hitpauseandgetyourchillonteachingnotes03.pdf

7/27/2019 HitPauseAndGetYourChillOnTeachingNotes03.pdf

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All that we are, is the result of all that we have thought.

Buddha.

Hit pause and get your chill on.A course in meditation and mindfulness practice for young transgender people.

OVERVIEW

Client

Face Value / Blueprint 22.

Contacts

Amanda Baker / Veronica Carver.

Duration

1 hour per week x 8 weeks.

Start date

Monday 14 January 2013.

Goal

To teach awareness of the benefits of meditation and mindfulness, and how to

develop a daily practice of meditation and mindfulness, to the young people of Face

Value / Blueprint 22.

In particular, how it can contribute to your wellbeing, at work, and in daily life, and

how you can incorporate it into upir daily lives.

To teach a basic set of practical tools that young people can use to cope with the

stresses and strains of every day life. To create a new baseline for happier living.

Silences :http://silenc.es / [email protected]

Meditation & mindfulnessFOR HEALTH & WELLBEING
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://silenc.es/http://silenc.es/


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Hit pause and get your chill on participants will learn 4 meditation techniques, and

4 mindfulness techniques, including pause button techniques, all versatile enough

that they will be able to use them whenever and wherever they should need.

Session 03

Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it

anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.

Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

Introduction. So far, we have learned and practiced 3 meditation tools, the bodyscan

meditation, tea meditation, and the pause button meditation, all of which we can use

in our everyday lives, and for practice, we will repeat the first two (tea meditation, and

pause button meditation) again this evening, adding a new main meditation in the

second half of the session.

Tea. Introduction. Serve tea, and introduce students to the mindfulness of tea, with a

simple tea meditation. 5 mins.

Meditation 01. Mindfulness of tea meditation. 10 mins.

Questions. Any questions from last week? 5 mins.

Meditation 02. The pause button. A micro meditation to use any time. 5 mins.

Inspirational talk. What were doing this week. Pain. Following on from our intro to

meditation, and the further practice of the body scan, we are going to continue our

learning this week, adding a new tool to our meditation toolkit.

This evening, we will be looking at pain, and how we can use meditation and

mindfulness to relieve it.

We will learn some portable tools of meditation practice we can use to aid us in pain

relief and pain management, and of course, our old favorites of tea meditation and

the pause button meditation. 10 mins.

Meditation 03. Seated breathing meditation, counting the breath. An ancient Zen

Buddhist meditation technique. 20 mins.

How to practice. How to practice this week. Homework and how to time your

meditations. Any questions? 5 mins.

Resources. Where to find further resources. http://silenc.es/fv

Tea meditation.

http://silenc.es/fvhttp://silenc.es/fvmailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://silenc.es/http://silenc.es/http://silenc.es/fvhttp://silenc.es/fv


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The future is not even here yet. Plan for it, but do not waste your

time worrying about it.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Meditationcan be the act offocusingon something as seemingly simple as a cup oftea.

Thich Nhat Hanhhas a practice oftea meditation, where you pick up your tea,breathe it in, and bring your mind back to your body.

By doing this he says youbecome fully present in the here and now. He says:I don't think of the past anymore, I don't think of the future anymore, I'm free

from the past, from the future, and there is a real encounter between me and the

tea.

Here is a simple method you can practice around your cup of tea, at any time of day.

Drink it, mindfully, using the following mindful tea drinking exercise fromThich NhatHanh, Vietnamese Zen Master and mindfulness expert.Drink your teaslowlyandreverently,as if it is the axison which theworld earthrevolves.

Slowly, evenly,withoutrushing toward the future.Live theactual moment.Onlythis moment is life.You must be completely awake in the present to enjoy the tea.

Only in the awareness of the present, can your hands feel the pleasant warmth of the

cup.

Only in the present, can you savor the aroma, taste the sweetness, appreciate thedelicacy.

Ifyou are ruminating about the past, or worrying about the future, you will completely

miss the experience of enjoying the cup of tea.

