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    Managing Pain Through Mindfulness PDF

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    huda
    This document discusses how mindfulness meditation can help manage persistent pain by changing one's relationship with pain. It explains that mindfulness involves purposefully observing pain sensations in a curious, non-judgmental way rather than constantly trying to push the pain away. This allows one to see that pain is just one part of experience rather than dominating it. Mindfulness also helps recognize that thoughts about pain are separate from facts and can be let go of rather than believed. The goal is to be present with the whole experience, including any pain, instead of only focusing on and battling the pain.

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    Managing Pain Through Mindfulness PDF

    Uploaded by

    huda
    159 views4 pages
    This document discusses how mindfulness meditation can help manage persistent pain by changing one's relationship with pain. It explains that mindfulness involves purposefully observing pain sensations in a curious, non-judgmental way rather than constantly trying to push the pain away. This allows one to see that pain is just one part of experience rather than dominating it. Mindfulness also helps recognize that thoughts about pain are separate from facts and can be let go of rather than believed. The goal is to be present with the whole experience, including any pain, instead of only focusing on and battling the pain.

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    This document discusses how mindfulness meditation can help manage persistent pain by changing one's relationship with pain. It explains that mindfulness involves purposefully observing pain sensations in a curious, non-judgmental way rather than constantly trying to push the pain away. This allows one to see that pain is just one part of experience rather than dominating it. Mindfulness also helps recognize that thoughts about pain are separate from facts and can be let go of rather than believed. The goal is to be present with the whole experience, including any pain, instead of only focusing on and battling the pain.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    159 views4 pages

    Managing Pain Through Mindfulness PDF

    Uploaded by

    huda
    This document discusses how mindfulness meditation can help manage persistent pain by changing one's relationship with pain. It explains that mindfulness involves purposefully observing pain sensations in a curious, non-judgmental way rather than constantly trying to push the pain away. This allows one to see that pain is just one part of experience rather than dominating it. Mindfulness also helps recognize that thoughts about pain are separate from facts and can be let go of rather than believed. The goal is to be present with the whole experience, including any pain, instead of only focusing on and battling the pain.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    Some key takeaways are that mindfulness can help stop fighting pain and change one's relationship with pain, leading to less suffering. It involves purposeful, non-judgemental awareness of present sensations and experiences beyond just pain.

    Mindfulness can help manage pain by cultivating a curious, non-judgemental awareness of present sensations rather than seeing pain as a solid 'thing'. This allows one to bear individual sensations more easily and see that pain is part of a larger experience.

    Awareness is simply noticing what is present, but mindfulness involves a purposeful, focused form of awareness that observes experiences without judgement. It provides perspective on pain as one part of one's whole mental and physical experience.

    Changing the way you think and feel…

    MANAGING PAIN THROUGH MINDFULNESS MEDITATION

    When we have pain it tends to grab hold of our attention, it says ‘focus on
    me!!’ It tends to crowd out other thoughts, feelings and sensations. While this
    can serve a useful function for new, acute pain episodes, it is not very helpful
    for persistent pain.

    Many people try to cope with pain by trying to distract their attention away
    from it. While diverting your attention away from pain is sometimes a useful
    thing to do, there are times when this is very difficult. There may be times
    when the pain seems so intense and so overwhelming that it feels almost
    impossible to think about anything else but the pain. Understandably, the
    mind normally tends to see pain as something that is undesirable and
    therefore something to be pushed away. However, constantly trying to push
    the pain away can become an exhausting and relentless battle. This battle
    can itself lead to increased stress and frustration and serves to increase
    muscle tension and to feed into the stress-pain cycle, only making things
    worse.

    BATTLING PAIN TRYING


    TO PUSH IT AWAY

    STRESS/
    PAIN FRUSTRATION

    MUSCLE TENSION

    EMOTIONAL SUFFERING

    1
    Mindfulness offers a way to stop fighting and struggling against the pain,
    because you realise that all this battling only makes your suffering that much
    worse.

    Mindful awareness…
    To begin with the idea of using meditation to help manage pain might seem
    strange or unlikely to be helpful. To some people the idea of meditation
    conjures up ideas of ‘tuning out’ or getting into some weird mind state to
    ‘escape’ reality. Mindfulness meditation is not like this at all, instead it is
    actually a way of being more in contact with your present experience. So
    then, you might think, how can being more aware of my experience help me
    manage pain? Surely this will make things worse for me?

