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'Mindful People' Feel Less Pain, Study Finds (medicalxpress.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the open-minded dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Medical Xpress: Ever wonder why some people seem to feel less pain than others? A study conducted at Wake Forest School of Medicine may have found one of the answers -- mindfulness. The researchers analyzed data obtained from a study published in 2015 that compared mindfulness meditation to placebo analgesia. In this follow-up study, Zeidan sought to determine if dispositional mindfulness, an individual's innate or natural level of mindfulness, was associated with lower pain sensitivity, and to identify what brain mechanisms were involved. In the study, 76 healthy volunteers who had never meditated first completed the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, a reliable clinical measurement of mindfulness, to determine their baseline levels. Then, while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, they were administered painful heat stimulation.

Whole brain analyses revealed that higher dispositional mindfulness during painful heat was associated with greater deactivation of a brain region called the posterior cingulate cortex, a central neural node of the default mode network. Further, in those that reported higher pain, there was greater activation of this critically important brain region. The default mode network extends from the posterior cingulate cortex to the medial prefrontal cortex of the brain. These two brain regions continuously feed information back and forth. This network is associated with processing feelings of self and mind wandering. The study provided novel neurobiological information that showed people with higher mindfulness ratings had less activation in the central nodes (posterior cingulate cortex) of the default network and experienced less pain. Those with lower mindfulness ratings had greater activation of this part of the brain and also felt more pain, Zeidan said.

101 comments

  1. "Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by craighansen · · Score: 2

    In this context, Mindfulness is an oxymoron, where to become mindful is to remove oneself from one's own mind. It's the application of adding a level of indirection (*) to every variable. For myself, I've rather make everything inline and register variables.

    1. Re: "Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where did they dredge up this article?

    2. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Being mindful among the mindless is like being the only sober one in a party. Like a professional runner who is able to walk in a crowd, a mindfulness enthusiast should be able to cease practicing when socially necessary. Not doing so wouldn't be mindful.

    3. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by ljw1004 · · Score: 5, Informative

      In this context, Mindfulness is an oxymoron, where to become mindful is to remove oneself from one's own mind. It's the application of adding a level of indirection (*) to every variable.

      Mindfulness in this context is just a measure of how people score on a straightforward practical questionnaire. The questions are practical, so there's no oxymoron. The only oxymoron comes from your own putative definition "remove oneself from one's own mind" which isn't what was used in the study. Here are some of the questions in the questionnaire, on a scale from Rarely to Almost Always:

      Q. I sense my body, whether eating, cooking, cleaning or talking.
      Q. I am able to appreciate myself.
      Q. I pay attention to what’s behind my actions.
      Q. I am friendly to myself when things go wrong.
      Q. I am impatient with myself and with others.

      Note that the "mindfulness" used in this context doesn't require you to semantically analyze the questions for what you believe to be contradictions or oddities or the logic of the questions; it's merely an observation of how people respond to it, correlated with population observations of how other people respond to it.

      I think your analogy of "adding a level of indirection" isn't the right one. These questions make it sound like mindfulness is more like executing the code under a debugger, and being in the habit of pausing it in tough situations or just periodically, and inspecting the values of local variables so as to have a better idea of what's going on. The alternative would be to only figure out what's going on by looking at the output values of all functions, or what's printed to stdout.

    4. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Their definition of mindfulness is "characterized as the innate capacity to non-reactively sustain attention to the present moment,"

      Ability to focus when in pain....

      Study size: 76.

      "Higher FMI ratings were associated with lower pain intensity (p =.005) and pain unpleasantness ratings (p =.005)"

      Minimal difference when averaged...

      Looks like BS to me.

    5. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder if "mindfulness" involves learning the definitions of words, as they are used in context, before drawing conclusions about them.

    6. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Interesting

      According to the internet, the reason that the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory supporters keep repeating this odd and out-of-place claim that their technique is "a reliable clinical measurement of mindfulness" is that there is continued professional skepticism about the reliability and clinical utility of the system.

      The research available is hilariously funny to read. For example: https://freidok.uni-freiburg.d...

      Compared to the waitlist group, the intervention group showed significantly higher levels of
      self-reported mindfulness after the intervention. While no other variables changed
      significantly in the overall population, effects in the individual schools indicate relative
      benefits with respect to stress and social-emotional competencies. Qualitative results confirm
      these benefits and reveal awareness processes, distancing, presence as well as acceptance,
      nonjudgement and self-compassion as central mechanisms of change.

      *roflcopter*

      But even just in the acknowledgments, there is the claim:

      I was exceedingly fortunate to encounter mindfulness at the hands of our extraordinary
      teachers, [names]; no amount
      of research could have conveyed to me the wealth of nuances and implications of practice that
      they embody so effortlessly.       For that, and for the true privilege of meeting and working with
      them, I am especially thankful.

      (Emphasis added)
      Yeah. OK. At least we're on the same page about how your research sits relative to knowledge that can be conveyed through research. :)

    7. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by hey! · · Score: 1

      What does "removing oneself from one's own mind" even mean? How would that even be possible? This is just a straw man you've constructed with an equivocating interpretation of the word "mindful".