You will look down at the cup, and the tea will be gone.

Life is like that.

If you are not fully present, you will look around and it will be gone.

You will have missed the feel, the aroma, the delicacy and beauty of life.

It will seem to be speeding past you. The past is finished.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhmailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://silenc.es/http://silenc.es/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanh


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Learn from it and let it go.

The future is not even here yet. Plan for it, but do not waste your time worrying about

it.

Worrying is worthless.

When you stop ruminating about what has already happened, when you stop worrying

about what might never happen, then you will be in the present moment.

Then you will begin to experience joy in life.

Click here to watch a video, where Thich Nhat Hanh does tea meditation with Oprah

Winfrey.

Pause button meditation.

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://silenc.es/http://silenc.es/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNiwOI0u9AIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNiwOI0u9AI


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Let your meditation practice be a sanctuary.

Harshada Wagner

Perhaps you find yourself seeking a moment of peace in the midst of the motorway of

life? Or you want to improve the quality of your daily meditations?

Maybe youre stressed out, under pressure, or in a difficult situation, and you need to

take stock. Maybe you usually reach for a cigarette, a drink, rescue remedy, a

tranquilliser, or perhaps something else. Whatever it is, you wont always have it with

you. This simple practice is one you will always have with you, you wont besearching your pockets, cursing the lack of your usual prop. Its a very good trick to

have up your sleeve.

Let me share a basic meditators tool with you, one you can use any place, any time.

As leading spiritual teacher and author Sharon Salzberg says

Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it

anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.

Micro meditation is a form of mindfulness practice. Its a way to hit pause, refresh,

clear cache, revitalising your mind and freshening up your day. Its like going to the

wash room and picking yourself up with a splash of cold water.

Set aside a minute for yourself, mentally dropping whatever youre doing. Dont wait

for the perfect moment, there wont be a better one.

1. Stop whatever youre doing.

2. Shut your eyes.

3. Focus on your breath.

4. Mindfully take three rounds of in and out breaths.

5. Gently open your eyes and resume what you were doing.

Youve just created your sanctuary, one you can return to any time you wish.

When you return to activity, youll find yourself more able to focus, with a better

perspective on things.

Use this micro meditation any time you need to hit the pause button. Perhaps when

you are at work, with family, friends, or just in the streets or at the shops.

If you dont have time, then you can even make this meditation shorter, a single in

and out breath. Even if youre feeling stressed out of your mind, and youre running

late for work, you can only improve things by hitting the pause button for a single in

and out breath.

Seated meditation practice, counting the breath.

This week were going to continue our meditation practice, but instead of moving ourmindfulness our awareness through the body, were going to practice keeping our



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attention on one object of meditation, the breath. Also this time were going to begin

exploring sitting meditation.

First, we settle the body in uprightness. A quality of uprightness and balance in your

body will create a corresponding mental state. Let's start first with your legs. We want

to create a triangular base to give you a sense of stability. If you are sitting on a chair,

and I recommend starting with a chair, have your knees separated and your feet flat

on the floor. If your back is weak in any way, you can use the chair back for support,

or you may find you can maintain uprightness without it. Either way, adjust your

position so that your body is as upright as you can manage.

If you wish, you can also kneel with your knees wide and a little separated with some

kind of a support under your tail. Or, you can sit cross-legged, with a cushion to liftyour sitting bones. In this case, you create the stable quality, the triangular quality by

having both knees resting down. Whichever posture you choose, take a few

moments to become really aware of the grounded feeling.

Now have your hands in your lap, swaying your body side-to-side, forwards and

backwards, to help you settle into your true, balanced uprightness.

Let your shoulders relax, have your neck long, your head balanced weightlessly. Let

your eyes rest down on the floor in front of you, or you can allow your eyes to close.

Have your mouth closed, and your tongue resting on your roof of your mouth, with

your tongue broad.

Allow your whole body to relax.

Breathing gently through your nose, become aware of the rising and sinking of the

natural breath in your belly.

