mindfulness meditation (Jon Kapak-Zinn)

On my last GP visit my doctor said that "studies show" that people with chronic pain (such as migraine) have some portion of the brain that relates to pain thicker than it is in people without chronic pain. She said, basically, your brain has rewired itself.

I asked her if there was any way to "rewire" it back. (yes, sounds ludicrous but ....)

She suggested "Full Catastrophe Living" by Jon Kapak-Zinn. I couldn't find that book, but got a 2 CD set of his "Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Management".

I have been using the CD for about 14 days now. Oddly I find it easier to do the meditations when pain is greater.

I know that they have done "studies" to show that mindfulness helps one to deal with pain.

Has anyone here tried it and had any success?

I've also been reading John Arden "Rewire your Brain" -- I am going to have to do some serious reading and thinking to get something out of that.

Any success with that sort of approach as well?

Thanks.

Lynn

I have been using the Kabot-Zin CD, on my iPod, for the last five years, and it does help. I use it about a couple of hours after I wake up. It does relax me, and some mornings, it does lower the headache pain level.

With me, it works better, at the lower levels of headache pain.

I have just started reading books, on brain rewiring. I am going on the idea that the chemical makeup of my neurotransmitters is out of balance.

To that end, I've just read "Balance Your Brain, Balance Your Life." Based on a bunch of questions you answer, it gives you an idea, what diet and supplements you should use to rebalance your neurotransmitters. I am hoping, that it will help with my insomnia, and with a good night's sleep, my headache pain level will be lower.

Martin

I just checked Amazon.ca. They have Full Catastrophe Living. Hope this helps.

Hi Martin and Gailgigi

thanks for your replies.

Thanks for the Amazon info, I'll get on to ordering both books. (Full catastrophe and balance)

sounds like mindfulness hasn't proven to be much use for people on this forum for migraines, but I'll still give it a go, maybe it will help with anxiety at the least.

Lynn

Hey guys,

Ha - amazing that this thread was among the current ones! With brain wiring - there is a very simple rule with brains: Use it or lose it. So that works both ways. Use an area of your brain and it and it will wire up more stably and may even co-opt neighboring bits of cortex to expand into if you use it a lot. Eg. piano players have larger portions of their motor/sensory cortex devoted to the fingers because due to their years of practice, their brain has developed that specialisation. If a pianist stops playing for a long time, that region of co-opted cortex will be taken back by the neighboring sensory/motor functions. Same with pain experience - but it's not so much a 'part of the brain' although there may be increased volume in certain regions...it's more of a pattern of association which has been over-learned** (explained below).

I actually popped back to this forum after months and months away from it to share about ACT and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) because it is something I'm working with as a provisional psychologist. I'll just share some of what I've learned about these methods and hopefully that will be of some use to the forum. MBSR is not new - mindfulness has been used by Buddhists for thousands of years, so these approaches are far from fads. They take practice to learn and implement, but they are very effective and so in my opinion the practice is worth doing.

So, MBSR and ACT have been shown to be effective at helping people improve their quality of life despite pain. The idea is not to reduce levels of pain, but rather to address the reality that most of us (everyone) perceives ourselves and our environment not as it actually IS, but through the filter of our past experiences. Note that these approaches are effective for depression, and anxiety as well. On a psychological level, these approaches operate on both a cognitive and behavioural level and they would be classified overall as CBT approaches although they have come from different pathways onto the scene.

So, mindfulness is about being here and now and learning to experience what is ACTUALLY happening for us. Applied to the pain sufferer, it is about learning to recognise the sensations of the body directly, not to try and change those sensations, but to experience them. **The reason being that when it comes to pain, and to many other states of being, we rarely actually experience the pain on its own merits. We have habitual associated cognitions and physical reactions to it as well. We feel the pain sure - but 1) we also think about the pain including imagine various scenarios involving the pain - e.g., when will it go away, what if it gets worse, will it ever go away, I can't deal with it, I'm sick of this, I will have to lay in bed for days, I will never get a job, I will never maintain friendships, I can't handle this, this is worse that it has ever been, this is like last week's migraine, what are my triggers, etc etc etc. 2) we experience increased fear and anxiety or we shut down (go into avoidance) as a result of our perception of the pain, and also as a response to the thinking and imagining we do during the experience of the pain, and 3) we respond physically to the pain with tensing up. So in this there is a lot of room for interventions to work - either to reduce our anxiety about the pain, to reduce our worry about the pain (and what it means today and in the past and in the future), in order to bring our experience of the pain into the present. The thing is that the actual reality of the pain is actually far less when we experience just the sensations than when we experience the sensations PLUS all the other baggage from our memory and minds.

