Why Mindfulness Is So Effective At Relieving Pain (M)
Why mindfulness may be even more effective than painkillers for some people’s pain.
Category: Mindfulness
Pain: 2 Best Psychological Techniques For Coping
The short-term strategies that are best for tolerating and reducing pain.
The short-term strategies that are best for tolerating and reducing pain.
Accepting pain is the best way to tolerate it, a study finds.
Compared with three other psychological techniques, accepting pain increases pain tolerance.
The two other techniques tested were distraction and cognitive restructuring.
Distraction, though, emerged as the best way to reduce the intensity of pain, the study also found.
The study’s authors write that…
“…acceptance is intended to disrupt the link between thoughts and behaviors such that participants are willing to tolerate painful stimulation for longer periods of time (with negative thoughts and feelings).”
Distraction, meanwhile, works by refocusing attention:
“Distraction aims to shift the attentional focus away from painful stimulation and thereby to lessen pain intensity.
Some studies indicate that strategies such as distraction or suppression are more effective at reducing pain intensity relative to an acceptance strategy.”
Cognitive restructuring — a technique that involves changing how people think about their pain — was not found to be particularly effective.
How use acceptance
Here is how the authors describe the acceptance strategy:
“It was explained that thoughts often initiate behavior, but that it is also possible to disengage oneself from these thoughts (defusion) through nonjudgmental awareness (mindfulness) or acceptance.
The strategy of regarding thoughts as clouds in the sky was discussed as an example of defusion.
If thoughts can be accepted, they no longer control behavioral tendencies and do not inhibit personal goals.
Within the exercise, participants were asked to imagine that they were experiencing the thermal stimulus and to regard their thoughts as clouds in the sky passing by.”
How to use distraction
Here is how the authors describe the distraction strategy:
“It was explained that distraction can lead to reduced perception of thoughts and feelings.
Attention can work like a spotlight: depending on which thoughts and feelings come into focus, other thoughts and feelings may be ‘‘blanked out.’’
It is possible to distract oneself internally or externally.
Internal distraction may take place via imagination or recalling past experiences, while external distraction may involve increasing attention to environmental stimuli.
Within the exercise, participants were asked to imagine feeling the heat stimulus and to distract themselves by imaging a pleasant scene.”
→ Another useful technique to try is meditation: Reduce Pain With This Mental Practice — In Just 20 Minutes Over Four Days
The study was published in the Journal of Pain (Rief & Glombiewski et al., 2013).
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People Who Think Like This Have Less Belly Fat (M)
Way of thinking may also help people over the initial aversion to exercising.
Way of thinking may also help people over the initial aversion to exercising.
People who are naturally more ‘mindful’ are less likely to be obese.
The naturally mindful also have less abdominal fat than those of a more distracted nature.
While being naturally mindful is something that’s part of your personality, it can also be taught.
Dr Eric Loucks, who led the study, said:
“This is everyday mindfulness.
The vast majority of these people are not meditating.”
394 people in the study responded to prompts that probed how mindful they were.
For example, strongly agreeing with both of the statements below suggests low levels of natural mindfulness:
- I find it difficult to stay focused on what’s happening in the present.
- I could be experiencing some emotion and not be conscious of it until some time later.
Mindfulness may stop obesity by making people aware when they are overeating.
It may also help people over the initial aversion to exercising.
Dr Loucks said:
“That’s where the mindfulness may come in.
Being aware of each and every moment and how that’s related to what we do and how we feel.”
Other studies have also shown that greater mindfulness can improve diet and help overcome cravings.
As I wrote in a previous article on food and the mind:
“Eating is so routine that we easily zone out from the experience.
While our minds are wandering, though, our hands are shovelling it in faster and faster.
Studies have shown that people eat more when they are distracted, like when watching TV or talking with friends (Bolhuis et al., 2013).
Unfortunately when not focusing on our food, we tend to eat more and get less enjoyment from it.
This is why one approach that’s used to combat eating disorders and obesity is mindful eating.
This is taking smaller bites and paying more attention to what you are eating.
Not only do people eat less this way, but they also enjoy it more.”
The results of the current study were encouraging but natural mindfulness only had a modest link to weight.
Dr Loucks said:
“Awareness seems to be enough to have a small to medium effect.
Then there is the question of what could we do to increase it.”
The study was published in the journal International Journal of Behavioral Medicine (Loucks et al., 2015).
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