As you become aware of your breath, you can start mentally counting your breath. In-

breath, one. Out-breath, two. Feeling in your belly. In-breath, three. Out-

breath, four. And so on, up to ten - when you can start again at one. Very simple. Just

counting. Just breathing.

Any thoughts, feelings, memories, anything at all can arise and pass - but you just

stay with the breathing in your belly.

Anytime you get distracted and lose counting, lose your breath, just starting again,

counting in-breath one, out-breath two.

As your mind becomes more focussed and concentrated, naturally you'll find your

breath becomes more light and gentle.

As your breath becomes more light and gentle, your body becomes more and more

relaxed, and comfortable.

Very simple. Just breathing, counting, relaxing.

You may find this meditation becomes more and more pleasant, more and more

pleasurable as you find yourself coming into a state of restful clarity. That's good. If

you have many thoughts or feelings arising, or if things are very quiet, your meditation

is equally valuable.

All you do is stay with the breathing in your belly.



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You may find as your mind naturally becomes more and more settled that it's fine for

you to just count your out-breaths. Out-breath, one.. Out-breath, two. And so on.

All the way up to ten, and then beginning again at one. Just if that's good for you.

Or if at any point you feel more distracted, more like you need a stronger anchor for

your awareness, then at any time you can go back to counting your in- and out-

breaths. Whatever is good for you. Counting your in- and out-breaths up to ten, or

counting just your out-breaths, following the breathing in your belly. That's right.

And sometimes by this point in your meditation things can go really quite deep. So

when it's time for you to finish your meditation, it's important to give yourself a little

time. Gently, becoming aware of the edges of your body. Gently, swaying your body

side to side. Coming back, that's right.

Very good, and now you're ready to come up into standing, moving on. Very good,

that's right.

When you do this meditation practice, whether with the audio recording, or alone, in

silence, from memory, take your time, allowing 25 minutes for your session.

Feedback. Brief group discussion on the practice. Good points? Any difficulties?



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Talk

Welcome back!

Pain. The practice of meditation and mindfulness is good for you. The evidence

continues to gather and this course is designed to help those who wish to become

healthier and more efficient in their lives.

This week were going to look at stress, what it really is and how it can affect us.

Were gong to look at meditation and mindfulness and physical pain.

Theres a story from the life of the Buddha. After he realized enlightenment through

his meditation practice, he spent about forty years walking the roads of India,

homeless and often sleeping rough. One time when his assistant Ananda was giving

him a massage he said, You know Ananda, the only time I dont hurt on every part of

my body is when Im in the deepest meditation.

This little exchange points up a few key points about physical pain.

Firstly, it doesnt matter how enlightened you are, you are going to experience pain in

your life at least at some time guaranteed!

Also, and perhaps less obviously, meditation controls pain levels.

You may find at times that meditation seems to increase pain levels especially when

youre new to the practice and when youre on long retreats. Its common to feel painin your knees and sometimes in your back and shoulders. When you sit still long

enough, the body will start to hurt. Normally the pain you experience is temporary

and leads to no long term harm. However its important to be sensible with this. If in

doubt, adjust your position in a way that gets you comfortable.

But youll get a feel some pain is just not that serious. This is a great opportunity.

So how do we deal with pain? Remember we have two types of meditation.

In this context you can call them:

1. Tune out concentration meditation. We refine and narrow consciousness. We

simply focus somewhere else. We all know how when your watching a good movie,

you tend not to dwell on pain or discomfort in your body, you just dont notice it so

much.



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2. Tune in. Alternatively in the mindfulness approach, you make the pain your object

of awareness. You just pay attention. You can even have a welcoming friendly attitude

to the pain. Just allow it to be present and watch it. Dont try to change it or push it

away, just allow.

When you do this, your awareness itself changes things. After some time, maybe

quickly youll find the pain begins to change. It may dissolve or soften, it may move to

another place; it may become heat, all kinds of things happen. What I can guarantee

is that when you pay attention to pain it changes. Youll find your experience of pain

changes as your relationship to pain changes.

