Desire to relieve pain without medicine? 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 I use them personally. I also offer meditation CDs to help with pain management.
These offerings, which range from coaching to calming playlists, are designed for beginners, intermediates, and experts. 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 relieves arthritis, back pain, depression, and anxiety and increases natural neurotransmitter GABA levels.
Listening to a half-hour of hypnosis, guided imagery, or yoga Nidra meditation equals 3 to 4 hours of sleep or deep relaxation, which promotes stress and drug-free pain relief.
You might wonder, “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.
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 an expectation of pain greater than the actual experience of the pain.
Meditation works to reduce fear and anxiety of needles, dentists, etc. This dramatically 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-minute classes. Volunteers’ brains were scanned before, during, and after inducing pain in their right leg by heating it up with a pain-inducing device for 5 minutes.
The results were impressive:
Every volunteer’s pain rating was reduced (from 11% to 93%)
Pain intensity was reduced by 40%
Pain unpleasantness was reduced by 57%
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.
You create pain through 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 feel stressed and anticipate pain.
This will relieve pain, 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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