Recently, the 5000 year old intuitive teachings of meditation were given the backing of science. A report from the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center states that meditation can be more effective than morphine...
...As a result of the study, Wake Forest recommended meditation be used as standard clinical practice to deal with pain.
This scientific endorsement came as a welcome, but not unexpected result for those in the profession.
Read more
Cited report from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre:
Demystifying Meditation – Brain Imaging Illustrates How Meditation Reduces Pain
Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
It's true. I speak from personal experience. I have serious chronic pain, but am glad to say that if it were not for bhavana I would not be several years free from using opioid pain-killers. Even when it doesn't relieve the pain, it properly adjusts my attitude toward it.Ben wrote:Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Recently, the 5000 year old intuitive teachings of meditation were given the backing of science. A report from the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center states that meditation can be more effective than morphine...
...As a result of the study, Wake Forest recommended meditation be used as standard clinical practice to deal with pain.
This scientific endorsement came as a welcome, but not unexpected result for those in the profession.
Read more
Cited report from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre:
Demystifying Meditation – Brain Imaging Illustrates How Meditation Reduces Pain
I'm a little puzzled why the link shows a beautiful woman meditating in her underwear? Is meditation really that sexy?
Goodwill,
Daniel
Last edited by danieLion on Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
There is a discussion of this in Kelly McGonigal's talk here:
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2012/02/bg ... -practice/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
She first discusses how in some studies meditators are able to be mindful of the pain without getting caught up in thinking about it:
Mike
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2012/02/bg ... -practice/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
She first discusses how in some studies meditators are able to be mindful of the pain without getting caught up in thinking about it:
Then she goes on to this study of less-experienced meditators:So this is the front of the brain. And what you see here, the blue parts, those are the areas of the brain that are more active in non-meditators. OK. And you’re seeing, this is essentially looking like that default network that I showed you earlier. Meditators on the other hand, what you see is the only area of the brain that is more active are the areas that are listening to pain. The areas of the brain like the insula or the thalamus that are just waiting to feel the pain that is happening, that are giving you perfect information about what is happening in your body.
And yet, meditators were able to tolerate much more pain, even as they carefully attended to it. And I think those of you who have a strong practice will immediately recognize this is how we dissociate pain from suffering that when we attend directly to the experience and turn off that inner chatter, suddenly the experience of suffering that seems to arise from pain starts to dissolve.
And within the meditator’s group, the greater the decoupling, the functional decoupling between these two brain systems, paying attention to the feeling of pain and making a commentary about it, the greater they were dissociated, the higher the meditator’s pain tolerance was.
OK now, it is really important I think as a teacher of meditation to notice that this is what happens in experienced meditators.
This is the study lead by researchers at Wake Forest University that took brand new meditators. They’d only been meditating for four days. Mindfulness meditation. And when they were brought into the laboratory and given the exact same pain test, the heat stimulations to the leg, turns out that the successful meditators, those who could tolerate greater levels of pain or found the pain less unpleasant, that they were doing exactly the opposite in their brain than what experienced practitioners too.
They were inhibiting sensory information that somehow they were shifting their attention to ignore what was happening in the present moment. And that was giving rise to less suffering, inhibiting awareness rather than carefully attending to. And I think those of you who teach recognize this as something that often happens when we start to practice. We accidentally end up doing exactly the opposite of what the practice is asking of us. And sometimes we experience what seems to be pretty good results. And I think studies like this can really give teachers insight into how that process is happening in the mind and in the brain so that we can better guide people thru and beyond that.
Mike
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Hi Daniel and Mike,
Yes, I have verified this myself as well by direct experience. A number of visits to hospital I was able to experience pain without pain killers or greatly reduced dosage to the great surprise and interest of doctors and nurses. However, the dentist still freaks me out!
Hi Mike,
That is interesting, thanks for reposting thwe link to McGonikal's talk.
kind regards,
Ben
Yes, I have verified this myself as well by direct experience. A number of visits to hospital I was able to experience pain without pain killers or greatly reduced dosage to the great surprise and interest of doctors and nurses. However, the dentist still freaks me out!
No doubt the sub-editor was looking for an interesting picture to go with the story and the chick in the undies probably fit the bill (for him/her).I'm a little puzzled why the link shows a beautiful woman meditating in underwear?
Hmmm....I would say - no.Is meditation really that sexy?
Hi Mike,
That is interesting, thanks for reposting thwe link to McGonikal's talk.
kind regards,
Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- tiltbillings
- Posts: 23046
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
I'm not complaining.Ben wrote:No doubt the sub-editor was looking for an interesting picture to go with the story and the chick in the undies probably fit the bill (for him/her).I'm a little puzzled why the link shows a beautiful woman meditating in underwear?
