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Meditation with guided imagery, which frequently involves imagining yourself in a soothing environment, can reduce your need for pain medication. |
Relaxation, meditation, positive pondering, and mind-body techniques can make it easier to reduce your need for pain medication.
Medications are great for pain relief, but they often have unpleasant, and even serious, unintended effects when used long-term. If you’ve back pain, fibromyalgia, arthritis, or other chronic pain that interferes along with your every day life, it’s possible you’ll be on the lookout for a method to relieve the pain that doesn't involve medication. Some old techniques, including meditation and yoga, in addition to newer techniques might help reduce your need for pain medication.
Research shows that because pain involves each the mind and the body, mind-body therapies can have the potential to cut back pain the way in which you perceive it. How you experience pain is influenced by your genetic makeup, emotions, personality and lifestyle. It can be influenced by past experience. If you've been in pain for some time, your brain can have rewired itself to feel pain signals even after the signals aren’t any longer sent.
The following techniques might help take your mind off the pain and help eliminate established pain signals.
1. Breathe deeply. It is central to all techniques, so deep respiration is the very first thing to learn. Inhale deeply, hold for just a few seconds, and exhale. To make it easier to focus, you need to use a word or phrase to guide you. For example, it is advisable to breathe in “peace” and breathe out “stress.” There are also several apps for smartphones and tablets that use sound and pictures to make it easier to maintain a respiration rhythm.
2. Demonstrating a softening response. An antidote to the stress response, which raises the guts rate and puts the body's systems on high alert, the relief response slows down your body's response. After closing your eyes and relaxing all of your muscles, concentrate on deep respiration. When the thoughts break, say “refresh” and return to the respiration repetition. Continue this process for 10 to twenty minutes. Then, sit quietly for a minute or two while your thoughts return. Then open your eyes and sit quietly for a minute.
3. Meditation with guided imagery. Start respiration deeply, being attentive to each breath. Then take heed to soothing music or imagine being in a peaceful environment. If you discover your mind wandering, say “refresh” and call the image back into focus.
4. Mindfulness Pick an activity you enjoy—reading poetry, taking a nature walk, gardening, or cooking—and immerse yourself in it. Notice every detail of what you’re doing and the way your senses and emotions are responding. Practice bringing mindfulness to all features of your life.
5. Yoga and Tai Chi. These mind-body exercises incorporate breath control, meditation, and movements to stretch and strengthen muscles. Videos and apps can make it easier to start. If you enroll in a yoga or tai chi class at a gym or health club, your medical health insurance may subsidize the associated fee.
6. Positive pondering. “When we're sick, we often focus on what we can't do. Focusing on what you can do, rather than what you can't, helps you feel better about yourself and the world. A more accurate view, Dr. Slausby says, is to keep a journal in which you list all the things you are grateful for each day. But that doesn't mean we aren't still fully human.”
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