Also when we experience pain there is very frequently a mental commentary

associated. This mental aspect of pain is almost never helpful. When you make thephysical sensation of pain the object of your meditation, youre vastly less likely to

get derailed into mental anguish and this whole extra mental overlay tends to be

much easier to deal with.

As you work like this you gain valuable practical experience of dealing with pain in a

new way. Pain doesnt have to be something were afraid of.

Its important to stress that meditation isnt a magical cure guaranteeing you a pain-

free life. It takes time and experience to learn how to work with pain in this way. Its

simple to explain, not so easy to do.

One key aspect of this is that meditation helps the body and mind to deeply

relax. Our instinctive reaction to pain is to tense against it. For example when

you have an injury in your back, the muscles around the injured place tend totense up to form a splint so that further damage is prevented. This can be

absolutely the best solution, but not necessarily. Excessive muscle tension

prevents the problem from re-adjusting itself. Also blood flow to the affected

area may well be reduced, slowing down the healing process. For a whole

variety of reasons, relaxation is better than tension and meditation will

massively help with this.

Now before we survey some of the recent research into the effects of meditation on

physical pain and some of the evidence is quite remarkable, two points must be

made:

You dont have to stop drugs or any other kind of treatment, theres no need to

be some kind of purist about it.

Paradoxically, the attitude which is most powerful is one of acceptance. Simply

being as present as possible with the reality of the situation. Thich Nhat Hanh,

the Vietnamese Zen master wrote a recommended book called, The Miracle of

Mindfulness this accepting awareness is where the miracles happen.

Ando talks from personal experience on using meditation and mindfulness practice to

relieve, reduce, and manage pain.

14 years ago, I received a head injury at work, an 8 x 4 white board fell on me

from above, hitting me on the head, concussing me and knocking me to the

floor. Over time, I recovered from the injury, and the initial periods of dizziness

that lasted some months, began to pass. But I developed a sharp, burning pain

in my left ear. A deep and disturbing pain. A pain that grew and grew, and

disturbed me more and more.



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This pain was severe, in every respect. I tried stronger and stronger analgesics,

aspirin, paracetamol, codeine, paracetamol and codeine, but nothing alleviated

the pain, which I found very disturbing and upsetting. My GP begain to prescribe

stronger and stronger medications, which didnt help at all, but as I got onto the

highest levels of medication, I found the situation increasingly upsetting.

The only medications that gave me any relief had the unfortunate side effect

that they completely knocked me out. I was zonked, laid out on the sofa. This

infuriated me, and I wasnt prepared to accept it.

I just wanted the pain to go away.

I saw an ear specialist, who confirmed that I had a post head injury neuralgia,which unfortunately could not be treated, and that I would just have to learn to

live with it, and accept it.

I couldnt accept it. I wouldnt accept it. This increased my pain, and my

frustration with it. The more I thought about it and worried about it, the more it

hurt.

I asked to be referred to a pain clinic. This also brought me no joy, and no relief.

This pain drove me to tears much of the time, and I was desperate for someone

to fix it, and make it go away.

Until, one day, whilst visiting my doctor, we discussed the pain, yet again. She

said to me, just dont focus on it so much. I stopped, and thought about whatshe meant. It was a lightbulb moment. I realised that this pain in my ear, the one

that I had already been told would never go away, had become, without me

noticing, my central focus. I thought about it, I suffered it, I talked about it, and

all the time I was doing this, I was amplified it.

I went away, and thought about what I could do to take my attention away from

the pain. I already meditated, but because I didnt understand this key aspect of

how the mind works around pain, I wasnt benefitting. So I worked on tuning out

the pain.

I began to increase the frequency and duration of my meditation sessions. I

began to meditate for up to 1 hour per day. I began to practice mindfulness,

using it to focus on all the more important aspects of my life, the practical

things, the small things, the big things, all the things that had been missing myattention whilst it had been distracted by the pain.

