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Meditate The Pain Away
Mar
Mindfulness has become a very popular term, everyone is trying to practice it in their daily life.Mindfulness is the process of being in the moment, paying attention to the here-and-now instead of letting your mind drift to other concerns. This is something that has been taught in the Buddhist tradition for millennia and is called – meditation.
Mindfulness can also be used to help overcome, or at least live productively with, pain. The specific tool that is used to accomplish this is meditation. While some might not fully believe in the effectiveness of this technique for pain relief, it is definitely worth trying:
- It is a financially costless process,
- It puts you in control as you are the one doing it as opposed to having something (surgery, therapy) done to you,
- If nothing else, it helps you relax for a while, which in itself can help with pain relief.
Let’s go over exactly how to practice mindful meditation, how it will help with pain relief, and how to incorporate it into your life:
Incorporating into your life – in the mornings or evenings would make the most sense, either before or after daily activities, so that it doesn’t interfere. Short 20 minute sessions daily have been proven sufficient to produce results and are a good place to start with this technique, although you may see results with even shorter sessions.
How it will help relieve pain – you should experience pain relief immediately following your meditation session. However, meditation works over time, the more you practice it the more it will take effect and the more you will be able to control your perception of pain, ie. you will experience lasting pain relief.
How to practice meditation – Begin with controlled deep breathing in a clear relaxing space sitting comfortably, focus your eyes on a point, or shut them all together. Start slowing your breathing, taking deeper breaths using your chest. Focus on the deep breathing counting 1 on breathing in, and 2 on breathing out. Do this for 2-3 minutes. After you have established the slowed breathing start one of the imagery techniques: Altered focus, Dissociation, Sensory splitting, Mental anesthesia, Mental analgesia, Transfer, Age progression/regression, Symbolic imagery, Positive imagery, Counting, Pain movement.
All of these mindful meditation techniques can be learned through quick meditation courses, or even self-taught with the help of a book, internet, and easiest of all an instructional video there are many on YouTube.
Everyone who suffers from continuous pain of any kind knows that it’s incredibly difficult to lead a productive life while suffering. Meditation is a great technique that helps ease pain and get you back to relative normal. So why not try something that requires little time and little effort yet so many benefits even beyond pain relief.
