How to Alleviate Pain through Mindfulness Practices

Last week we were discussing the mindfulness of the body – especially noticing any sensations that we may be feeling from moment to moment. These sensations can be labeled as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Typically, we have no trouble experiencing the pleasant or even neutral sensations. It is quite the opposite when we discover something painful or unpleasant though, as we tend to immediately either push it away or ignore.

Our tendency to avoid pain is completely natural – pain is often a signal that we need to pay attention to something being wrong in our body for example. However, sometimes the pain does not actually need to be immediately investigated and removed. There are times when it simply is present because of a temporary condition – a muscle strain, an indigestion, a small tension headache. Once the body heals or relaxes, the pain simply dissolves too.

Unfortunately, many of us make these normal discomforts of our lives much worse by resisting the unpleasant experience. Feeling a muscle strain, we may insist on getting a deep tissue massage that causes further damage. Feeling some belly ache, we get on supposedly “healthy gut” diet that results in misery and suffering of a full-blown orthorexia down the line.  We consume painkillers like candies – with side effects like chronic pain, medication addiction, and even reduced empathy, as this study suggests.

I used to medicate my migraine headaches very heavily when I was younger. However, my relationship to this pain condition has dramatically changed when I discovered meditation. Mindfulness meditation is not a cure, but it has helped me realize that I often make the pain substantially worse by trying to fight it. The resulting tension in the body and the anxiety in the mind are only causing the attacks to be more frequent and intense.

In Buddhism this effect is often described by the equation: Pain x Resistance = Suffering. The more we resist the sensation of pain, the more we suffer. The opposite is also true – the less we resist, the less we suffer. I am not an idealist; I highly doubt that we can ever completely stop resisting pain. Sometimes we also do need to distract ourselves or use pain medication. We certainly must seek professional help when we experience new pain, or our pain condition is no longer manageable. However, it is also possible to resist the unpleasant sensations a bit less – and one way to learn how to do it is through mindfulness meditation practice.

You may not be experiencing any pain or discomfort right now. However, it is very likely that you will do so at some point in your life. Learning how to stay present with whatever happens, including any discomfort or pain, benefits everyone who has been born into this imperfect, aging body. In today’s meditation, we will again practice a form of a body scan – this time specifically noticing any areas of the body, where we may be feeling unpleasant sensations. We will be using several techniques that are deeply rooted in self-compassion – always selecting the kindest way of treating our bodies. It is completely OK to stop the practice or shift attention to more pleasant sensations if the experience gets too intense. I hope you will find this practice beneficial – and most of all, I truly wish all living beings experience much less pain and suffering 💖