How to Manage Chronic Pain with Meditation

Chronic pain is a physical condition that can alter everyday life for many people. Often medications and other standard medical treatments are not always enough to ease suffering. Meditation, which involves breathing exercises and focusing on pleasant thoughts, can often work well in relieving chronic pain.

Here are some key ways that meditation can be used to manage chronic pain.

1. Relax the Body

Excess muscle tension can often exacerbate chronic pain. Learning how to relax the body more through meditation can offer relief. The relaxing sensation that is elicited through meditation can increase blood flow to certain parts of the body where pain is felt regularly. Therefore, further alleviating pain.

2. Shift the Focus

Shifting the mind to focus on something other than the pain that the body is experiencing can be difficult, but learning how to do so through meditation can offer great results. Meditation is often used to encourage the body to focus on more positive thoughts. Thinking about these pleasant subjects can divert the mind’s attention away from the pain and create a welcomed distraction from the unpleasant physical sensations related to chronic pain.

3. Reprogram the Brain

The brain often stores memories of pain, and this can make chronic pain worse. As Healthline.com explains, meditation can help reprogram the mind to provide more distance between the memories of pain, and this new way of thinking can do wonders for the body. If meditation is practiced regularly, the brain may become more naturally inclined to shift its attention away from the bad memories so that chronic pain can be alleviated better.

4. Body Awareness

A meditation technique known as body scanning can be used to focus on different parts of the body. The focus starts on the upper sections of the top of the body and works its way downward. As each part of the body is scanned, the part relaxes and releases tension naturally to generate more healing benefits.

Meditation offers one of the best ways to relieve many of the unpleasant effects of chronic pain. To experience what meditation can do to help you relieve your chronic pain, you can watch the video below to be taken on a guided meditation journey.

Follow this 20 minute guided meditation by The Mindful Movement: