How Improving Your Mental Health Reduces Pain

The body and mind are intricately linked, and nowhere is this more evident than in the connection between mental health and pain. One 2010 study carried out by University of Oxford researchers found that when it comes to pain, it isn’t a matter of choosing between ‘it’s all in your head’ or ‘it’s all in your body’. Rather, it is a blend of the two, at least when it comes to depression. As noted by lead researcher, Dr. Chantal Berna, “”when healthy people were made sad by negative thoughts and depressing music, we found that their brains processed pain more emotionally, which lead to them finding the pain more unpleasant.” In essence, depression or sadness decreases our ability to regulate the negative emotions linked to pain. With these and other findings in mind, scientists have suggested many natural means to quell mental distress, and therefore soothe pain, simultaneously.

Controlled Breathing to Lower Stress
The Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine at Harvard University has found that there are several techniques that alleviate stress, anxiety, and pain, one of the most powerful of which, is deep breathing. Controlled breathing, called pranayamic breathing in yoga, involves inhaling air for several seconds (and ‘inflating’ the belly), and exhaling for an even longer amount of time (while ‘deflating’ the belly). This practice is powerful and capable of stopping an anxiety attack in its tracks; it lowers the heart rate and stops the ‘fight or flight’ response from taking over when we are tense. This is great news because anxiety can cause muscular pain and headaches, as well as hyperventilation. There is a plethora of free pranayamic breathing apps, which guide users on exercises lasting as little as five minutes. Try this while you are driving to work, or when you have a quiet moment at home.

Mindfulness Based Exercises
Holistic exercises with a strong mindful component (including meditation and yoga) are popular complementary therapies for everything from breast cancer recovery to anxiety, eating disorders, or depression. Many studies have been carried out on their ability to help with pain. Yoga, for instance, has been found to help lower chronic back pain and migraines, and mindfulness meditation has been found to provide opioid-pain pain relief.

Meditation and Pain
Research published in 2016 in the Journal of Neuroscience found that meditation reduced pain by 24%. To determine if meditation uses the body’s opioids to reduce pain, researchers injected participants with either naloxone (a medication blocking the pain-reducing effects of opioids) or a placebo. They found that pain was reduced significantly in the meditation group that received naloxone. This is a groundbreaking finding, because it shows that even when the body’s opioid receptors are chemically blocked, medication finds different pathways to reduce pain. Yet another study published in 2017 by researchers at Leeds Beckett University, found that just 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation is an effective alternative to painkillers. Interestingly, mindfulness-based practices stress the healthy connection of body, mind, and spirit. Studies have shown that although negative spiritual beliefs are linked to greater pain, positive spirituality (as is found in spiritual meditation), when combined with medication, is an ideal way to treat migraine-related pain.

Positivity is Key
Focusing one what one cannot achieve rather than on positive aspects of one’s life can make pain worse, according to experts. Self-compassion (being kinder to oneself) and keeping a journal gratitude can help keep one’s spirits up and focus on the things one can do. Pain limits the range of activities we can carry out, yet there are always a smaller range of activities that can be enjoyed.

If you have chronic pain, why not give mindfulness-based practices a test run? Studies have proven that they are useful for quelling pain. Moreover, they are powerful busters of stress hormone, cortisol, instilling a sense of calm that can be a big help when the pain is strongest.