If you’ve ever been in severe pain, the advice to breathe deeply and simply accept the sensations can feel less than comforting. However, groundbreaking research has confirmed that mindfulness meditation offers more than just a placebo effect – it genuinely reduces pain.
Mindfulness meditation encourages individuals to maintain awareness of sensory experiences as they come and go, without judgement or resistance. Rooted in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, this practice has steadily gained traction in Western culture since the 1970s, catching the attention of the scientific community.
“The mind is incredibly powerful, and we are only just beginning to understand how it can be harnessed for pain management,” explains Dr. Fadel Zeidan, an anaesthesiologist at the University of California, San Diego. “By separating pain from the self and relinquishing judgement, mindfulness meditation directly alters our pain experience, all without drugs, cost, or geographic limitations.”
To delve deeper into how meditation effects the brain, Zeidan, neuroscientist Gabriel Riegner and their team set out to differentiate the brain’s distinct pain signatures and determine whether mindfulness meditation goes beyond placebo. 115 healthy participants were recruited across two clinical trials, and a probe was applied to the back of each participant’s calf to evoke pain bit harmless temperatures.
Participants underwent MRI scans before and after the sessions and rated their pain on a scale of 0 to 10. Ahead of these studies, some participants received training in mindfulness meditation by experienced instructors, learning to focus on their breath’s changing rhythms and how to accept thought without judgement. Another group experienced a sham mindfulness practice that only required deep breathing, and others were given a placebo cream or petroleum jelly. A further group listened to an audiobook in place of meditation instruction.
The MRI data revealed various pain signatures:
· the nociceptive-specific pain signature (NPS), associated with pain intensity
· the negative affective pain signature (NAPS), linked to the emotional experience of pain
· and the stimulus-independent pain signature (SIIPS-1), which is related to psychosocial factors like our expectations of pain, and thus identifies placebo-based dimensions
Results were telling. Mindfulness meditation led to a significant reduction in self-reported pain as well as in both NPS and NAPS, surpassing the effects of the placebo and control methods. Notably, only the placebo cream affected the SIIPS-1 signature, indicating that mindfulness meditation’s benefits stem from mechanisms other than placebo.
“It has long been assumed that the placebo effect overlaps with brain mechanisms triggered by active treatments, but these results suggest that when it comes to pain, this may not be the case,” notes Zeidan.
“Instead, these two brain responses are completely distinct, which supports the use of mindfulness meditation as a direct intervention for chronic pain rather than as a way to engage the placebo effect.”
The team hopes these finding can help guide treatment for the millions of people who live with chronic pain every day, and improve their quality of life.
This research is published in Biological Psychiatry, marking a significant step in our understanding of pain management through mindfulness.
SOURCE: SCIENCE ALERT
