by Last Updated on July 2, 2024 by Avia
Living with pain can undermine your mental health and lead to fatigue, frustration, and a diminished quality of life. Unfortunately, many chronic injuries and illnesses that cause pain don’t have a clear resolution, meaning you may be looking at a number of years of living with the condition. That’s where meditation for pain management links up for real relief and benefits.
Rather than letting pain rule your life, consider using meditation to improve your mind-body connection. When leveraged correctly, meditation can significantly boost your mental health and help you feel empowered even when you’re struggling with an uptick in your symptoms.
Meditation can be particularly beneficial if you’ve recently had an injury, and feel that it is changing your personality. This is a common experience when facing issues like concussion, as a blow to the head can make it hard to focus and keep track of life’s events. Taking the time to build mind maps and destress with guided meditation may help you on your path to recovery, too.
Table of Contents
Meditation and Stress Relief
Many chronic conditions flair up when you’re feeling stressed or anxious. Things are even worse if your stress is connected to a life event, as research shows that chronic stress associated with an event like the passing of a loved one can create adaptive changes that undermine the overall efficacy of your immune system.
In order to make the most of your meditation habit, you need to find a style that effectively reduces your stress. The types of meditation you may choose from include:
- Mindfulness: This approach brings your awareness back to the present moment without judging the way you think, feel, or respond. This can be a great way to hit “pause” during a busy day.
- Transcendental Meditation: This mantra-based approach was popularized in the 1960s and aims to move your consciousness beyond your own thoughts or actions. This can boost mood and cognitive function.
- Focused: Focused meditation involves centering your attention on a single object. Some folks focus on a flickering candle while others choose a meaningful symbol.
- Movement Meditation: Gentle movement can refocus your intention and give your restless body something to do. Common examples include soft yoga flows or walks in nature.
If you’re new to mindfulness, consider finding a guide that aligns with your interest. Guided meditations can help you explore new ways to harness the mind-body connection and may help you discover new insights about yourself. These easy-going meditations are particularly important if you’ve recently suffered from a brain injury and need to take your return to normal life slowly.
Brain Injuries
A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major life event that is almost certain to incur long-term pain. Concussions can result in frequent headaches, difficulty focusing, and nausea. While there isn’t a ton of research linking meditation to TBI recovery, anecdotal experiences suggest that meditation may help you navigate TBI by:
- Improving attention
- Enhancing cognitive functioning
- Regulating your mood
- Reducing emotional reactivity
Building meditation into your daily routine may not bring you back to normality faster, but it’s almost certain to boost your brain health in the long term. Some folks believe that meditation changes the structure of your brain and that taking time to unwind and turn inward can reduce your psychological stress. Regular meditation can also enhance memory, which could be crucial if your TBI has left you feeling a little hazy.
Of course, if you suspect you’ve suffered a TBI, you should speak to a medical professional as soon as possible. Symptoms of a concussion include:
- Headaches and ringing in ears
- Confusion and/or temporary memory loss (especially of the concussion-inducing event)
- Nausea and/or vomiting
- Dizziness
A doctor can assess the nature of your TBI and will likely assess it to be a Grade 1, 2, or 3. Depending on the severity of the injury, medical intervention may be necessary. While meditation can aid you on the road to recovery, it should not be treated as a replacement for expert advice.
Processing Emotions
Chronic pain usually elicits negative emotional responses. This can be really frustrating if you consider yourself a kind person, but find yourself becoming angry with your loved ones when your symptoms flair up. While you shouldn’t judge yourself for feeling the way you do, you may want to use meditation to improve your mind-body connection and regulate your emotional response.
Get the ball rolling by using a journal to create a mind map all about your thoughts and feelings. A mind map is a powerful tool that can help you understand why you’re feeling the way you do. A mind map typically contains:
- A main idea
- Several main themes
- Smaller ideas that branch off main themes
- Keywords
For example, if you’ve been experiencing an emotion like “frustration” recently, you could use this as your main idea and fill in the main themes with ideas like “lack of freedom,” or “setbacks in recovery.” This enhances your self-awareness, boosts your memory, and ensures you’re aware of why you feel the way you do. Using mind maps in this way can help you in your professional life, too, as you’ll be able to create a quick mental map when you face a setback at work that increases your stress and threatens to undermine your pain management.
Learning how to better process your emotions can also enhance your resilience. Meditative emotional processing techniques like journalling and mind-mapping are shown to reduce anxiety and help you manage stress. This can make a world of difference even when your symptoms are flaring up and you’re struggling to overcome small setbacks and feel in control of your pain.
Conclusion
Meditation for pain management can improve your mind-body connection and enhance your overall sense of wellness. It can also give your mental health a boost and may improve your ability to bounce back after a TBI. However, you should always consult with a medical professional after an injury or when your chronic pains worsen. This will ensure you’re taking all the right steps to protect your health and will help you get more from your meditation sessions.
About the Author: Ainsley Lawrence is a writer who loves to talk about good health, balanced life, and better living through technology. She is frequently lost in a good book.
