Meditation Leads to Greater Pain Relief Than Morphine

Meditation has been part of the human experience for a long, long time. The earliest reports of defined meditation practice date back to about 1500 BCE in India, and became part of Western practice during the Roman Empire. As neuroscientists have studied meditation, they’ve discovered some interesting ways in which it affects the physical structure of the brain. These include effects that can be seen in autonomic functions and neurotransmitters as well as changes in blood flow and brain wave activity.

Meditation has been extensively studied for its effects of stress reduction and other clinical functions, and there have been several preliminary studies in its potential as a pain relief treatment. Now researchers at Wake Forest have published a study measuring the physical effects of meditation on pain — and it turns out it might be more effective than morphine.

“This is the first study to show that only a little over an hour of meditation training can dramatically reduce both the experience of pain and pain-related brain activation,” said Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D., lead author of the study and post-doctoral research fellow at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. (MORE)

Source: Forbes