A new research conducted by the Group Health Research Institute shows that quieting the mind with some meditation may be a non-drug alternative to help decrease chronic low back pain.
According to this new study, that was published in the the practice of meditation make it easier for patients to carry out their daily activities.
Here is the study about Meditation and chronic low back
Researchers compared a specific kind of meditation called mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) along with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a kind of talk therapy, to see if these interventions might alleviate pain.
The trial enrolled 342 Group Health patients aged 20 to 70 who had low back pain lasted, at least, three months and could not be attributed to a specific cause.
The trial participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups.
The first two groups received training in eight weekly two-hour group sessions in addition to whatever care they chose to seek independent of the study. One of these groups received training in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and the other in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
The third group received only their usual care.
These are the results of the Study
Compared to the group receiving usual care, participants in both the MBSR and CBT groups were significantly more likely to experience clinically meaningful (at least 30 percent) improvements from baseline in functional limitations and in self-reports of how much back pain bothered them.
The proportion of participants with these improvements was similar, with no significant differences, between the mindfulness MBSR and CBT groups at each time point: one, two, and six months—and at one year—after enrolling in the study.
Usual care is whatever patients would be doing for their back pain if they weren’t in the study, including medications and physical therapy—but not mindfulness meditation or cognitive behavioral therapy.
Here is the conclusion from the study leader, Daniel Cherkin, PhD and a senior investigator at Group Health Research Institute.
“We’re constantly looking for new and innovative ways to help our patients. Our findings are important because they add to the growing evidence that pain and other forms of suffering involve the mind as well as the body . The research suggests that training the brain to respond differently to pain signals may be more effective—and last longer—than traditional physical therapy and medication.”
“The mind and the body are intimately intertwined, including in how they sense and respond to pain. Both mindfulness MBSR and CBT involve the brain as well as the body. We found that these approaches were as helpful for people with chronic back pain as are other effective treatments for back pain.”
My Conclusion
I have been meditating for a quite a few years and I have been enjoying the benefits of meditation. Meditation is now part of my daily life and I am really glad that more and more researchers are doing studies, from a science point of view, on meditation.
I hope it helps more people to understand the numerous benefits of meditation so they can start to benefit themselves.
Do you suffer from chronic low back pain? Why not trying some meditation?
I would also like to remind you in case you have missed it, that only few days ago, it was also published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, another study about meditation, which I have been talking about it here: Meditation can help to reduce pain
Master Your Mind with a 5-week Meditation Course