      Mindfulness in this context is simply a conscious awareness of your own bodily and mental processes.

      When I was younger I was a fairly serious martial artist, and the training involved frequent exposure to pain. The process of becoming inured to the pain of a punch or a joint lock isn't what you'd think. The pain doesn't go away, and you don't suppress it. What you do is suppress a crude panic reaction to pain. You develop a more nuanced awareness of it, become better at distinguishing between pain per se and serious injury.

      Pain that you judge to be non-injurious (though familiarity or disposition) is less emotionally distressing. Whether you reported it verbally or through fMRI it would look to a researcher like *less* pain, whatever level of subjective pain you were experiencing.

      So here's what I think is happening: as you become more mindful, the connections between the lower levels of the brain and the neocortex (where consciousness "resides", more or less) become richer, and this happens in both directions. You are both more aware of what's going on down there and are more able to consciously alter it.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    8. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by QRDeNameland · · Score: 2

      Ah, yes...the delicate science of Tautology.

      --
      Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
    9. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I am a different poster, jumping in.

      I would like to answer your question "What does "removing oneself from one's own mind" even mean?"

      What the poster is *probably* talking about is a specific experience that is commonly reported by, and significantly influences, religious traditions that include the practice of meditation.

      Put simply: your ordinary sense of being a singular entity that is distinct from the rest of the word is, in and of itself, a complex neurological process that operates more-or-less constantly while you are conscious. However, specific meditation practices, and specific drugs, can halt that process. The resulting subjective experience is commonly described as "lacking a self." One remains aware of all the data generated by the sensory organs, however, one feels like it's all just part of "the world," with no special spot in it where the self exists as something distinct.

      This experience is also called "ego death." It sounds a lot like what the poster might have meant by "removing oneself from one's own mind."

      So, there you go.

    10. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by hey! · · Score: 1

      Well, I can't answer to drugs generally, but I think the meditative "ego death" might well be like looking at a picture so close it breaks into pixels. The "self" after all is a story the brain constructs. It is an actor in a predictive model of the world. But if you look closely at it, either subjectively through meditation or objectively through neurological research, it looks less fundamental than it does from the inside.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    11. Re: "Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes probably won't replicate

    12. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's really funny. I have a similar view of mindfulness being a form of debugging.

      I always considered meditation to be some sort of built-in debug mode in the brain (debugging on the same host). Hypnosis is basically when you let someone else connect to your remote debugger.

    13. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Whibla · · Score: 2

      But even just in the acknowledgments, there is the claim:

      I was exceedingly fortunate to encounter mindfulness at the hands of our extraordinary
      teachers, [names]; no amount
      of research could have conveyed to me the wealth of nuances and implications of practice that
      they embody so effortlessly.       For that, and for the true privilege of meeting and working with
      them, I am especially thankful.

      (Emphasis added)

      Yeah. OK. At least we're on the same page about how your research sits relative to knowledge that can be conveyed through research. :)

      I'd never heard of the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory before today, so I'm not in a position to comment on the consistency or otherwise of it, or the validity of their claims for it, but I'm not sure I see why you single out that quote, other than flippancy. The obvious meaning is akin to the distinction between reading about something and experiencing that same thing in person. For many things in life (going parachuting, eating a fine meal, having sex, coming face to face with an angry grizzly bear, etc.) the two are not even remotely comparable.

    14. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Q. I am able to appreciate myself.
      Q. I am friendly to myself when things go wrong.

      Is this a survey about how much you masturbate?

      Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to "appreciate myself" and be "friendly to myself."

    15. Re: "Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am pretty sure I read an TOS Star Trek book where Spock says the same thing.
      Something to do with him getting attacked by a tiger.

    16. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by arth1 · · Score: 1

      The questions are practical, so

      No, they're not. They're both highly subjective and open to interpretations.

      Q. I sense my body, whether eating, cooking, cleaning or talking.
      Q. I am able to appreciate myself.
      Q. I pay attention to whatâ(TM)s behind my actions.
      Q. I am friendly to myself when things go wrong.
      Q. I am impatient with myself and with others.

      How do you define "sense my body"? Any part of it, or all parts of it? Consciously or just an awareness?
      How do you define "pay attention" and "behind"?
      What is meant by "friendly to myself"? And "things go wrong"?
      What is meant by "impatient with myself and with others"?

      This is mumbo-jumbo questions. There's no way to measure the objectivity of the answers, nor even define what they bloody mean.
      If they measure something, it's not defined what they measure. My guess would be they measure playing-along-ness.

    17. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Mindfulness in this context is simply a conscious awareness of your own bodily and mental processes.

      Very few have that. The awareness of how biological processes work is rather low, and what they (and presumably you) mean certainly has nothing to do with understanding oligodentrycytes, but is wishy-washy mumbo-jumbo language like when new age followers talk about "energy".

    18. Re: "Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      That's a good way of putting it.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    19. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by IcyWolfy · · Score: 2

      They make sense if you practise mindfullness.
      They are basic questions taugh when starting out as a newcomer to mindfulness practise.

