, freeing your mind of worrying about events of the past or what may happen later on. Key elements include sitting still (but not stiffly) and perhaps even paying attention to your breathing.

In another study by University of Montreal researchers, people who focused on positive emotions felt less pain than those focusing on negative emotions. Once again, small electrical shocks were used to induce pain. Subjects were shown either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral images. Their reactions were recorded by fMRI.

Reseachers found that unpleasant pictures elicited stronger pain than looking at pleasant pictures. Lead author Mathieu Roy said that the findings help support using mood enhancers like photography or music to help alleviate pain. The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Have you tried meditation or music to help control pain?

(Images via stock.xchng)

Post from: Blisstree

Decreasing Pain Without Meds

If you would like to participate in a future blog carnival, just check out the information the on side bar and it will tell you the date for the next one and how to submit your entry. Please make sure that your post has something to do with living with pain. I have been getting submissions that have nothing to do with pain, even in the vaguest sense and I can’t use them.

So now, here we go with the 14 posts that make up June’s Living with Pain Blog Carnival:

First on the list is medicman’s blog, Gout Treatments, which is a blog that discusses natural and alternative treatments for gout: Gout Treatments-Part 1 | How Pineapples Help Ease Painful Gout Attacks. He also submitted a second one: Gout Treatments-Part 5|Blueberries

Over at IC Disease, (IC is interstitial cystitis) this is a good post: Help For Skin Irritation and Urine Burn in IC

If you have back problems (and these days, who doesn’t?), Dean Moyer over at The Back Pain Blog submitted this post: Microdiscectomy and Herniated Discs.

My contribution to the carnival fits in here, it’s about the horrible side effect that can be referred to as “Sahara mouth”: Painful dry mouth from medications.

If you’re interested in complementary and alternative medicines (CAM), Bob’s blog, Acupuncture For Pain, Weight Loss, Depression, Cancer, Allergy and Infertility, has this post for you: Finding Acupuncture Pain Relief for Your Back

Raj sent me this post from Medical Transcription Herald, How To Prevent Constipation?

Communicating with physicians can be a big issue for people who live with chronic pain. Over at Fighting Fatigue, you’ll find this post: Improving Communication Between Patients & Doctors

Anmol Mehta submitted this very interesting post from his blog, Mastery of Meditation, Yoga & Zen: The Saint of Suffering – A Spiritual Story

Continuing in the meditation theme, David Godot’s blog, Way To Go, Godot!, provided us with Take Control of Your Brain with Mindfulness Meditation

Living with pain also means dealing with stuff like paper work. Along this line, Internet Marketing Blog has a post on Google Health: Google Health Launched. Can We Entrust our Health to Google?

I didn’t quite have this type of information in mind when I started the carnival, but it does relate to living with chronic pain. So, Jose DeJesus has sent us his submission, Lowering Prescription Drug Costs.

Same feeling about this post, from Self Help Blog, but I’m sure it is helpful so here is Compensation Is Worse Overall

I wasn’t sure about putting this one in, but then I thought that there may be people who could benefit, so the blog Boston Personal Injury Lawyer is in with this post: Boston Personal Injury Case-Do You Have One?

And that’s it for the June edition of Living With Pain Blog Carnival. That was a pretty good mix of participants, wasn’t it?

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Submit your blog article to the next edition of living with pain using the carnival submission form. Or look at the side bar for the admission link.

Image: Newscom

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Post from: Blisstree

June: Living with Pain Blog Carnival