I went to a Buddhist centre, and began to learn meditation, because I wanted to

become as good at it as possible. Until now, I had been learning mainly from

books, practicing at home. Now I learnt properly, and over the years since,

developed a skillful level of meditation, to the point where I am now a

professional meditator.

How this helped was very quickly and very effectively. Through regular practice

of meditation and mindfulness, I learnt to tune out the pain, just as we tune a

radio or TV station. Or how we tune out background noise, if we live by a busy

road. If we focus on the noise of the traffic, we will barely be able to hear

anything else, but if we let it go, allowing it to fall into the background, our

atttention comes back to our life, and the traffic becomes a mere backgroundnoise. The longer we do the this, the better the brain becomes at tuning out the

noise.



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It worked.

I imagine you want to know when the pain went away, and how exactly I did

that.

It didnt. Its still there today. And I know that it is the same intensity of pain that

it was in the beginning, all those years ago.

But what has happened now, is that it is not my focus, it is far away in the

distance. Because I accepted it and tuned it out of my attention.

I am aware it is still there, but I dont allow it to trouble me, and I dont

experience suff

ering.

I have accepted it, as part of me.

Before, I was rejecting it, fighting it, battling it, angry and frustrated at it. All of

these thoughts amplified it and made me feel it all the more. I couldnt have got

it more wrong.

So I didnt cure my pain. Like the consultant said, it couldnt be cured. But I

turned it down. I turned my attention elsewhere, and most importantly of all, I

accepted it.

Today, if I went to a pain clinic, or the hospital, many of these clinics worldwide

are offering 8 week programmes of mindfulness and meditation, very much like

the one I am teaching you, to their patients. Because it works. For them, it gets

results. It results in happier, healthier patients, and lower bills for the NHS,

because long term medication is expensive, and can cause additional health

problems. Long term meditation and mindfulness, on the other hand, is free

(once you have been taught), and relieves other health problems.

Win - win!

I could tell you many other personal stories of pain, medical treatments, tests

and surgery, but there isnt the time here. This story I have just shared, explains

how it works.

So lets look at some of the research.

One of the foundational pieces of research for the establishment of meditation as a

credible way of dealing with pain appeared in 1985. In the Journal of BehaviouralMedicine Kabat-Zinn, Lipworth andBurney reported that ninety chronic pain patients

were trained in mindfulness meditation in a 10-week Stress Reduction and Relaxation

Program. Statistically significant reductions were observed in measures of present-

moment pain, negative body image, inhibition of activity by pain, symptoms, mood

disturbance, and psychological symptomatology, including anxiety and depression.

Pain-related drug utilization decreased and activity levels and feelings of self-esteem

increased. Improvement appeared to be independent of gender, source of referral,

and type of pain. A comparison group of pain patients did not show significant

improvement on these measures after traditional treatment protocols. At follow-up,

the improvements observed during the meditation training were maintained up to 15

months post-meditation training for all measures except present-moment pain. The

majority of subjects reported continued high compliance with the meditation practice

as part of their daily lives.



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A new study by Montreal University researchers headed by reported in the January

2009 edition of Psychosomatic Medicine reports that Zen meditators have lower pain

sensitivity both in and out of a meditative state compared to non-meditators. In this

study, Joshua A. Grant and Pierre Rainville studied whether trained meditators

perceived pain differently than non-meditators.

"While previous studies have shown that teaching chronic pain patients to meditate is

beneficial, very few studies have looked at pain processing in healthy, highly trained

meditators. This study was a first step in determining how or why meditation might

influence pain perception," says Grant. For this study, the scientists recruited 13 Zen

meditators with a minimum of 1,000 hours of practice to undergo a pain test and

contrasted their reaction with 13 non-meditators. Subjects included 10 women and

16 men between the ages of 22 to 56.

The administered pain test was simple: A thermal heat source, a computer controlled

heating plate, was pressed against the calves of subjects intermittently at varying

temperatures. Heat levels began at 43 degrees Celsius and went to a maximum of 53

degrees Celsius depending on each participant's sensitivity. While quite a few of the

meditators tolerated the maximum temperature, all control subjects were well below

53 degrees Celsius.