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12
This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
The next retreat, I'm keeping my eyes open..tiltbillings wrote:I'm not complaining.Ben wrote:No doubt the sub-editor was looking for an interesting picture to go with the story and the chick in the undies probably fit the bill (for him/her).I'm a little puzzled why the link shows a beautiful woman meditating in underwear?
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Any documentation for better pain relief during a migraine headache using meditation vs. drugs?
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Bhikkhu Bodhi speaks about his pain problems in a talk here:
http://www.audiodharma.org/teacher/19/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
However, he was unable to completely fix the problems with meditation (or anything else).
Mike
http://www.audiodharma.org/teacher/19/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
However, he was unable to completely fix the problems with meditation (or anything else).
Mike
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Thanks, I'll check it out.
That has been my experience as well.
That has been my experience as well.
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Hi Justsit,
kind regards,
Ben
Actually, SN Goenka, talks about his own experience suffering from migranes back before he discovered Dhamma. The story is that he was on morphine and was getting treatment from doctors in the US and Europe but nothign helped. Then after meeting U Ba Khin and started practicing vipassana his symptoms went away.Justsit wrote:Any documentation for better pain relief during a migraine headache using meditation vs. drugs?
kind regards,
Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Interesting! Thanks, I'll check that out as well.
- Monkey Mind
- Posts: 538
- Joined: Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:56 pm
- Location: Pacific Northwest, USA
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Not migraines, but I was prone to outrageous headaches before I attended my first 10-day retreat. I have not had any of those since that retreat, 2.5 years later.
"As I am, so are others;
as others are, so am I."
Having thus identified self and others,
harm no one nor have them harmed.
Sutta Nipāta 3.710
as others are, so am I."
Having thus identified self and others,
harm no one nor have them harmed.
Sutta Nipāta 3.710
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
The video can be seen here: http://kellymcgonigal.com/2011/08/01/61/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;mikenz66 wrote:There is a discussion of this in Kelly McGonigal's talk here:
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2012/02/bg ... -practice/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
She first discusses how in some studies meditators are able to be mindful of the pain without getting caught up in thinking about it: ...
Patrick Kearney has made a couple of interesting comments at the end of the transcript.
... But maybe what we are seeing here is simply that, for most people in the early stages of the practice, the mental factor of concentration or unification (samadhi), associated with serenity (samatha), prevails over the mental factor of mindfulness (sati), associated with insight (vipassana). This is not a problem that teachers need to be concerned about, but an illustration of the relationship between serenity and insight.
And perhaps this indicates how the tradition can inform the reading of the results of scientific tests, rather than speaking only of science informing the tradition.
Mike
- retrofuturist
- Posts: 27854
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
- Location: Melbourne, Australia
- Contact:
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Greetings,
In terms of headaches, I suspect the effectiveness of meditation as prevention/cure probably depends on the underlying cause behind the headache. For example, if you're prone to tension headaches, and through a Dhamma practice inclusive of meditation, you reduce the underlying tension, goodbye tension headaches.
Metta,
Retro.
In terms of headaches, I suspect the effectiveness of meditation as prevention/cure probably depends on the underlying cause behind the headache. For example, if you're prone to tension headaches, and through a Dhamma practice inclusive of meditation, you reduce the underlying tension, goodbye tension headaches.
Metta,
Retro.
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
Re: Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds
Well, if your going to mention MCGonigal, you might as well mention Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, too. He's authored a books like Mindsight and The Mindful Brain and has a talk on dharmaseed.org and probably more if you Google him.mikenz66 wrote:The video can be seen here: http://kellymcgonigal.com/2011/08/01/61/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;mikenz66 wrote:There is a discussion of this in Kelly McGonigal's talk here:
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2012/02/bg ... -practice/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
She first discusses how in some studies meditators are able to be mindful of the pain without getting caught up in thinking about it: ...
Patrick Kearney has made a couple of interesting comments at the end of the transcript.... But maybe what we are seeing here is simply that, for most people in the early stages of the practice, the mental factor of concentration or unification (samadhi), associated with serenity (samatha), prevails over the mental factor of mindfulness (sati), associated with insight (vipassana). This is not a problem that teachers need to be concerned about, but an illustration of the relationship between serenity and insight.
And perhaps this indicates how the tradition can inform the reading of the results of scientific tests, rather than speaking only of science informing the tradition.
Mike
Goodwill
Daniel