      Sense my body whether eating, cooking, cleaning, or talking.
        - Do you have the kinestetic sense of the body's orientation, the weight bearing on the muscles, the force of gravity
        - While performing these other actions, do you maintain the awareness of the body -- most people completely disconnect from their body and have no awareness of it all.
        - To have awareness of the body is to be consciously aware of it. To be unconscious of the body is to be unaware of it.

      Pay attention to what's behind my actions
        - Why did I react in such a manner
        - What is the motivation behind the action
        - Why did I feel that way towards an other
        - Why do I think that a given action will lead to another

      Am I friendly to myself when things go wrong.
        - When complications arise, do you self-deprecate.
        - Do you place blame on yourself, do you treat yourself as a failure, or otherwise put yourself down?
        - (follow up question is why do you do these actions)

      Am I impatient with myself and with others
        - This is a very straight forward question, even outside of mindfullness - Are you patient with others?
        - Do you get frustrated when you cannot achieve a goal.
        - Do you get frustrated at others when they cannot seem to grasp a concept you explain to them.

      The only way for studies on mindfulness to increase in quality is to put out more studies on it.
      Each successive ones improving on the previous studies, and addressing the faults.
      One cannot expect a perfectly devised experiment when all the variables are not even quantified, or even what their range of values are.

    20. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Bongo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They make sense if you practise mindfullness.

      Ah, much as like religion makes sense if you practice the religion, then. Not at all from an objective perspective, because it must be a subjective experience. In other words: BS

      It is true what you are saying, in that there is a big difference between objective data and subjective expression. And we should not pretend that this is like measuring something objective. Having said that, subjective experience is not BS. If your partner says "I love you and want to have babies and start a family and grow old together", that is all subjective, yet, people have to base the biggest decisions in their lives on whether they intuit that their partner is being sincere, or whether they think their partner is lying, either to them or to themselves.

      Objective science is amazing, and there is the rest of life where no, you cannot be objective, but you cannot just ignore subjectivity and intuition and interpretation and sincerity either, because you'd not be able to function.

      And if you go to a doctor and complain that it hurts, but the doc says they can't find anything wrong with you, too often there are cases where yes there really is something wrong with you, but all you know is how you feel. Ie. "subjective BS".

      But yes, pretty much all of "mindfulness" is a phenomenology, not an objective science. Which is why trying to correlate it with brain activity is interesting.

      What the earlier poster refers to though is something that tends to be heard in mindfulness and meditation circles. And yes it is subjective, but "suffering" is a subjective experience, and we can't tell people who are suffering, because they just lost their job, that they should quit whining because it is "all in their head". As humans we are similar and there are phenomenological experiences which most of us would agree are "suffering". Likewise, as a collection of humans who practice mindfulness, we can compare and talk about whether it seems to reduce suffering.

      And of course a group of people can delude themselves just as a group of scientists peer reviewing each others' clique of speciality can all delude themselves with group think.

      So by all means take that study with a large pinch of salt.

      Mindfulness is simply about noticing that when a bad feeling or bad situation comes up, those events are a bit like a drama on a TV show and you are watching the TV show. The TV is like your consciousness, a screen on which or within which, the image is manifesting, and the TV does not get upset about the drama, the drama is merely a function of what the TV is supposed to be doing naturally.

      So there is a sort of "feeling lighter" and from there you then participate in, and accept more, the drama, and out of that, you probably find answers better. Mindfulness is like, the opposite of running away from problems.

      In Buddhism I gather there is the story of a guy who is shot by an arrow and is obviously in pain, but rather that accept the situation and deal with it, he is very upset that he is shot by an arrow, ie. he is mentally in a state of rejection of the situation, he hates it, and that adds another layer of upset and suffering, in that he just hates the situation, and so he experiences even more pain. "I can't stand it!!" Subjectively he has added additional layers of suffering and pain, to the original "arrow stuck in leg" pain.

      So maybe there is something about whether a stimulus in one part of the brain gets relayed or not, to other parts of the brain, and as your brain is the physical side of your mind, if you alter your mind with a practice of accepting, maybe your brain does rewire, given the material assumption that everything you experience is created by the brain, or could not happen unless the brain itself was doing it.

      If in your mind you have loosened the connections between phenomena so that a pain is more in isolation, more localised, then maybe the brain is also loosening the connections between centres and allowing that is happening in one centre to have less influence on the other centres.

    21. Re: "Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used to be mindful like you, but then I took an arrow in the knee.

    22. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Cederic · · Score: 1

      They make sense if you practise mindfullness.

      Bollocks. 'Sense my body' could be interpreted a number of ways, many of which are utter bollocks.

      Consciously aware of muscle loads and gravity is a more useful description, it's tangible and easier to answer. But am I mindful when dancing and mindless when using a computer? Or am I not mindful when I'm dancing because I didn't know that's what you meant by 'sense of body', because the question was bollocks.

      All of the questions are bollocks. "Are you a zen master, able to levitate and bend others to your will through thought alone" would be a more realistic and approachable question.

      Mindfulness is a shitty term that's described badly and seems to be used primarily to make fuckwits feel superior to the people around them, entirely disregarding the skills and abilities that make those people so fucking awesome in their own right.

