Study says paying attention to the moment can reduce feelings of pain

One study has shown that mindfulness – a meditative practice focused on attention in the present moment – can increase a person's tolerance to pain.

Researchers at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in the United States analyzed data obtained from a study published in 2015 that compared mindfulness meditation to placebo analgesia.

They sought to determine whether the dispositional alertness, the innate or natural level of consciousness of an individual was associated with a lower sensitivity to pain and to identify the brain mechanisms involved.

"Mindfulness is connected to the awareness of the present moment without much emotional reaction or judgment," said Fadel Zeidan, assistant professor at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

"We now know that some people are more attentive than others, and these people seem to feel less pain," said Zeidan, lead author of the study published in the journal Pain.

In the study, 76 healthy volunteers who had never meditated first completed the Freiburg Consciousness Inventory, a clinical measure of mindfulness, to determine their baseline levels. .

While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, they received painful thermal stimulation.

Whole brain tests revealed that better vigilance during painful heat was associated with greater deactivation of a region of the brain called the posterior cingulate cortex, a central neural node of the default network.

In addition, in those who reported higher pain, activation of this critically important cerebral region was greater.

"The results of our study showed that conscious individuals are apparently less taken by the experience of pain, associated with lower pain ratios," said Zeidan.

"Now we have new ammunition to target this region of the brain in the development of effective pain therapies," he said.

(This story has not been changed by Devdiscourse staff and is generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)