    In meditation we do become more aware of ourselves, but what is most


    important is that we become aware of and change the relationship we have
    with our pain. It is this change in relationship that makes meditation a useful
    tool in pain management. Mindfulness is much more than simply being
    aware. We can be aware of pain without being mindful at all. Mindfulness is
    a particular kind of awareness which is purposeful, focused, curious, non-
    judgemental and rooted in our moment-by-moment experience.

    Becoming curious about your pain…

    With Mindfulness we purposefully observe our experience as it takes place,


    including any pain that may be present. The mind naturally tends to see pain
    as a "thing," and to give it a degree of solidity and consistency that it does not
    in fact have. In mindfulness meditation we train ourselves to see the many
    different sensations that we collectively label as "pain." We may even gently
    make mental notes of the sensations that we notice. For example we may
    note the presence of "tingling," "pulsing," "throbbing," "heat," "cold," "aching,"
    "tightness," etc. When we let go of the rather crude label "pain" in this way
    and instead note what is actually present in the moment we can find that
    each individual sensation is easier to bear. Sometimes we might notice that
    there is no pain present, or that the sensations that we're experiencing are

    2
    neutral. Seeing the sensations with a new curiosity allows us to let go of some
    of the battling and struggling and just to be with pain.

    There’s more to experience than just pain…

    When pain and pain-related thoughts dominate, you will find it much more
    difficult to enjoy life. However, as you practice mindful awareness of the
    present moment, you can learn to notice and better appreciate your
    immediate surroundings. You begin to get more appreciation of the simple
    things that are present here and now. In Mindfulness meditation we observe
    more than just the pain that may happen to be present. We become aware of
    the whole physical body, emotions, and thoughts and of how each of these
    interacts with the others. One thing we can then begin to see is that although
    pain is present in our experience, it isn't the whole of our experience.
    Mindfulness gives us a sense of the physical and mental "landscape" within
    which our pain is experienced. This then helps to give a sense of perspective
    to the experience of pain and place it where it should be i.e. a single part of
    our experience instead of dominating the whole of it.

    At times of stress, it may seem as if pain is the only thing that we experience,
    but this comes about because we have a kind of personal "zoom lens" that is
    closely focused on the pain. Change that zoom lens for a wide-angle lens and
    the pain seems much smaller and therefore more manageable. When done
    mindfully, activities like taking your dog for a walk, listening to music, washing
    dishes, working in your garden, interacting with your grandchildren, or simply
    looking at the pale blue sky can take on a much richer, fuller, and more
    enjoyable experience.

    Thoughts are just thoughts…

    Experiencing pain can often trigger unhelpful and negative thoughts…. "This
    is never going to end," "This is just going to get worse," "I can't bear this," or "I
    must be a bad person to deserve all this pain." In turn, these thoughts lead to
    anxiety, depression or anger, because we tend to believe the stories we think
    when we are unmindful, and this further adds to our suffering. The practice of

    3
    Mindfulness includes becoming aware of our thoughts and seeing that our
    thoughts are indeed just thoughts and are not facts. This can be quite a
    liberating discovery. When we learn to see thoughts as just another
    experience coming and going against the background of our overall physical
    and mental experience, we free ourselves from the kind of runaway thinking
    that is a common part of distress. We can see thoughts like "I can't stand this"
    coming into being and realize that they are thoughts rather than facts. Then
    instead of taking on these thoughts as fact, we simply note them and let them
    go.

    Mindfulness is about stopping and being present,


    that is all.
    Jon Kabat Zinn

    For more information on mindfulness

     Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn (1991) “Full Catastrophe Living: Using the wisdom
    of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness.” Bantam
    Doubleday Dell Publishing Group (good book)
     Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn (2004) Wherever you go, there you are:
    Mindfulness meditation for everyday life.
     Breathworks, 16-20 Turner Street, Manchester, M4 1DZ Tel. 0161
    8341110
     Also, CD REFERENCES FROM Beckys updated version

    www.breathworks-mindfulness.co.uk

    Acknowledgements:

    Bodhipaksa. Breathworks, Richard Hanson, Jenny Wilks, Duncan Moss, Becky


    Chasey

    Updated Feb10/JF/FMS Website

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