 Meditation - The Natural Treatment for Pain Relief
I recall watching cartoons as a child and loving the antics of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. One quip that always got a laugh out of me happened when Daffy Duck was in danger. He often made the excuse, "I can't stand pain. It hurts me."
Few of us like pain. While pain has a good role to play such as reminding us to take our hand off of a hot burner, chronic pain can begin to dominate your life and ruin any activity you are involved in. That is why we often seek out pain relief tools or resources. While some drugs promise to deliver pain relief, their effectiveness is spotty and it is right to worry about the side affects of taking drugs for pain relief. That is why it is good to look to some ancient wisdom to find a source of pain relief that has no dangers or side effects. That source of pain relief is meditation.
The use of meditation for pain relief has been part of some of the oldest cultures on the planet. So it makes sense that western science would finally begin to "catch up" to the ability of this natural aid to control pain as a possible alternative to drugs. The reason that meditation is so effective in pain relief is that the disciplines you learn during meditation give you the ability to relax and focus on other things than the pain.
It does take some perfecting of the skill of meditation to realize real pain relief. But it is a worthwhile skill to develop because it is one that will be useful in many situations in life. And unlike using drugs for pain relief, you can call on your ability to manage pain through meditation instantly in any situation rather than having to endure suffering until you get to the doctor. Meditation is easy to use and it is free as well.
It isn't hard to find stories of celebrities or even people we know who became addicted to pain relief drugs. Many medications that are prescribed to control pain are harsh and many times their affects are worse than the pain itself. That is why some patients who have been enduring both long-term pain and the affects of pain relief drugs will turn to meditation. They can reduce or even eliminate using those drugs and manage their chronic pain naturally without the concern for the risk long-term health damage that many medications bring with them.
The habit of meditation very naturally teaches you to exert mind over matter and over the physical state. The simple steps of sitting in a meditative posture, controlling you're breathing and focusing the mind off of the physical and onto the mantra or a meditation focus point or idea all give you tremendous control and ability to take charge of your physical state in ways that were never possible otherwise.
In addition, meditation is a systematic method for relaxing the body and lowering anxiety. These skills are potent pain relief tools because much of the trauma of pain comes from anxiety and stress which is in response to the source of pain.
Medical researchers into pain relief have discovered that the actual discomfort we feel from pain is equal parts mental, emotional and physical. That is why some people such as athletes can change how they interpret pain so it becomes a desirable and even pleasurable sensation. While using meditation as part of a pain relief solution does not go that far, it does isolate the pain to the part of the body where it exists and it gives you the ability to block pain from dragging down your mental capabilities, your emotional state and your level of energy. It is, to borrow the phrase, "mind over matter" in the best of sense.
Meditation empowers the patient to recognize the pain, minimize it's impact and even ignore or eliminate it because the emotional and mental aspect of pain is put in hands of the one who has learned meditation. It is an outstanding resource for pain relief. One should not turn to meditation exclusively for pain relief because the role of medical consultation is still crucial. But more and more doctors are seeing that including meditation in their prescription for pain relief is a safe and very effective way of treating their patients and keeping them from having to endure undue suffering.
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