10 Simple Steps of Meditation for Pain Relief

It is a well-known phrase – “no pain no gain”, but what if the pain does not leave and stays forever? Does it sound like a nightmare? Yes, it does. We all can imagine what a temporary pain is but around 100 million people across the globe live with some illness or the other that includes arthritis, joint pain, etc. But with the practice of meditation for pain, this pain can get subsided for good.

Meditation is nothing new to humankind, and now after extensive research, it has grown prevalent due to its efficacy. It shows that practicing mindfulness meditation for pain relief in some clinical trials has resulted in reducing chronic pain by 57% and a whopping 90% success rate with the accomplished meditators.

You can also join this club and reap the magical benefits of practicing meditation after reading this comprehensive compilation that has all the information about this fantastic technique.

1. 1. Pain Relief
   2. Chronic Pain Management
   3. Guided Meditation
   4. Mindfulness Meditation
   5. Expect

Can Meditation Help to Relieve Chronic Pain?

For the treatment of chronic pain, meditation(3) for pain management can helps in reducing the consequences of long-term ache. The sensation which occurs due to the experience of pain has three factors, known as – sensory, affective and cognitive. The other name for meditation is ‘mindfulness,’ and according to the trials that occur in the clinic, it can reduce the long-term pain up to 57 percentiles.

According to mindfulness, there are two types of pain –

• Primary type: It occurs due to an illness or injury on the body, where there is a visible confirmation of them.
• Secondary type: It occurs mentally due to the cause of the physical kind of pain, or you can say it as an after effect of the first kind of pain.

Meditation helps in overcoming the pain by creating a balance between primary and secondary types of pain.

[Read: Acupuncture for Wrist Pain]

Steps to Perform Meditation for Pain Relief

Here is the 10-step process(4) that you can follow to practice meditation for pain relief at home –

1. The pattern of breathing should last long. You should deep breaths..
2. Be aware of every sensation caught by your senses and notice them.
3. Try to focus on only one part of your body at a time.
4. Get to know more about your thoughts, accept them as they are and move on.
5. Observe slowly and learn more about your breathing process.
6. Choose a proper activity and perform it with repetitions of inward and outward breathing.
7. Accept the thoughts that come across your mind and let them move on.
8. Become more aware of the senses without trying to change anything.
9. Again, go for the slow-breathing procedure of breathing in and out.
10. At last, reopen your eyes and try to stretch your muscles.

Meditation for Chronic Pain Management

There are some techniques with which you can use meditation to relieve yourself of chronic pain.

1. Meditation is a process which indulges our mind for calming purposes, but it does not conclude that it cannot treat any physical ache. Some people prefer the meditation process, after their surgery to get relief.
2. Meditation is always helpful when it comes to dealing with any pain, whether mental or physical pain. It requires attention to an area on the body without any distraction. After consideration, there comes accepting in which we receive our thoughts. At last, clearing out of those thoughts takes place.
3. When we get to know about our response to certain circumstances, we tend to take it more lightly which ultimately helps in managing the pain. There are times when the answers get more evident than before which might make you feel that the worrying thoughts are showing the decline.
4. Taking account of the body scan and pay attention to various parts of your body, one by one.

The procedure of meditation for chronic pain puts a significant impact on the body and its well-being.

[Read: Treat Back Pain with Acupuncture]

Guided Meditation for Pain Relief

Guided meditation for pain(5) relief has very high efficacy and there is a systematic way on how to perform it. Meditation cannot sway away your pain, but it can provide you a lot of benefits while dealing with the pain. Guided meditation is collective participation by a group of individuals, under the guidance of a professional.

There are a lot of guided meditation for pain relief processes that can help you out in dealing with chronic pain –

Body Scan Meditation

It is a 12-minute procedure that helps to get over fatigue and chronic pain in the body.

Mindfulness Meditation

This program helps in getting relief from pain, and it is an intensive process that lasts for up to eight weeks.

Guided mindfulness meditation

It is a twenty minutes long session of meditation which transfers relaxation to your body.

[Read: KT Tape for Shoulder Pain]

Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief

As mentioned above, another name for meditation is – mindfulness which has a more significant impact of drilling on our body. When the skills in reflection start to get highly functioning, an individual can also try to reject the pain by just meditating. Nowadays, many of the clinics also suggest practicing mindfulness to help their patients to get over with certain diseases like diabetes and cancer.

The procedure of practicing mindfulness at home goes through the process of focusing, acceptance and rejecting. Focusing or paying attention to a problem enhances the passage of thoughts in our mind. Our mind should know how they accept these thoughts by knowing that they can never change. And this further helps in clearing out the views from the memory.

What to Expect from Meditation for Pain Management?

There can be a lot of changes and feelings that one can expect while performing meditation for pain relief. The general sense which will accompany you will be a relax and calm mind. Relaxation of mind helps in changing or improving the mood of an individual. Meditation(6) cannot completely cure the ache, but it has the capability of decreasing or balancing the tolerance for the pain.

After the session, the pain becomes less painful and gets easier to tolerate. At first, it will get difficult to focus your attention over the specific parts of your body but with practice and proper instructions, you will eventually get skills for meditating. Meditation plays a key role for pain as it also alters the lifestyle such as sleep, concentration, coping, and memory.

As proficiency in the process of meditation for pain increases, your battle against pain starts to gain a positive approach. Meditation helps in leading a happier life than before by altering an individual’s lifestyle. The person who performs reflection starts to have a positive attitude towards situations and life.

Though it may be not more beneficial than other methods, it acts as a plus point in treat any pain conventionally. Meditation increases the concentration and alertness of our minds.  This approach towards meditation can be a useful step to fight against any troubling aches.