      But hey, I don't practice mindfulness. Except when I'm sat on the toilet, eyes closed, generously sharing myself with the waiting waters below.

    23. Re: "Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FULL B.S.

      Sensitive to pain? Mindfulness impossible! Healthy? No worries...

    24. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Just a remark, the summary refers to "Wake Forest School of Medicine", but the article itself speaks of "Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center". The religious aspect out in the open there.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    25. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But hey, I don't practice mindfulness.

      STFU then, the study isn't for you

    26. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      For many things in life (going parachuting, eating a fine meal, having sex, coming face to face with an angry grizzly bear, etc.) the two are not even remotely comparable.

      Right, right, right, which of those things are science?

    27. Re:"Mindfulness" obviously an oxymoron by gordguide · · Score: 1

      It took a while, digging through a few websites, but I finally found something that describes what "mindfulness" actually means. The OP's summary doesn't describe what the main subject matter actully means, which is a signifcant deficiency in any cited article or /. topic.

      https://medicalxpress.com/news...

      Short answer: it basically means meditation, whether structured or just self-evolved (ie you do it "naturally" as part of your personality or learned behaviour).

  2. "Administered painful heat simulation"? by Entrope · · Score: 5, Funny

    I saw that movie!

    "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

    1. Re:"Administered painful heat simulation"? by thomst · · Score: 1

      Entrope pointed out:

      I saw that movie!

      "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

      If I had mod points, this comment would definitely get a +1 Funny.

      (Your username deserves one, too, btw ...)

      Keep up the good work!

      --
      Check out my novel.
    2. Re:"Administered painful heat simulation"? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      The books are a lot better, and at under 2500 pages the original series is much shorter than contemporary sci-fi epics, so it's an easy read.

    3. Re:"Administered painful heat simulation"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, Irulan at the start of the Lynch's version. Spice is flowing..

    4. Re: "Administered painful heat simulation"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd flow my spice all over her face and caress her soft cheeks with my sandworm.

    5. Re: "Administered painful heat simulation"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Watch out for the Fremen, though. They always try to lure your worm near them, hook up with it and ride it all night long. Damned piercing blue eyes and full body protection!

  3. Pain? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Try walking around w/o a head. Oh wait, ... *thump*

  4. I use this trick to disassociate pain by ljw1004 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This study resonates with my personal experience. Say I'm in pain at the dentist's, or an insect bite, or fatigue from endurance exercise. I could drop straight into the normal instinctual fight-or-flight emotional response to the pain. But instead I get my mind to observe the pain as a detached analytical observer -- to try to document the sensations of the pain in all their aspects, like a scientist would. I pretend there's no axiom that says "this sensorial experience implies that emotional response". And, hey presto, there the emotional response just doesn't happen.

    1. Re: I use this trick to disassociate pain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For short term pain, endorphins play a major role, as does the perception of how much you expect something to hurt. For example, most piercings don't really hurt (until well afterwards), but most people believe that they do and so "feel" pain. However, having had to cope with severe chronic pain lasting 7 years in the past, I can assure you that any such detachment and ability to cope quickly evaporates. It's the difference between playing in the mud knowing you've got a warm shower waiting for you, and playing in the mud with nothing but more mud to look forward to. Coping with pain isnt macho, heroic or sexy.

    2. Re: I use this trick to disassociate pain by freya_bacchus · · Score: 1

      For short term pain, endorphins play a major role, as does the perception of how much you expect something to hurt. For example, most piercings don't really hurt (until well afterwards), but most people believe that they do and so "feel" pain. However, having had to cope with severe chronic pain lasting 7 years.

      When playing in the mud endorphins play a major role. When hit by a car it's adrenaline. With chronic pain none of these helps.

      --
      Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity!
    3. Re:I use this trick to disassociate pain by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Uh huh. Try getting a severe burn and see how much that helps. I know everyone is a special snowflake, but pain is pain. Insect bites are hardly real pain.

    4. Re: I use this trick to disassociate pain by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

      I've fractured 2 orbitals, a hand, a foot, my nose twice, toes a dozen times, and so on. I've had 3 hernia repairs, teeth removed, an appendectomy, half a dozen eye surgeries, had a tooth drilled without any numbing agents, and so on. Through all of this, I can confirm what you say is true. I can also say that mindfulness training has also taught me one thing: if not for physics, I'd be invulnerable!

    5. Re:I use this trick to disassociate pain by ljw1004 · · Score: 1

      Uh huh. Try getting a severe burn and see how much that helps. I know everyone is a special snowflake, but pain is pain. Insect bites are hardly real pain.

      I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Is it that there exists a pain for which the technique doesn't apply, and therefore you say the technique doesn't apply to any cases of pain (a logical fallacy)? Or are you trying to define a concept of "true pain" for which the concept doesn't apply and then maybe attempt to correlate your definition of "true pain" with some other observed MRI response?

      I mentioned insect bites because (1) the itch sensation is conveyed by C fibers, the same ones that carry pain, so it's a difference in magnitude not in kind; (2) I use this mindfulness technique to avoid scratching my insect bites -- I observe most people do scratch their bites even when it makes them worse.