Kabat-Zinn describes it like this: As an adult (kids don't do this!) we see a sunset. We look at the sunset and almost as soon as our eyes alight upon this sunset, today, right now, our minds have already gone to past sunsets, other sunsets, comparing the sunset, feeling emotions about past sunsets, remembering past places we saw a sunset, people we were with....to the point that we are hardly even experiencing the current sunset and in fact we are hardly even seeing it for itself - on its own merits, today, right now.

"Full Catastrophe Living" is an excellent book in which Kabat-Zinn (MD) describes the MBSR approach and the history of how he applied it in his pain clinics starting in the '60s. Another of his is "Wherever you go, there you are". You can find both of these books as audiobooks via Isohunt. You can also find all of his Guided Meditations via that route.

ACT is another approach which includes mindfulness, but which also goes further to support us to move in the direction of our values and goals. It's a case of, "okay, I have learned to accept the pain and experience it for what it is, but what now?" To get the benefits of this approach, you would need to see a psychologist trained in ACT.

Mindfulness is about awareness. I thought I was a pretty aware individual - connected with my body...but for me, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction has helped me to develop a far deeper connection which has actually helped me recognise the state of my body far earlier and far more accurately than I previously had. This has allowed me to act in numerous ways to reduce the incidence of my migraines - so that although I'm still getting them, I'm getting fewer of them and that is solely as a result of what I've learned through MBSR (the deeper awareness of my mind and body). I'm also experiencing them as they are rather than as I'm afraid they will become - you know when you get that first twinge of a migraine? For me that used to set off a cascade of catastrophisation - "Oh God! No! Another one. I can't believe it. I might have to miss work next week! I'm going to lose my job. I can't hold onto a job. This is my only chance - I'm screwed. Oh no, here it comes. I'll be out for three days. It's getting worse I can feel it. Tense up the shoulders and hunch down in a fear and anxiety response...etc etc". Now it's different because I can address each of those responses as they arise simply because I'm now aware of them and in so doing, remove all those additional stressors which I'm creating for myself.

Anyway, hope this additional info is of some use to some of you

Along the same lines, I posted the name of this book a while back:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_14?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=how+to+be+sick+a+buddhist-inspired+guide+for+the+chronically+ill+and+their+caregivers&sprefix=how+to+be+sick%2Caps%2C447

A lot of good advice on how to cope with chronic illness.

Martin

Hi Martin and Living

thanks for the additional book recommendation, Martin -- I have ordered the balance your brain balance your life on your recommendation. I will look for the how to be sick book as well. I have full catastrophe living from the library and a copy coming in the mail. Thanks for those

Living, thanks for your detailed explanation of how MBSR can work -- that helps me to understand it more -- I have been doing the meditations best I can for about 3 weeks (i have only the Pain management one from Zinn, but have ordered his other CDs.)

I guess I have been thinking that by meditating the part of the brain that thinks about pain might shrink (turning as I like to joke from a cantaloupe back to an eggplant.)

But, it sounds like from what you say that MBSR allows one to sit with the pain more easily, and then to find it isn't as awful. So paradoxically, it sounds like by being receptive to the pain (I keep thinking about putting out a cup of tea for it, but feel somewhat ambivalent about that, don't want to be too friendly, don't want to give it hugs and make it feel like hanging around), somehow the pain isn't as bad.

I am finding that the little bit I have done with MBSR does seem to be helping, but of course, I am trying a zillion things so perhaps it is the full combination.

I am also working through Rewire Your Brain by John Arden -- and trying to take on board ideas that might be linked. For example, when you do deep breathing, it prevents your blood from getting too acidic -- when your blood is acidic, something happens to what calcium does in the brain -- given that I am taking a calcium channel blocker, I figure deep breathing might help there, so I am doing that.

Needless to say, I spend most of my time when I am not working doing stuff to try and get status migrainosus and chronic daily headache under control.

I will keep thinking about what you have written, very helpful explanation, thanks for that.

Lynn

Hi Lynn,

Mindfulness probably works by teaching us how to experience ourselves and our environment in totally new and present ways - at least, new to us as adults because as children we were effortlessly mindful. We're so full of learned associations as adults we no longer experience things through our senses - we filter everything through our judging minds. So the 'baggage' that we've been carrying, that's been weighing us down (taking up space in our brains) and making our experience of our pain worse, is what we're replacing with learning mindfulness practice. So I think you're absolutely on the money to be expecting an eggplant (and maybe even just a small one at that!). The old cantaloupe will die off from lack of use!

It's really encouraging to read how you're working so positively toward your goals. May you continue to experience improvement and happiness