Forget painkillers, try meditating. Photo: Getty
And if their study is anything to go by, you don't have to have loads of experience in meditation to benefit from its pain-relieving effects either. They took a group healthy people who had never meditated previously, and sent them to four 20-minute sessions where they learned a technique called focus attention.
The technique - which is a common meditation tool -involves concentrating on your breathing patterns and letting go of all thoughts and distractions in your mind.
The volunteers were then subjected to a series of brain scans, during which they had a hot probe pressed against their leg to cause pain. By looking at the scans afterwards, the researchers discovered that there was reduced activity in the pain-processing areas of the brain while the volunteers were meditating.
And by rating how painful the probe was before and during meditation, the volunteers claimed it was, on average, 40% less painful while they were meditating. That compares with a typical 25% in pain reduction achieved by pain-relieving drugs such as morphine, the researchers add.
Have you ever tried meditating?
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