Mindfulness

This post will be discussing a subject that is a favorite of mine: mindfulness.  First, I’m going to explain a little bit about what mindfulness means, and then I’ll talk about uses for pain conditions.  I’ll wrap up by providing some resources if you’re interested in learning more.

I became interested in mindfulness after seeing some patients have substantial improvement in their symptoms with this technique.  Eventually, I took a course in it, called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at University of Massachusetts. I found that this course and starting a daily meditation practice has really helped in reducing my level of stress and in improving my ability to focus. One of my passions as a pain physician is helping patients to discover ways to incorporate mindfulness into their own lives, and seeing their improvement.

What is mindfulness? I think for many people this idea can conjure up an image of a bunch of people sitting cross-legged in a darkened room, chanting. It’s unfortunate because I think it makes mindfulness seem really mysterious and inaccessible to a novice. It’s the exact opposite!  

Mindfulness, in its most simple form, is being aware of the present moment in a non-judgmental way.  Meditation is a way to improve and control awareness, but mindfulness can include things like having a mindful cup of coffee, where you just focus for a few minutes on all the sensory input you’re getting from the experience. We are all- even the most skilled practitioners- practicing mindfulness. No one is an expert. Part of the process is acknowledging when the mind wanders and bringing back your attention, without judging yourself or your mind.

Mindfulness, specifically MBSR, has been extensively studied for pain, especially chronic pain.  It seems to have the most beneficial effects in terms of pain acceptance and reducing catastrophizing, which is a spiral of thinking negatively about pain. In some studies it also improves overall function, like a pilot study looking at elderly patients enrolled in a mindfulness course for low back pain. Other studies have shown similar improvements, including reducing pain scores.  It appears that mindfulness-based therapies are effective for a wide range of pain conditions, including neck, back, and arthritis pain.

I believe mindfulness-based therapies are also helpful because they give patients a feeling of control over their pain. This is a technique that patients do themselves, rather than a medication or an injection that is administered, which is very powerful.  I also love that mindfulness-based therapies have really no side effects, patients aren’t limited by other medical issues, and they can be done almost anywhere.

If you’re interested in learning more, there are a ton of resources.  You can investigate taking an MBSR course in person or online (I prefer in person, as the group aspect is useful).  There are a bunch of apps now, including Calm, Headspace, Insight Timer, 10 Percent Happier: Meditation for Skeptics and many more. These are a couple of websites with good resources:

https://www.tarabrach.com/guided-meditations/

http://marc.ucla.edu/mindful-meditations

The best thing to do is just give it a try! Like any new skill, it takes practice, and consistency/repetition leads to better success.  

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