Friends With RSD/Chronic Pain And Illnesses

Meditation for Living with Chronic Pain: Choosing How to Pay Attention
by Sosha Devi

Through meditation and by giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose.
~ Eknath Easwaran ~

THE BASICS
Meditation—the word itself is a linguistic rainbow. Ask one person to define the word and they may tell you that to meditate is to reflect upon the nature of existence. Ask another and you will be jubilantly reassured that meditation is supplication or prayer—"Ask and ye shall receive." Denotatively, the root word med, similar in use to the words medical or medicate, signifies an "attending to" or "paying attention."

Meditation can be easily understood under the guidance of both the Buddhist and Yoga traditions. From these traditions, we can extract two unique ways of practicing: 1) meditation is allowing the mind to focus on one thing and 2) it is cultivating an inner awareness or insight into the nature of the present moment.

If you live and breathe, you have unlimited access to the benefits of meditation. Have you ever been looking at something (e.g. a baby, a loved one, or a tree) and felt as if time had stopped? Certain ordinary yet surreal moments in everyday life exemplify the same foundational concept of meditation. Best of all, the practice of meditation provides countless benefits for those who live with chronic pain. The practice of meditation teaches us that we can choose how to pay attention to the pain.

Meditation is not a solution unto itself. It is a wonderful tool that can assist in coping with the everyday obstacles to living with pain. The practice works best as a compliment to medical treatment. Meditation is not meant to take the pain away, but instead it can help diminish the negative chain of psychological responses we have to it. It can help us to discern which types of thoughts and emotions are helpful and which are not. Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Stress Reduction Clinic articulates this sentiment well:

In the new paradigm, pain is not just a "body problem," it is a whole-systems problem. Sensory impulses…are transmitted via nerve fibers to the brain, where these messages are registered and interpreted as "pain." This has to happen before they are considered painful. But there are many well-known pathways within the brain and central nervous system by which higher cognitive and emotional functions can modify the perception of pain. The systems perspective on pain opens the door for many different possible ways to use your mind intentionally to influence your experience of pain. (p.288 Full).

Meditation can offer a new and useful perspective on pain whereby the old habitual ways of thinking are no longer useful.

CHANGING OLD HABITS
The pain itself can be the focus of a meditation. If you live with pain, you probably are already very aware of the physical sensations that go along with it. We do not have to meditate in order to draw awareness to it. The pain is omnipresent, it becomes the greatest distraction from which miles and miles of agonizing thoughts originate. So, what benefit is there in bringing more focus to the sensations? The effort brings about a shift. Instead of responding unconsciously to the sensations of pain, we become aware of our habitual and automatic responses.

We all know what happens when we focus on how much the pain hurts. A common and habitual reaction to pain includes the mind becoming fragmented and chaotic. The pain creates a feeling of lack of control, which the mind feeds on. The fragmented, fed up mind will say, "This is killing me ~ I can't stand it any longer ~ my life is out of control." These thoughts become automated responses that do not serve us well. With the uttering of these thoughts, we have essentially given up our right to choose how to react to the pain. We have allowed the mind to run its habitual course, forgetting that there are choices involved in how to pay attention to the pain.

The aim is arriving at the point where there is a choice made as to what type of response is elicited. The reaction to pain shifts from one of habit to one of choice. We can challenge ourselves to create a new way of reacting to the persistent sensations, offer ourselves a new perspective and a new way of paying attention.

GETTING STARTED
The first step in beginning to meditate is finding a restful position or asana. It may be helpful to consult with a caring heath care professional who may have ideas as to how to find the most safe and easeful position. Everyone can position the body in their own unique way to allow for the most ease during meditation. It's not compulsory to meditate seated upright with the legs crossed. In fact, part of the meditation involves accepting the realities of the physical body and tuning in to the malleability of the mind.

If you can move around a little, try a few different positions. It’s best to use a scale or continuum to judge the level of pain in each position versus seeing each position as completely good or completely bad. If you are more comfortable lying on the floor, roll a blanket up and place in underneath your knees and/or head. If you live with low back pain, try placing a small pillow underneath the sacrum or lumbar region. Be creative. Experiment with placing the body in many positions, and create the one with the least amount of pain.

