Zen meditation alleviates pain
People who practice the centuries-old art of Zen meditation are less sensitive to pain than non-meditators, a study has found.
Research from the University of Montreal showed that meditators have an 18 percent reduction in pain intensity, even when not meditating.
Physiology experts recruited Zen meditators with a minimum of 1,000 hours of practice and conducted a pain test on them, comparing the results with non-meditators.
A thermal heating plate was placed on their calves and turned up to see what temperature they could tolerate.
The meditators were able to withstand an even higher temperature when in their meditative state ... though that could just be because they were sitting on their legs and couldn't feel a thing.
Joshua Grant, from the Department of Physiology said: "While previous studies have shown that teaching chronic pain patients to meditate is beneficial, very few studies have looked at pain processing in healthy, highly trained meditators.
"This study was a first step in determining how or why meditation might influence pain perception.
"Slower breathing certainly coincided with reduced pain and may influence pain by keeping the body in a relaxed state.
"While previous studies have found that the emotional aspects of pain are influenced by meditation, we found that the sensation itself, as well as the emotional response, is different in meditators."
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