New Study: Meditation May Help Reduce Chronic Neck Pain

Amy Taylor February 27, 2015

Chronic neck pain can lead to serious mental health problems like depression, as patients with chronic neck pain frequently experience distress. And whilst medications are readily available, meditation has been increasingly used as a supportive treatment for individuals with chronic pain.

Aside from being costly, pain is difficult to manage. Narcotics are the mainstay for treating pain. Narcotics, also known as opiates, are a class of drug that affects the brain and helps reduce pain, while also producing euphoria. And with such a large number of people suffering from chronic pain, the use of narcotics is rampant. In fact, painkillers are among the most abused prescription drugs in the world. But even though narcotics provide relief, they simply mask the symptoms. What’s more, they often come with undesirable side effects. For this reason, researchers from different parts of the world continue to look for a better and safer approach to treating chronic pain.

Meditation Works

For the study, 89 patients with chronic neck pain who showed increased perceived stress were randomised into meditation and exercise program groups. Outcomes were assessed at baseline and after eight weeks.

German researchers compared the effects of meditation on pain, perceived stress and psychological well-being. They hypothesized that an eight-week meditation program will decrease pain more effectively than a standardized exercise program and that pain relief will coincide with stress reduction.

Findings showed that meditation training significantly reduced pain when compared to the exercise group and pain-related "bothersomeness" decreased more in the meditation group as well. No significant differences between meditation and exercise were found for pain during movement, pain disability, psychological scores and quality of life, which is consistent with the known benefits of exercise on pain-related outcomes. The authors concluded that meditation has unique benefits for producing pain relief and for pain coping.

The new study was published in the journal Pain.

Source of this article: Meditation can reduce chronic neck pain, study shows