    6. Re:I use this trick to disassociate pain by mrbester · · Score: 1

      I have a nest of hornets who will gladly test your hypothesis. Repeatedly. They don't even need asking because they're naturally generous on giving their time for the scientific method.

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    7. Re:I use this trick to disassociate pain by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Oh, absolutely. It is easy to test, and the subjective results should be pretty obvious.

      Even if it "didn't work," it would work a lot better than nothing, because the placebo effect is real, and nothing doesn't provide it. But, it does appear to be a stronger effect than placebo.

      However, that does not imply that people should be credulous of the claim that they've found an objective measurement for mindfulness.

    8. Re: I use this trick to disassociate pain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I seriously hope that they didn't hit any of the study group with a car.

    9. Re:I use this trick to disassociate pain by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      This study resonates with my personal experience. Say I'm in pain at the dentist's, or an insect bite, or fatigue from endurance exercise.

      I’ve found it much more satisfying to just punch the dentist in the nuts.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    10. Re: I use this trick to disassociate pain by ChatHuant · · Score: 1

      I've fractured 2 orbitals, a hand, a foot, my nose twice, toes a dozen times, and so on. I've had 3 hernia repairs, teeth removed, an appendectomy, half a dozen eye surgeries, had a tooth drilled without any numbing agents, and so on.

      God, that must have been pretty busy day!

    11. Re:I use this trick to disassociate pain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or alternatively pay attention to everything else in the room in great detail distracting yourself from the pain. Changes it from an thing consuming your entire attention to a small detail in a much wider picture. The more you concentrate on the pain the more you are aware of it and feel it.

    12. Re: I use this trick to disassociate pain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      had a tooth drilled without any numbing agents

      Always did that as a kid because I was afraid of injections

    13. Re:I use this trick to disassociate pain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That works nicely for minor discomfort. For big pain, like when I got pins inserted in a badly broken bone and the surgeon managed to catch a nerve.... not so much.

    14. Re:I use this trick to disassociate pain by SqueakyMouse · · Score: 1

      Yeah, Neo did that with spoons.

    15. Re:I use this trick to disassociate pain by PPH · · Score: 1

      Some of our ancestors tried that. Observe the lion chewing on your extremities as a detached analytical observer. The survivors ran like hell, thereby reinforcing that particular genetic branch.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    16. Re: I use this trick to disassociate pain by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Coping with pain isnt macho, heroic or sexy.

      No, but it lets you get your shit together and move on with your life.
      And I say this as someone who walloped in self-pity and pain medication for a while until I realized that the pain wasn't going anywhere, and the best thing to do was to man up, grin and bear it, and get on with my life. I still wake up half a dozen times a night from terrible pain, but guess what? It's just fucking pain. Pain is a warning, not the actual disaster itself. If you can't deal with pain, you'll lose.

    17. Re: I use this trick to disassociate pain by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Sounds like you have high self-awareness.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    18. Re: I use this trick to disassociate pain by arth1 · · Score: 1

      No. I don't. Screw self-awareness. Go for sisu. It's better to stumble across the finish line than not reach it because you're too busy worrying about how to place your feet.

    19. Re: I use this trick to disassociate pain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Coping with pain isn't macho

      the best thing to do was to man up

      I'm thinking it's more than self-awareness you're lacking. The "finish line" is death, we're all going to reach it regardless of how we get there.

  5. Effect size? by alvinrod · · Score: 2

    Before I bother to get excited about this, what was the effect size? It's one thing if this is effective enough to replace painkillers in some patients, but completely another if it's only good for something slightly less painful than a mosquito bite.

    1. Re:Effect size? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Unless the pain is so extreme that it would cause heart failure or something like that, then it is pretty obvious that you can decide to "care less" about the fact that your body is in pain, and that meditation techniques help people who are committed to this endeavor.

      You're not going to "replace painkillers," which are a medicine, with philosophy that has to be understood, believed, and adopted, and then followed by disciplined action including refusing the painkillers. Totally different things. Most people taking the painkillers don't want to do the other thing instead, and people who want to do the other thing instead would probably be choosing it regardless of if you decide they have less pain.

    2. Re:Effect size? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used mindfullness and meditation after surgery. Saved me from using any painkillers after the surgery was over. I was resting for a few days, then up and walking about, days ahead of the other patients who were in for the same procedure and taking painkillers.

    3. Re:Effect size? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The study concluded that you have go beyond simple mindfulness and "mind the needful" if you want to replace painkillers.

    4. Re:Effect size? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am able to get rid of pain such as a headache or a minor wound by just telling it to go away. Kind of a placebo effect, if you believe that it works then it will work. The pain might come back later, though, if the cause is still present.

      You can also combine this with a painkiller to make it work faster. Just believe that the painkiller will instantly cure the pain, and it will.

  6. What a bunch of boloney! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Was the pain measured objectively or subjectively?

  7. In my opinion... by QRDeNameland · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mindfulness is the new religion of modern medicine. What exactly is it? No one can clearly explain. How is it achieved? Well, opinions differ. How can it be objectively measured? Yeah, that's what I thought.

