Meditation can reduce sensitivity to pain
Individuals who experience pain as a result of injury or illness need not suffer anymore. According to researchers from the Universite de Montreal, practicing meditation and relaxation – which are two focal points of the art of Dahn Yoga – may be an effective method of pain management for those who have arthritis, back pain or cancer.
Senior author Pierre Rainville said that meditators appear to have lower sensitivity to pain. In order to explore the reasoning behind this, the research team conducted MRI scans on 13 meditators and compared their results to those of 13 people who did not employ the mindfulness technique.
They discovered that the most experienced meditation practitioners had the lowest pain responses, in addition to decreased activity in areas of the brain that are responsible for sensing pain.
"The results suggest that meditators may have a training-related ability to disengage some higher-order brain processes, while still experiencing the stimulus," Rainville explained. "Such an ability could have widespread and profound implications for pain and emotion regulation, [as well as] cognitive control."
As a result, those who practice Dahn Yoga regularly could be strengthening pain management efforts to relieve the symptoms and discomfort of many conditions.
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Tags: Danh Yoga, pain management
