New Study Shows Efficacy of Slow Breathing in Reducing Pain
A new study reported in the April issue of the Journal of Pain reports on the effects of slow breathing on reducing pain. It is the first study to directly examine the benefits of breathing rate on physical and emotional reaction to pain.
It is a small study using 27 women with Fibromyalgia and 25 healthy women. The results show that slow breathing reduced rating of pain intensity as well as negative emotion in the healthy women. Those with Fibromyalgia who had the capacity to feel positive, felt less pain with slow breathing.
The study’s lead author, Alex Zautra, Foundation Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, says: “Slow breathing provides a natural means for damping activity in the stress system of the brain, leading to a reduction in pain. The first change that occurs with slower breathing is greater parasympathetic response which provides a counterbalance to sympathetic activation that is often aroused by pain, and that engenders feelings of anxiety and nervous tension. A greater state of calm induced with slower breathing also opens the mind to a greater capacity to feel emotions other than pain, providing perspective, flexibility, and choice in the regulation of inner states. In doing so, slow breathing reduces the dominance of the fight/flight response within us, extending the calm influence of parasympathetic activation to allow for better emotional regulation and cognitive shifts from helplessness to action.”
Zautra is now conducting clinical trials to test the benefit of their body/mind intervention in a five year project funded in part by the National Institute of Health.
It is wonderful to see the scientific community validating the effects of Parasympathetic Mind.
Tags: balance, pain relief, parasympathetic system
Healing Innovations, Parasympathetic Mind, pain relief | Penny | 
April 11, 2010 7:55 pm
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