Meditation’s Reduction of Pain is Independent of Brain Opioid Systems By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “Bit by bit, as I sat noticing my breath and body sensations, I began to feel the deep knots of pain in my body start to untie themselves.” – Avi Craimer We all have to deal […]
Reduce Opioid Treated Low Back Pain with Meditation By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “When your focus is on the pain, obviously that increases the pain. For people who meditate, their muscle tension and heart rate drops, their respiration slows and breaths gets deeper. All those things have impact on the pain.” – […]
Improve Shoulder Pain with Brief Meditation By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “Mindfulness also helps deconstruct the pain: Rather than seeing it as a solid block that has taken over a part of your body, you go into the pain and see moments of pressure, moments of burning, moments of iciness, etc,” – […]
Reduce Opioid Dependence in Chronic Pain Patients with Mindfulness By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “meditation involves endogenous opioid pathways, mediating its analgesic effect and growing resilient with increasing practice to external suggestion.” – Haggai Sharon Substance abuse is a major health and social problem. There are estimated 22.2 million people in […]
Reduce Opioid Dosage in Chronic Pain Patients with Mindfulness By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “It’s clear that when it comes to tackling pain, it takes all of the tools in the toolkit. And when it comes to opioids, the approach needn’t be all or nothing. . . the combination of medicine plus […]
Reduce Opioid-Treated Pain and Opioid Dosage with Mindfulness By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “Mind-body therapies — including meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy and hypnosis — were associated with improvements in pain and reduced opioid doses.” – Erin Michael We all have to deal with pain. It’s inevitable, but hopefully it’s mild and […]
Improve Emotional Response Inhibition in Patients with Chronic Pain and Opioid Use with Mindfulness By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “mindfulness meditation could represent a viable alternative to opioid-based therapy for chronic pain, and may be useful in helping patients taper their use of high doses of opioid-acting agents.” – Hymie Anisman We […]
Mindfulness Reduces Addiction by Improving Pleasure Appreciation in Opioid Users By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “mindfulness-based interventions could help people dependent on opioids increase their self-awareness and self-control over cravings and be less reactive to emotional and physical pain. Individuals with an opioid addiction could also be taught to change their negative […]
Increase Pain Tolerance and Spirituality with a Brief Meditation By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “Bit by bit, as I sat noticing my breath and body sensations, I began to feel the deep knots of pain in my body start to untie themselves.” – Avi Craimer We all have to deal with pain. It’s […]
Improve Opioid-Treated Chronic Low Back Pain with Mindfulness By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “Mindfulness meditation and CBT-based interventions have the potential to safely reduce pain severity in patients with chronic lower back pain that’s treated with opioids,” – Dr. Aleksandra Zgiersk Low Back Pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide and […]