Pain management through mindfulness meditation better than placebo: study

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Mindfulness meditation has long been looked upon as a good healthy habit that brings several benefits. More recently, a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience shows how meditation can reduce emotional pain by as much as 44 percent, TIME reports.

Researchers from at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center led by Dr. Fadel Zeidan took to pain ratings and brain imaging through arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging (ASL MRI) to find out whether mindfulness meditation is just a placebo effect.

According to Eurekalert, researchers analyzed 75 healthy and pain-free participants who were randomly divided into four groups: mindfulness meditation, placebo meditation or fake meditation, placebo analgesic cream (which was just petroleum jelly), or control.

Those who were given a placebo cream were told that the cream would reduce pain over time. Participants applied it for four days, but they did not know that researchers lowered the heat on the hot thermal probe, making them believe that the cream was working.

The faux meditation group was told to breathe deeply for 20 minutes but were not given any instructions on how to do it mindfully. The control group was immersed in an audio book called "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne".

The group who were given proper meditation practices were asked to sit with straight posture and closed eyes for 20 minutes. These participants were given specific instructions on what to focus their attention on and how to let their emotions and thoughts pass without any judgment.

Four days later, participants took another MRI exam and were given the hot thermal probe. Results showed that those who practiced mindfulness meditation experienced a 27-percent decrease in pain and a 44-percent decrease in the emotional aspect of pain. Those who were in the placebo cream group only experienced an 11-percent decrease in pain, and a 13-percent decrease in the emotional aspect.

"This study is the first to show that mindfulness meditation is mechanistically distinct and produces pain relief above and beyond the analgesic effects seen with either placebo cream or sham meditation," Dr. Zeidan explained.

"We were completely surprised by the findings," he commented. "While we thought that there would be some overlap in brain regions between meditation and placebo, the findings from this study provide a novel and objective evidence that mindfulness meditation reduces pain in a unique fashion."

Dr. Zeiden also reports, "There was something more active, we believe, going on with the genuine mindfulness meditation group. We haven’t seen that with any other technique before."

According to Dr. Zeiden, results showed that the mindfulness meditation group showed increased activation in higher-order brain regions linked to attention control and enhanced cognitive control. He also said that they will continue to conduct studies on mindfulness meditation and its effects on pain reduction.