Is Medication or Meditation More Useful for Pain Management? 

Mindfulness meditation may be a hot topic, but we're seeing more and more studies on the effects of meditation on pain relief.

In 2016, Wake Forest School of Medicine and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center conducted an experiment to determine the mechanism by which meditation relieves pain.

The content of the study included

Seventy-eight meditating and non-meditating participants received intravenous thermal stimulation, the opioid antagonist naloxone (a drug that blocks the transmission of opioid activity), or placebo saline.

The participants were randomly assigned to four groups: control plus naloxone, meditation and saline, and control plus saline, and were asked to close their eyes and relax until the end of the experiment.

The results were.

Pain intensity and discomfort were significantly lower in the saline group than in the non-saline group.In the case of naloxone and meditation, it was found that naloxone did not block the analgesic effect of meditation.

In the case of naloxone and meditation, naloxone did not block the analgesic effect of meditation.

There was no difference in the intensity of pain and discomfort in the combination of saline, naloxone, and meditation.These findings indicate that the mechanisms of action of opioid antagonists and meditation are different.

The results of the study suggest that meditation should be done for both drug and non-drug treatment.Although the sample size is small, there are no side effects to trying meditation, so if you are struggling with chronic pain management, I would encourage you to try it.

Zeidan F, Adler-Neal AL, Wells RE, et al. Mindfulness meditation-based pain relief is not mediated by endogenous opioids. Journal of Neuroscience. 2016; 36(11): 3391-3397.