    But yet we have oh so many "studies" showing mindfulness purported to effective, of course always for conditions like pain or depression/anxiety that they lack good and/or safe treatment for. But substitute "mindfulness" with "prayer" (which itself could be seen as a form of mindfulness), would the study be taken seriously by the medical community? Yet I fail to see any significant difference between the two.

    And hey, if it works for you, great! However, it's insulting when a practitioner of supposedly science-based medicine starts touting ill-defined magical solutions as if they were science.

    --
    Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
    1. Re:In my opinion... by Brett+Buck · · Score: 1

      Unrepentant hippies now infest every area of human endeavor.

    2. Re:In my opinion... by ljw1004 · · Score: 1

      Mindfulness is the new religion of modern medicine. What exactly is it? No one can clearly explain. How is it achieved? Well, opinions differ. How can it be objectively measured?

      The definition used in this study is "mindfulness is the self-reported score on the Frieburg Mindfulness Inventory". That's exactly what it is, and how it's objectively measured (by asking people to self-report it). Yes that is an objective measure even though it's an objective report of a self-reported subjective thing, just like "QRDeNameland likes vanilla ice-cream" is an objective report of your self-reported subjective preference.

      Anyway, the news in this study is that there's a statistical correlation between how people self-report on the Inventory, and how their brain responds to pain.

      Yes it would totally be an interesting study that gets widely reported if scores on a self-reported prayer inventory also correlated to brain MRI scans (or indeed most other machine-measured phenomena). It'd be fascinating, say, to ask questions like "when you pray do you hear Jesus" or "when you pray do you lose track of where you are", and then correlate with MRI scan data. The Frieburg Mindfulness Inventory has the advantage of being an existing standard to use; I'm not aware of existing standard Prayer Indexes, so it'd be important to pre-specify such a prayer inventory to avoid falling into the trap of data-mining correlations.

      However, it's insulting when a practitioner of supposedly science-based medicine starts touting ill-defined magical solutions as if they were science.

      To be clear, this was a correlation study, not causation. It therefore wasn't touting solutions. The correlations were very well-defined and precise. I don't see any magic in either Freiburg Inventory nor in MRI scan data.

    3. Re:In my opinion... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's exactly what it is, and how it's objectively measured (by asking people to self-report it).

      Really.

    4. Re:In my opinion... by QRDeNameland · · Score: 1

      The definition used in this study is "mindfulness is the self-reported score on the Frieburg Mindfulness Inventory". That's exactly what it is, and how it's objectively measured (by asking people to self-report it). Yes that is an objective measure even though it's an objective report of a self-reported subjective thing, just like "QRDeNameland likes vanilla ice-cream" is an objective report of your self-reported subjective preference.

      The only thing the FMI measures is response to the FMI, answers to 14 vague question which as you concede are arbitrarily subjective. Whether it actually has any relation to 'mindfulness' or any other thing you want to use it as a proxy for is anyone's guess. Sure, they may be some MRI similarities that correlate to how one answers the questionnaires, but who's to say what it means, if anything at all. And I've yet to see anything that shows that any of this is well-tested or replicated. Can such a 'measurement' really be considered objective? I don't think so, even if you disagree. The history of science is littered with so-called 'objective' measures that turned out horribly flawed (total serum cholesterol as an indicator of heart disease risk, for just one example).

      And while this particular study may not be touting solutions, I can assure you that many if not most doctors and mental health professionals are pushing mindfulness as essentially settled science. It isn't even close. The leaps of faith required to press such flimsy evidence into clinical practice is indeed magical thinking, whether you consider the FMI 'objective' or not.

      --
      Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
    5. Re:In my opinion... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had a nice, detailed, long post written for you but I wiped it all out with an accidental hit of the back button. Fuck me (and fuck you stupid browser).

      In summary, look at anything you know deeply, perhaps programming. How well does the media portray programming? That's the same way they portray every other topic. If all you know about a subject is what you've heard rather than what you've researched, you have a very wrapped view of it.

      Meditation, mindfulness, and hypnosis are all linked. The placebo effect is likely some type of subset of them. Meditation about what you're doing is mindfulness. Meditation about something else in a specific way is hypnosis. Prayer is meditation on a request for help. There have been MRI studies showing some forms of prayer are biologically the same as meditating. Meditation, mindfulness, hypnosis, and the placebo effect have all been studied since before they had names. Don't mistake media fads for actual science.

    6. Re:In my opinion... by arth1 · · Score: 1

      To quote the summary:

      the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, a reliable clinical measurement of mindfulness

      Reliable according to...? Oh, the people behind the study...
      Color me somewhat skeptical.

      And "clinical" means something different in this context, apparently, because it's based on self-reporting. That's not what we normally call "clinical".

    7. Re:In my opinion... by nasch · · Score: 1

      But substitute "mindfulness" with "prayer" (which itself could be seen as a form of mindfulness), would the study be taken seriously by the medical community?

      It might

      https://www.google.com/search?...

  8. Re: Oh really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, hey, we gotta be positive!

  9. Mindless people by tverbeek · · Score: 1

    Mindless people, on the other hand, feel no pain at all... they just inflict it on the rest of us.

