I am passionate about helping women transform their mindsets and embrace self-worth, overcome the barriers that hinder their ability to become their best versions, and establish loving relationships with their partners, themselves, and others.
Desire pain relief without the pharmaceuticals? This article is for you!
I highly recommend hypnosis, guided imagery, meditation, yoga Nidra, energy work like Reiki or polarity, yoga, holistic nutrition, supplements, essential oils, acupuncture and other holistic services to my clients and use them personally. I also offer meditation CDs and one-on-one sessions to help with pain management.
These offerings are designed for beginners, intermediates, and experts ranging from coaching to calming playlists. You can download some of my free pain and stress management guided meditations here.
Beyond the results my clients and I have experienced, research suggests that practicing yoga gives relief to arthritis, back pain, depression, anxiety, and increases natural neurotransmitter GABA levels. And listening to a half an hour of hypnosis, guided imagery or yoga Nidra meditation equals 3-4 hours of sleep or deep relaxation, which promotes stress and pain relief.
You could be wondering, “How have I never heard of this before?” That’s okay. Although, holistic lifestyle practices are trending more than ever. The why behind this trend is often not explained fully.
Meditation stronger than drugs?
The Institute of Noetic Science is finding more evidence of the mind’s ability to create pain and discomfort in the body.
Research comparing evidence of direct pain to the anticipation of pain found that the brain lit up with expectation of pain greater than the actual experience of the pain.
Meditation works to reduce fear and anxiety of needles, dentists, etc. This greatly decreases your anticipation of pain resulting in less pain when something actually hurts you.
The Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, NC 2011 study by Fadel Zeidan indicated that one hour of meditation training could reduce immediate pain by nearly half with a long-lasting effect. In this study, they used 15 volunteers who had never tried to meditate before and taught them meditation techniques in four 20-minutes classes. Volunteers brains were scanned before, during and after inducing pain on their right leg by heating it up with pain inducing device for 5 minutes. The results were impressive:
These results far exceeded the typical 25% pain reduction of morphine and other pain-relieving drugs. Zeidan described that meditation has been recognized to be helpful for a while, but he has shown through this study (and another study from 2010) that it takes much less time to see results than previously believed. “It worked for beginners and it seems a patient does not need to be a zen master of 10 years to reap the rewards of the practice”, he said excitedly.
Pain management is possible in many ways. But, only meditation can help you control pain brought on by anticipatory thoughts.
Change your thoughts = reduce your pain!
You create pain by your thoughts and anticipation of what your mind believes will happen next. When you use guided imagery for pain, it helps your mind perceive and interpret situations differently. This helps you stay relaxed and calm and allows you to stay in control during those times when you normally are feeling stressed and anticipate pain. Which will give you pain relief, reduce stress and make you feel better, healthier, and happier.
Next time you are anticipating a painful experience, use guided meditation to control anxiety and stress pain-triggers.Learn more about how emotions physically manifest themselves. Read my ‘Emotional Health Impacts Your Physical Health’ article here.
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