{"id":402,"date":"2017-04-28T14:01:03","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T22:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/activelifescientific.org\/?page_id=402"},"modified":"2017-04-28T14:01:03","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T22:01:03","slug":"4-guided-imagery-and-meditation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hansmalab.physics.ucsb.edu\/?page_id=402","title":{"rendered":"4. Guided Imagery and Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Neuroplastix method (the method on neuroplastix.com by Michael Moskowitz, M.D., and Marla Golden, D.O.,) involves visualizing areas of brain activity associated with chronic pain decreasing in size. It was discussed in some detail above in the section on Chronic Pain Therapy Grounded in Neuroplasticity. It involves visualizing areas of brain activity associated with chronic pain decreasing in size. It has been reported, based on fMRI imaging, that the areas involved in different sorts of pain can be different [Makin, S<\/a>] [Wager, T<\/a>] and that in chronic pain there is a growing involvement of areas involving emotion [Baliki, M N<\/a>]. But fMRI studies of chronic pain are in their infancy.<\/p>\n

Dr. Moskowitz wrote to me: \u201cfMRI readings are only part of our work. Before there were fMRIs
\nthe areas of the brain that are major pain processing and perceiving regions were mapped out,
\nusing other scientific techniques and approaches. fMRI is very helpful, but just another tool in
\nrefining and confirming other science in the understanding of how the brain works. Dr. Golden
\nand I have scoured applicable literature on Neuroplasticity and our research has taken us to an
\nincredible body of cross discipline work ranging from basic neuroscience to clinical science. We
\ncovered everything from physiology to genetic science in researching and writing up our work.
\nThis work has yielded many ideas of how to help people, and we were fortunate to have large
\nnumbers of patients to work with us on these approaches. We did not take the route of doing
\nour own randomized double blind trials, because the concept is too large to control enough
\nvariables to do these types of studies, honestly. Our goal, instead, has been to gather the
\ninformation that has already been tested in various scientific manners and to pull together these
\nideas across disciplines to come up with out approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, there is evidence that this method is useful because: 1) it was gathered from already
\ntested information, 2) Drs. Moskowitz and Golden have documented the experiences of the
\nmany people in the \u201cNeuroplastic Transformation Workbook,\u201d available at neuroplastix.com<\/a> , and 3) It worked (very quickly) for Susan!<\/p>\n

There are two main types of mindfulness meditation: focused attention, most typically on the breath, and open monitoring, being receptive to whatever arises moment by moment [Wallace<\/a>]. Both of these have been shown to be helpful for dealing with pain. Focused attention has been shown to significantly reduce pain intensity ratings and pain unpleasantness ratings [Zeidan, Fadel<\/a>]. Open monitoring has been shown to reduce pain unpleasantness but not pain intensity ratings [Brown CA, Jones AK<\/a>]. Thus both types of mindfulness meditation can reduce the unpleasantness of pain. As the Dalai Lama said, \u201cPain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.\u201d I currently understand this as, \u201cAcute pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Chronic pain can be overcome.\u201d
\nZeiden and Fadel conclude: \u201cFocused attention may attenuate pain by altering the elaboration of nociceptive information into pain, whereas open monitoring promotes a non evaluative stance to a fully experienced sensory event.\u201d This seems especially important in light of recent fMRI imaging research that concludes, \u201cBrain activity related to the perception of back pain shifts in location from regions involved in acute pain to engage emotion circuitry as the condition persists.\u201d [Hashmi, et al.<\/a>]<\/p>\n

A 2016 <\/span>study<\/span><\/a> that included Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) concluded: \u201c<\/span>Among adults with chronic low back pain, treatment with MBSR or CBT, compared with usual care, resulted in greater improvement in back pain and functional limitations at 26 weeks, with no significant differences in outcomes between MBSR and CBT. These findings suggest that MBSR may be an effective treatment option for patients with chronic low back pain<\/span><\/i>.\u201d<\/span>
\nPeople have also looked at the brain activity that is enhanced by meditation. Newberg et al.<\/a> found that \u201cthere is increased blood being pumped into the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate gyrus after participating in the meditation practice\u201d. Engstr\u00f6m et. al.<\/a> found that compassion meditation increased \u201cactivation in the left medial prefrontal cortex extending to the anterior cingulate gyrus.\u201d Thus one way of looking at brain retraining is to replace undesirable mental activity, for example, generating the experience of chronic pain, with desirable mental activity, for example, generating the experience of compassion by using a practice, for example, meditation.
\nAs currently presented in the scientific literature, meditation is seen as a treatment, not a cure for chronic pain. But the literature does clearly document that the brain can be retrained with meditation to control the experience of pain in the moment. It is not a giant leap beyond this to believe that the brain can control the experience of pain more generally.
\nFrom a neuroplastic perspective, if we keep our focused attention on something other than pain, the pain is not experienced as much of the time. And recall that neurons that fire together wire together. So not experiencing pain as much of the time will not only help keep the pain from increasing, it will actually help decrease it because it is also true that neurons that don\u2019t fire together don\u2019t wire together. Thus it is not really a good idea to stoically endure pain, but rather, especially once one knows that there is no benefit to experiencing the pain, to reducing the pain with drugs or rubbing (especially in the acute phase), and meditation or visualization or distraction (especially in the chronic phase).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Neuroplastix method (the method on neuroplastix.com by Michael Moskowitz, M.D., and Marla Golden, D.O.,) involves visualizing areas of brain activity associated with chronic pain decreasing in size. It was discussed in some detail above in the section on Chronic Pain Therapy Grounded in Neuroplasticity. It involves visualizing areas of brain activity associated with chronic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-402","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansmalab.physics.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansmalab.physics.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansmalab.physics.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansmalab.physics.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansmalab.physics.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hansmalab.physics.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansmalab.physics.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}