    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  10. people with lots of pain mind it more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this survey is almost proving a tautology - people who are in pain a lot become mindful of it, and become more familiar with it

  11. Self-absorbed=high endorphins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ask an Endocrinologist. They will explain the interaction. This is just plain ole self-hypnosis...

    You don't have to dig very far to see the self-hypnotic aspect of these psychological claims. It's in the language. To infer anything is 'mindful' is some intellectual neer-do-well attempt to call normal behavior 'mindless'. Use negation to understand this one. The same is true of 'positive psychology' or what they consider 'cognition'.

    In any case, you have psychological and actual problems if your solution is to withdraw into some kind of solipsistic fantasy world...

    And let's not get into the 'replication crisis' facing Psychology...

    1. Re:Self-absorbed=high endorphins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a moron, get hypnotized and shoved up Putin's asshole like the rest of the Trump traitors.

  12. mindfulness cult is the new EST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mindfulness is the latest zombie cult, one Kool Aid glass short of Jonestown.

  13. Got my mind on my pain and my pain on my mind by JoeyRox · · Score: 1

    Rep-re-ziz-ent!

  14. Blogspam by Ty · · Score: 3, Informative
    Provided link is blogspam. Original source: https://newsroom.wakehealth.edu/News-Releases/2018/09/Mindful-People-Feel-Less-Pain

    My personal experience syncs with this.

    I recently completed a 10-day Vipassana course meditation course. ~10 hours of seated meditation per day, quite a struggle at first. Midway through the course, you are tasked with sitting for an hour straight without moving, 3 times per day. At first I thought this task impossible, as after 10 minutes my knees and ankles would start hurting terribly from sitting in the lotus position.

    However, with practice over just a few sessions, I learned to observe the pain with equanimity, and my obsession with the pain dissipated. The pain was very much still there, but it didn't both me. It was an incredible experience.

    1. Re:Blogspam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sitting in lotus is a wonderful way to fuck over your knees for future use.

    2. Re:Blogspam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You will see the experience as incredible later in life too. Incredible that you were willing to fuck up your knees so much for an enlightening experience that you will need surgery later.

    3. Re:Blogspam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I learned to observe the pain with equanimity, and my obsession with the pain dissipated. The pain was very much still there, but it didn't both me. It was an incredible experience.

      I recently had a very similar experience, without the effort, when I was prescribed an opioid medication after a cycling injury.

      I definitely could've built a philosophy around that stuff. But the damned doctor would only let me have a week's worth!

    4. Re:Blogspam by Kiuas · · Score: 1

      I learned to observe the pain with equanimity, and my obsession with the pain dissipated. The pain was very much still there, but it didn't both me.

      The experience of pain is definitely something one can practice to deal with. I've been operated several times in my youth due to cerebral palsy and a couple of those surgeries were quite extensive and had a long recovery process which wasn't completely painless. I learned rather quickly that trying to ignore the pain will make it feel worse, whereas acknowledging it and concentrating on it can help with its management. The worst thing about pain is if it surprises you. If however you know to expect it and go with the mindset of 'I know taking this step will come with some pain, and I know where the pain will be located at' then at least I felt much less stress about it all. The sensory experience was still there as you said, but it was much more bearable: instead of trying to be overly careful with each motion to avoid the (un)avoidable pain I just accepted it as a kind of background noise. I had no notion of meditation or mindfulness or Buddhism at the time but semi-accidentally I still developed a personal mantra that I kept coming back to; since I've always been a nerd I found myself often thinking about a quote from the Warhammer 40 000 tabletop game's lore: 'Pain is an illusion of the senses, despair an illusion of the mind'.

      It's been over a decade since my last operation and my condition is very stable now. Regular physical therapy allows me to live nearly totally pain free, but when the temperatures drop radically as winter hits I experience the occasional muscle spasms and some pain but it's all very much something I'm able to handle without the need for pain medication, using the same tricks as before as well as going to the sauna (heat is a friend).

      --
      "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
  15. I don't feel less pain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I simply have learned to react differently to it. I guess that makes me "mindful".

  16. Mindfulness = snakeoil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mindfulness is clearly the solution to all of life's problems, and totally not worthless buzzword snakeoil.

  17. Dumb people are pussies, study finds by Dirk+Becher · · Score: 1

    Here, I filtered out the smooth talk for you!

  18. Duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is natural. The brain is supposed to make you feel more pain from sources you're not paying attention to. That way you notice and stop getting hurt.

  19. Re: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you aren't mindful of the pain due to using the lotus position, does it matter?

  20. burningmonk.jpg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    subj

  21. Regurgitated Buddhism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mindfulness is mostly a fad and a buzzword. It has roots in a lot of Asian meditation techniques and that sounds convincing to a lot of people for some reason. Sure, "mindfulness" is great sometimes. Living in the present moment is great when you can't do anything about the future. But even Buddhism sees the purpose of directed and focused meditation.

