Meditation may Ease the Pain

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A recent study from the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention in Fairfield, Iowa, reveals a slightly unconventional approach could hold the solution to pain reduction. Transcendental meditation may reduce brain responsiveness to pain by creating a physiological condition that can alter pain.

Chronic pain affects 50 million people around the world, and nearly all of the body's systems are negatively influenced by the stress created as a result of unattended pain. The cost of treating pain is roughly $100 billion every year.

Researchers compared a group of 12 people who had practiced transcendental meditation for 30 years to control group of 12 people and found those who meditated had 40-percent to 50-percent less brain response to pain. When the control group learned and executed the meditation practices for five months, they too saw a decrease in brain response to pain.

"Prior research indicates that transcendental meditation creates a more balanced outlook on life and greater equanimity in reacting to stress," reports David Orme-Johnson, Ph.D., lead researcher of the project. "This study suggests that this is not just an attitudinal change, but a fundamental change in how the brain functions."

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SOURCE: NeuroReport Journal, 2006;17:1359-1363