14 DAY TRIAL // Zen meditation is a very healthy way of re-arranging your thoughts and optimizing your energy, and it seems it can also help reduce sensitivity to pain.
This is the conclusion of a new research carried out by University of Montreal researchers, who say that meditators do feel pain but they simply choose to ignore it.
Senior author Pierre Rainville, researcher at the Université de Montréal and the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal, explained that “previous research found that Zen meditators have lower pain sensitivity, and the aim of the current study was to determine how they are achieving this.”
Along with his colleagues, Rainville analyzed and compared the response to painful heat stimulus of 13 Zen meditators and 13 non-meditators.
In order to correctly measure pain perception, it was compared to functional MRI data.
The results showed that the lowest pain responses, as well as a decreased activity in the brain areas responsible for emotion, cognition and memory – the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, were found in the most experienced Zen practitioners.
They also had a decrease in communication between the part of the brain that senses pain and the prefrontal cortex.
Joshua Grant, a doctoral student at the Université de Montréal, and first author of the study, said that the “findings lead to new insights into mind/brain function.
“These results challenge current concepts of mental control, which is thought to be achieved by increasing cognitive activity or effort.
“Instead, we suggest it is possible to self-regulate in a more passive manner, by 'turning off' certain areas of the brain, which in this case are normally involved in processing pain.”
Rainville added that by “using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrated that although the meditators were aware of the pain, this sensation wasn't processed in the part of their brains responsible for appraisal, reasoning or memory formation.
“We think that they feel the sensations, but cut the process short, refraining from interpretation or labeling of the stimuli as painful.
“The results suggest that Zen meditators may have a training-related ability to disengage some higher-order brain processes, while still experiencing the stimulus,” Rainville said.
“Such an ability could have widespread and profound implications for pain and emotion regulation and cognitive control.
“This behavior is consistent with the mindset of Zen and with the notion of mindfulness.”
The findings were published in this month's issue of Pain, and could be very important for people who suffer from chronic pain, like arthritis, back pain or cancer.