    Ruminating on trauma or being anxious about the future in a destructive way are, of course, bad symptoms that mindfulness can help treat. But it is also important to remember to introspect deeply about the past and hold ambitions and hopes for the future. I feel like "mindfulness" is a word overused so much that it takes on different meanings - "Be mindful" can sometimes just mean "be considerate" or sometimes it can just mean "stop being anxious." But it also seems it can mean "I don't like the philosophical implications of what you are saying, so I'm going to tell you to ignore everything relevant you're pointing out and live exclusively in the present moment."

    Personally, I'm going to use it on debtors.

    "Where's that $50 I lent you?" "It's in the past, live in the moment."

  22. Completed that headline for you by Dasher42 · · Score: 1

    "Mindful people" feel less pain, cause more in those hearing their Lululemon'ed asses preach.

  23. Less pain ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... from my cancer. Because this f*king Yoga pose hurts like hell.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  24. Almost Always. Almost Always. Almost Always. ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Almost Always. Almost Always. Almost Always. ...

    My answer to all those questions, and I assume the rest, is almost always. So?

    How does answering a list of arbitrary, ambiguous, subjective questions give any kind of useful data or create any kind of scale against which scientific issues can be measured and studied?

  25. I know this is anecdotal, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    all the people I've known who were into "mindfulness" were recovering drug addicts.

    Maybe that says more about me than "mindfulness".

    I don't know how that might affect one's sensitivity to pain. I'm a drunk myself. I tried being mindful, but it's much easier to drink.

    Very anecdotal: I think being an alcoholic makes me less sensitive to pain even in those moments when I find myself sober. I have absolutely no evidence for this though.

    It could be just an excuse to drink more whenever I hurt.

  26. Re Mindfulness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mindfulness is the new religion of modern medicine. What exactly is it? No one can clearly explain. How is it achieved? Well, opinions differ. How can it be objectively measured? Yeah, that's what I thought.

    But yet we have oh so many "studies" showing mindfulness purported to effective, of course always for conditions like pain or depression/anxiety that they lack good and/or safe treatment for. But substitute "mindfulness" with "prayer" (which itself could be seen as a form of mindfulness), would the study be taken seriously by the medical community? Yet I fail to see any significant difference between the two.

    And hey, if it works for you, great! However, it's insulting when a practitioner of supposedly science-based medicine starts touting ill-defined magical solutions as if they were science.

    Mindfulness is the new religion of modern medicine. What exactly is it? No one can clearly explain. How is it achieved? Well, opinions differ. How can it be objectively measured? Yeah, that's what I thought.

    But yet we have oh so many "studies" showing mindfulness purported to effective, of course always for conditions like pain or depression/anxiety that they lack good and/or safe treatment for. But substitute "mindfulness" with "prayer" (which itself could be seen as a form of mindfulness), would the study be taken seriously by the medical community? Yet I fail to see any significant difference between the two.

    And hey, if it works for you, great! However, it's insulting when a practitioner of supposedly science-based medicine starts touting ill-defined magical solutions as if they were science.

    It is kind of self hypnosis. You control your breathing and concentrate only on that breathing. Five minutes every day calms you down as your anxiety is reduced and allows you to accept what ever is happening as they are. Self pity, ego etc., are slowly removed. Before exam, a date or interview this technique works very well. Buddhist found this a long time back and now it is slowly spreading in our West. Prayer has religious connotation and you have to follow some rigid rules- clean place, repeating some memorized sentences or phrases etc., whereas Mindfulness is just focusing on your breathing without any religious connotation. Mindfulness can be practiced anywhere and every where. Your mental aging is also slowed down and you feel refreshed. I do this every day not because of any one ordering me or forced me, rather I just discovered this when I was taking a course on Yoga. So, don't bring GOD into this. He or she has given you a brain and freedom to think and dogmatism is out of this self help. I had a major operation and the anesthesia did not work. But I went through the excruciating pain without any objection and remembered all the conversations the doctor's had. I felt happy to know the procedures they did. So, if you are really educated and have done research as part of your education, you will verify this.

  27. here come the subs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    aaaand here come all the subs / bottoms talking about how they are such "heavy bottoms" because of mindfulness.

  28. Kamikaze pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I heard somewhere that during WW2, the Japanese Kamikaze pilots used to practice mindfulness meditation. You see, it helped them to lose their ego, to return to some sort of animal state, right before they committed suicide into the side of an American navy vessel.

    So hooray for "mindfulness", I guess.

  29. Horseshit Study by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can smell the new age monies backing this from here. Horse S H I T.

  30. Jargon in public by cwsumner · · Score: 1

    This sounds like the use of a dialect of jargon, in a public setting. That is Not a Good Thing.

    It seems very different from the jargon we use in tech, but the same problems can occur. Using "made up" languages in public cause confusion. (And are even used intentionally to cause confusion.)

    Failure to translate jargon to standard, will certainly cause things that you don't want. Remember this article, the next time you communicate with people that are not in your work group! 8-)

  31. Mindfulness is not a self-defining term by Mister+Mudge · · Score: 1

    Some of the comments suggest that "mindfulness" is in fact a clinical term of art - but to most people it's a woo-woo term of (pseudo-)spirituality and in the same general space as astrology and homeopathic medicine. So what are we really talking about here?

    --
    Mudge

    In theory, theory and practice are the same.
    In practice, they're not.