Grant and Rainville noticed a marked difference in how their two test groups reacted

to pain testing Zen meditators had much lower pain sensitivity (even without

meditating) compared to non-meditators. During the meditation-like conditions it

appeared meditators further reduced their pain partly through slower breathing: 12

breaths per minute versus an average of 15 breaths for non-meditators.

"Slower breathing certainly coincided with reduced pain and may influence pain by

keeping the body in a relaxed state." says Grant. "While previous studies have found

that the emotional aspects of pain are influenced by meditation, we found that the

sensation itself, as well as the emotional response, is different in meditators." The

ultimate result? Zen meditators experienced an 18 percent reduction in pain intensity.

"If meditation can change the way someone feels pain, thereby reducing the amount

of pain medication required for an ailment, that would be clearly beneficial," says

Grant.

In another study reported in Science Daily this year (2010) scientists from The

University of Manchester recruited individuals into the study who had a diverse range

of experience with meditation, spanning anything from months to decades. They

found that it was only the more advanced meditators whose anticipation and

experience of pain differed from non-meditators.

"Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as a way to treat chronic illness

such as the pain caused by arthritis," said Dr Christopher Brown, who

conducted the research. "Recently, a mental health charity called for meditation

to be routinely available on the NHS to treat depression, which occurs in up to

50% of people with chronic pain. However, scientists have only just started to

look into how meditation might reduce the emotional impact of pain."

The study, to be published in the journal Pain, found that particular areas of the brain

were less active as meditators anticipated pain, as induced by a laser device. Those

with longer meditation experience (up to 35 years) showed the least anticipation of

the laser pain.

Dr Brown, who is based in the University's School of Translational Medicine, found

that people who meditate also showed unusual activity during anticipation of pain in



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part of the prefrontal cortex, a brain region known to be involved in controlling

attention and thought processes when potential threats are perceived.

He said: "The results of the study confirm how we suspected meditation might affect

the brain. Meditation trains the brain to be more present-focused and therefore to

spend less time anticipating future negative events. This may be why meditation is

effective at reducing the recurrence of depression, which makes chronic pain

considerably worse."

Dr Brown said the findings should encourage further research into how the brain is

changed by meditation practice. He said: "Although we found that meditators

anticipate pain less and find pain less unpleasant, it's not clear precisely how

meditation changes brain function over time to produce these effects.

"However, the importance of developing new treatments for chronic pain is

clear: 40% of people who suffer from chronic pain report inadequate

management of their pain problem."

Though pain research during the past decade has shown that extensive meditation

training can have a positive effect in reducing a person's awareness and sensitivity to

pain, some might object that the effort, time commitment, and financial obligations

required have made the treatment not practical for many patients. Now, a new study

by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte shows that a single

hour of training spread out over a three day period can produce the same kind of

analgesic effect.

The research appears in an article by UNC Charlotte psychologists Fadel Zeidan,Nakia S. Gordon, Junaid Merchant and Paula Goolkasian, in the June 2010 issue of

The Journal of Pain.

"This study is the first study to demonstrate the efficacy of such a brief intervention

on the perception of pain," noted Fadel Zeidan, a doctoral candidate in psychology at

UNC Charlotte and the paper's lead author. "Not only did the meditation subjects feel

less pain than the control group while meditating but they also experienced less pain

sensitivity while not meditating."

Over the course of three experiments employing harmless electrical shocks

administered in gradual increments, the researchers measured the effect of brief

sessions of mindfulness meditation training on pain awareness, measuring responses

that were carefully calibrated to insure reporting accuracy. Subjects who received the

meditation training were compared to controls and to groups using relaxation anddistraction techniques. The researchers measured changes in the subjects' rating of

pain at "low" and "high" levels during the different activities, and also changes in their

general sensitivity to pain through the process of calibrating responses before the

activities.

