According to Psychology Today, the concept of meditation began within the Indus Valley around 5,000 to three,500 BCE. Because this time, most of the world’s major religions have adopted some form of meditation practice as part of their spiritual development.
Modern Western medicine has started to investigate the health benefits – mental and physical – of meditation and mindfulness practices. So far, it’s been proven to affect gene expression, act as a highly effective to reduce stress mechanism, assist with PTSD, and lower blood pressure level, amongst others. New research, led by Wake Forest Baptist Clinic, now implies that mindfulness and meditation could also be the road to migraine relief.
“Stress is really a well-known trigger for headaches and research props up general benefits of mind/body interventions for migraines, but there hasn’t been much research to judge specific standardized meditation interventions,” said Rebecca Erwin Wells, M.D., assistant professor of neurology at Wake Forest Baptist.
To measure the safety, feasibility, and results of a standardized meditation and yoga intervention referred to as mindfulness based reducing stress (MBSR) in adults with migraines, the researchers recruited 19 participants. The participants were broken into two groups: 10 received MBSR intervention, the rest of the 9 received standard health care. The MBSR patients attended eight weekly classes to understand the techniques, then expected to practice Forty-five minutes on their own not less than five more days each week.
Using objective measures of disability, self-efficacy and mindfulness, the patients were assessed both before and after the free trial. These were also necessary to keep a headache journal through the study period, paying special attention to frequency, severity and amount of headaches.
“We discovered that the MBSR participants had trends of fewer migraines that were less severe,” Wells said. “Side effects included headaches that were shorter in duration and fewer disabling, and participants had increases in mindfulness and self-efficacy a sense of personal treatments for their migraines. Additionally, there were no adverse events and excellent adherence.”
Time.com reports that the MBSR group’s quantity of headaches didn’t reduce significantly (only one.4 fewer monthly compared to control group), however they were significantly shorter Up to three hours shorter per headache.
“They were able to possess a sense of personal treatments for their migraines,” Wells, Wake Forest assistant professor of neurology, said according to Time.com reporter Mandy Oaklander. “It really makes us ponder whether an intervention like meditation can alter the way people interpret their pain.”
Wells’ team concludes that MBSR is protected and feasible like a therapy for adults with migraines. They are doing caution, however, the sample size for this study was they canrrrt detect statistically significant changes in migraine frequency or severity. However, the secondary outcomes demonstrated this intervention had a beneficial impact on headache duration, disability, self-efficacy and mindfulness.
The team has planned further research with larger sample sizes to help evaluate the impact and mechanisms of this type of intervention in adults with migraines.
“For the approximate 36 million Americans who suffer from migraines, there’s big need for non-pharmaceutical treatment strategies, and doctors and patients should know that MBSR is really a safe intervention that could potentially reduce the impact of migraines,” Wells said.
The findings happen to be published within the online edition of Headache.