You may even wish to meditate in your favorite chair or on the sofa. Wherever you are, allow the body to begin to relax. The body will relax a bit as soon as you put forth that intention. Talk to the body. Tell the body to calm down. Take a few deep breaths and prepare for the practice.

THE PRACTICE
Draw your awareness to the areas that hurt. Close your eyes and keep your attention there. As you continue to concentrate on the painful areas, become aware of how you are thinking. What are your thoughts? Watch the thoughts for a few moments. Try to discover a connection to the thoughts you are having and the pain you are feeling. Notice that they are two different entities—thoughts and physical sensations. Try to distinquish between the two.

Let go of the idea that you want the meditation to get rid of the pain. See the meditation as nothing more than learning to accept the present moment. If there is a lot of pain in the present moment, then try to accept this present reality, however troubling. Imagine the mind is like a camera and you can zoom in or out at your leisure.

Zoom in on the pain and feel the physical sensations as they occur in the body. Zoom out and notice that you are merely observing the sensations the same way you would look through a lens. Shift the way you pay attention to the pain.

Now, shift the attention off the pain by giving the mind something else to focus on. In the same way laughing with a good friend can distract us for a few moments, observing the natural flow of the breath brings a sense of well being into the mind. There can be something inherently empowering and comforting in witnessing that you are alive. Thich Nhat Hahn tells us, "Breath, you are alive!"

So, draw your attention to your breath. The movement and rhythm of the breath will become the meditation or point of focus. Close the eyes and concentrate of the rise and fall of the chest or abdomen. Without changing anything, observe yourself as you breath in and breath out. Pay attention to how you are breathing. Without altering the breath, notice if the belly or the chest moves up and down with the in and out breath. Notice how you are breathing and try not to judge yourself. Observe air moving through the nostrils.

Continually bring your attention back to the breath. The mind wanders away, and begins to focus on the pain once again. Notice the thoughts that arise as your attention shifts to the pain. Then put your attention back onto the breath. As you pay attention to the breath, try to identify with the feeling of easefulness.

Notice that the breath moves in and out without your help. For a few moments, let go of your identification with the pain. Yet, try not to fight the mind. Let the mind focus on the pain when it needs to. Notice your reactions to the pain, then shift your attention back again to the natural flow of the breath. Again and again, shift your attention to that which can sooth and heal. Melt into the waves as they rise and fall. Know that you are not your pain. You are a beautiful living being who is experiencing peace and joy simply because you alive.

WHAT MEDICAL SCIENCE SAYS
Since the 1960s numerous studies have suggested that meditation improves overall health and mental functioning. Herbert Benson M.D., from the Harvard Medical School, reported that "Meditation decreases oxygen consumption, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure, and increases the intensity of alpha, theta, and delta brain waves-the opposite of the physiological changes that occur during the stress response." Benson’s work indicated that meditation can reduce the stress caused by chronic pain. Meditation has also been shown to improve overall mood level. Jon Kabat-Zinn, M.D., head of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts, has run extensive stress reduction programs that include meditation, yoga and relaxation. His findings indicate that "Meditators are able to reduce chronic pain by more than 50%, while increasing daily function and markedly improving their moods, even 4 years after the completion of an 8-week training course." There are countless other studies that suggest that meditation can relieve chronic pain. One notable study, conducted by Patrick Randolph Ph.D. at Texas Tech University, found that meditation in conjunction with traditional medicine enhances the effectiveness of western medical treatment alone (www.sdearthtimes.com/et1198/et1198s13.html).

Randolph’s stress reduction and medical treatment program resulted in an average of 85.5% of the participants reporting an improvement in their ability to manage the pain. The NIH Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine draws similar conclusions, affirming the efficacy of a regular meditation practice in combination with traditional treatment. The real proof of the benefits of meditation rests in experiencing it for yourself. There can be much benefit when we repeatedly and earnestly, over a period of time, practice with the intention of shifting the way we perceive our pain. The pain is just as real as it was before, only now we make choices as to how to respond to it. All it asks of us is that we practice…practice…and practice some more.

As the great Mohandas K. Gandhi said, "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

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