While the distraction activity which used a rigorous math task to distract subjects

from the effects of the stimulus was effective in reducing the subject's perception

of "high" pain, the meditation activity had an even stronger reducing effect on high

pain, and reduced the perception of "low" pain levels as well.

Further, the meditation training appeared to have an effect that continued to

influence the patients after the activity was concluded, resulting in a general

lowering of pain sensitivity in the subjects a result that indicated that the

effect of the meditation was substantially different from the effect of thedistraction activity.The finding follows earlier research studies that found



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differences in pain awareness and other mental activities among long-time

practitioners of mindfulness meditation techniques.

"We knew already that meditation has significant effects on pain perception in long-

term practitioners whose brains seem to have been completely changed we didn't

know that you could do this in just three days, with just 20 minutes a day," Zeidan

said.

In assessing the first experiment, the researchers were not terribly surprised to

discover that meditation activity appeared to be affecting the experimental subjects'

perception of pain because the researchers assumed that the change was mainly due

to distraction, a well-known effect. However, subsequent findings began to indicate

that the effect continued outside of the periods of meditation. "We re-calibrated theirpain thresholds after the training had started and we found that they felt less pain,

compared to the control subjects," Zeidan noted. "This was totally surprising

because a change in general sensitivity was not part of our hypothesis at all.

"We were so surprised after the first experiment that we did two more. We

thought that no one was going to listen to us because no one had done this

before and we got a robust finding across the three experiments."

Zeidan stresses that the effect the researchers measured in the meditation subjects

was a lessening of pain but not a lessening of sensation. The calibration results

showed little change in the meditation subjects' sensitivity to the sensation of

electricity, but a significant change in what level of shock was perceived to be painful.

"The short course of meditation was very effective on pain perception," Zeidansaid. "We got a very high effect size for the periods when they were meditating.

"In fact, it was kind of freaky for me. I was ramping at 400-500 milliamps and their

arms would be jolting back and forth because the current was stimulating a motor

nerve. Yet they would still be asking, 'A 2?' (on a 1-10 scale) It was really surprising,"

he said.

Zeidan suspects that the mindfulness training lessens the awareness of and

sensitivity to pain because it trains subjects' brains to pay attention to sensations at

the present moment rather than anticipating future pain or dwelling on the emotions

caused by pain, and thus reduces anxiety.

"The mindfulness training taught them that distractions, feelings, emotions are

momentary, don't require a label or judgment because the moment is already over,"Zeidan noted. "With the meditation training they would acknowledge the pain, they

realize what it is, but just let it go. They learn to bring their attention back to the

present."

Though the results are in line with past findings regarding mindfulness

practitioners, Zeidan says that the findings are important because they show that

meditation is much easier to use for pain management than it was previously

believed to be because a very short, simple course of training is all that is

required in order to achieve a significant effect. Even self-administered training

might be effective, according to Zeidan.

"What's neat here is that this is the briefest known way to promote a meditation state

and yet it has an effect in pain management.

So you can see, with a regular meditation and mindfulness practice we are in a

much better position to deal with the inevitable pain that arises in life.



15/15

Any questions?

Assignment for the week: 30 minutes a day practice counting the breath

meditation and record your experience in your meditation diary.

In addition, once a day when youre walking, slow down just a tiny bit and count

your breath in the same way you do when youre sitting.

See how it feels and record your experience.

Any final questions?

Check everyone is comfortable to go home and practice.

Meditation diary. Students should note down how they felt, any particular insights/

inspirations that might have arisen, also when appropriate give a guesstimate of what

percentage of the time they could stay with the meditation object. Remind students

to take a few minutes to do this after each meditation period when they go home.

Assignment for the week. To take 30 minutes once a day to practice the bodyscan

meditation and update meditation diary. If you need a timer, you can use an alarm

clock or a mobile phone on vibrate.

Question to be answered. What happens if, with the best will in the world you miss

a day of practice? The answer comes in two parts

Really, really, dont miss a day.

Carry straight on the next day. Note that you missed a day in your meditation diary

and then just keep going.

Final questions.


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