The Best Way to Live with Chronic Pain

Belka hiking the beautiful Bonneville Shoreline Trail in Salt Lake City, Utah with her spinally fused mom trying to keep up.

Hey you! Want to significantly reduce the negative impact chronic pain has on your life? Want to ease discomfort, while growing as a person? Want to walk through walls and leap buildings in a single bound?

Well, I can help you with three of those.

Enter compassion meditation. I’ve written about meditation before this. I told you about some important lessons from Jon Kabat-Zinn and his Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction. And I went over my 10 things that ease my back pain (with no drugs).

But last October (2014), I ran across this cool study in the Journal of Compassionate Health Care: Pilot study of compassion meditation intervention in chronic pain.

This study looked at people in chronic pain and used their significant others as a barometer for emotional and behavioral changes that occurred after the pain-patient participated in compassion meditations. The study found patients self-reported significantly reduced pain severity and anger, as well as increased pain acceptance after the meditations. The significant others corroborated these self-reports. Read the study for the details.

How awesome is that? You can make your life better AND the lives around you through simple compassion meditation techniques. You reduce discomfort, negative impacts, and grow in compassion for yourself.

Yeah–walking through walls and leaping buildings is still off the table. But you can still hike some amazing mountains with your dog (see picture below to complete this non-sequitur).

How has meditation worked for you? Is there a particular form you’re drawn to? How do you incorporate it into your day-to-day life?

Belka hiking the beautiful Bonneville Shoreline Trail in Salt Lake City, Utah with her spinally fused mom trying to keep up.

Tarah Neujahr Bryan

I'm from Montana and despite living in six different states, Montana is still my heart's home. I have passion for many things in life, including my beautiful daughter and son, my amazing husband, Nebraska Football, playing softball, hiking, healthcare policy, aviation, running, yoga, reading, outdoor life, animals, hiking, sports, and so much more. It's always growing and changing. I have a BA in History, with a minor in Sociology from Montana State- Billings and an MA in Journalism and Mass Communications (specialization in Marketing, Communications, and Advertising) from the University of Nebraska.

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View Comments

Elizabeth says:

August 23, 2015 at 12:28 pm

Hi,
Thank you for your blog. I have found it to give me some more hope and also some great advice. I had an l5-s1 fusion in may 2014 and made some progress but then 6 months after developed much worsening nerve pain and back pain. I found out my fusion failed and the segment above was also a mess. 6 weeks ago at mayo clinic I had a revision and fusion of l4-5 with harvest bone from my iliac crest. Things have been extremely
hard these last 2 years as my back really got injured and fell apart during the delivery of my second baby. I am a mother of a 2 and 3 year old who used to be extremely active and fit- running half marathons and playing competitive tennis. I am also a physical therapist so my career is probably forever going to be changed too. Thanks again for your blog and reminding me that I am not alone!
Take care,
Elizabeth