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