Simple daily practice can have more health benefits than prescription drugs

Mindfulness has been touted as a solution to everything from anxiety to depression, but according to new research, it might also help chronic pain. 

Veterans who took mindfulness classes for a year were able to deal with their pain better than veterans who only had traditional treatments for chronic pain, such as painkiller drugs and therapy.

This meditative practice, which has become increasingly popular in recent years, includes breathing deep and focusing on the moment, asking participants to let thoughts and emotions come naturally without acting on them. 

'Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can improve chronic pain and comorbid conditions, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sleep disorders, depression, and substance misuse, and are now recommended as a first-line treatment,' study author Dr Diana Burgess, a social psychologist at the VA Health Care System, wrote. 

Chronic pain plagued an estimated 51million US adults in 2021, according to the CDC, and is defined as an ongoing pain that lasts longer than three months.

It has been linked to dementia, an increased risk for suicide and substance abuse. 

Veterans are more likely than the average adult to deal with the condition. 

Since chronic pain can be caused by almost any part of the body, treatment for it varies. 

It sometimes includes physical therapy, psychological therapy and drugs. The drugs that they use can range from acetaminophen to antidepressants to opioids. 

Researchers are often looking for better ways to address this pervasive and difficult-to-treat condition. The new study, which posted in JAMA Internal Medicine, looked to see if low-cost mindfulness programs could help people deal with pain. 

It sorted the 694 participants into three groups. The first group received traditional pain care, the second group had eight 90-minute group mindfulness classes and the third group had eight self-led mindfulness classes.

These classes included videos and workbooks which explained mindfulness as a concept and encouraged participants to use it to manage their daily pain and emotions. The group classes also included discussions. 

After one year, the groups who took the mindfulness classes had less intense pain, less anxiety, fatigue, depression, and PTSD symptoms, as well as increased physical function than the group who took traditional therapy. 

They mindfulness groups reported between 30 percent and 50 percent improvement in symptoms after just ten weeks in the program. That improvement stayed consistent throughout the rest of the study. 

This could help reduce the amount of people dependent on drugs to manage their chronic pain.  

Before doctors pulled back on prescribing pain medications, opioids were dispensed to as many as 900,000 veterans annually. Overdose deaths in veterans increased 53 percent from 2010 to 2019, according to 2022 research from NYU. 

These trends have sparked a wider movement within veterans administration to develop programs that treat chronic pain without the drugs. 

Previous studies have shown mindfulness can help people deal with anxiety and depression. In addition, one 2015 study from anesthesiologists at University of California San Diego suggested that mindfulness could reduce how strongly someone felt pain. 

But sometimes, mindful meditation practices are expensive and time consuming. 

That's why this new study looked to see if lower-cost methods for mindfulness could still help people deal with pain. 

iThere was little to no difference in outcomes between the group that took classes alone and the group that took classes as a collective. 

Dr Burgess wrote that this was 'somewhat surprising' because normally, studies on psychological wellbeing of veterans suggests that social support is important. 

The study authors noted that they weren't able to rule out the affects of other treatment, and it's unclear if people within the mindfulness groups were also using traditional therapies, like counselling or drugs. 

But they wrote, most treatments for chronic pain incorporate multiple strategies. So this could be an important way to help people manage their pain, Dr Burgess said. 

She concluded: 'relatively low-resource telehealth-based MBIs could help accelerate and improve the implementation of nonpharmacological pain treatment in health care systems.'