Ease your back pain with meditation.
Taken from Article byAmanda Chan from My Health News Daily Staff Writer
05 April 2011
Zen meditation discourages mental withdrawal from the world and dreaminess, and instead asks one to keep fully aware with a vigilant attitude. Typically one focuses on breathing and posture and aims to dismiss thoughts as they arise. Brain scans now show that Zen training leads to different activity in a set of brain regions known as the "default network," which is linked with spontaneous bursts of thought and wandering minds.
New Jersey resident Frank Nafey wakes up every day with discomfort in his back and right leg. On good days, all he has to deal with is stiffness. But on bad days, it feels as if a knife were lodged in his back.
Nafey, a 56-year-old retired teacher in Bedminster, was diagnosed 15 years ago with multiple sclerosis. The autoimmune disease attacked the neurons in his brain, limiting his ability to move and causing pain in his limbs.
But he practices yoga and meditation to soothe his pain, with breathing exercises to focus his mind on things other than his body. These practices alone don't take away the pain, but at least they help his mind "become distanced" from his body, he said.
"When you have a chronic disease, it oftentimes feels like you're trapped within the body," Nafey told MyHealthNewsDaily.
In a new study by researchers from Wake Forest University, brain scans illustrate the mechanisms behind Nafey's experiences. The brains of people who underwent meditation training and were subjected to five minutes of pain showed a decrease in activation in regions associated with pain.
And the participants reported lower levels of pain than before they learned how to meditate, the study said.
The study appears tomorrow (April 6) in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Looking at the brain scans
