Meditation produces powerful pain-relieving effects in the brain. Thats the conclusion of researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, who claim that just a little over an hour of meditation training can dramatically reduce pain. Their study found meditation produced nearly a 40 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 57 percent reduction in pain unpleasantness. It also produced a greater reduction in pain than even morphine or other pain-relieving drugs. For the study, 15 healthy volunteers who had never meditated attended four 20-minute classes to learn a technique known as focused attention-a form of mindfulness where patients are taught to attend to their breath while releasing distracting thoughts. A pain-inducing heat device was placed on the participants legs for a five-minute period.
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