The doctors in your pain treatment center have a variety of options to include in your treatment plan. Medication management, physical therapy, and chiropractic spinal manipulation work together to reduce your annoying lower back pain. Some people have discovered meditation as a way to limit their reliance on pain medication and prevent flare ups of back pain. Wake Forest University sponsored a study and found that some people needed 40 percent less medication once they adopted meditation in their pain management. Here is how meditation can be an effective part of your treatment plan.
Meditation and Chronic Pain
It's often difficult to find the cause of chronic pain, so the focus of treatment is on the symptoms. Back pain is treated by keeping muscles relaxed and reducing inflammation. Alternative techniques, such as meditation, work with the psychology of chronic pain. The goal is to find ways of using the mind to change your perception of the pain.
Mindfulness Meditation
This is a specific meditation technique to manage your awareness of pain. It teaches you to see pain as separate from you and your body. Some people find that this detachment from the pain allows them to experience periods of relief from it. When you've mastered this technique, you can use it throughout the day to get a break from the pain.
To become proficient with mindfulness meditation, you need to work closely with a teacher. They will help you develop a meditation practice unique to you and your specific condition. Part of the process is learning how to manage your fear and anticipation of the pain. An experienced meditation teacher or coach will help you with that.
To give you a slight taste of mindfulness meditation, try the following exercise at home.
Controlling Your Reaction to Temperature
Try this exercise with other situations, such as a warm object, a loud radio or a disagreeable odor. This and other mindfulness meditation exercises teach you how to detach from your chronic pain and create different perceptions of it. Talk with your doctor about how to add meditation to your pain management plan.
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