Mindfulness Meditation Analysis

The research question Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. sought out to answer was, "Can mindfulness meditation help reduce pain levels in chronic pain patients in a hospital setting?" Dr. Kabat-Zinn's purpose of this study may seem overly ambitious to many people since chronic pain patients are usually not relieved with medicinal therapies. To propose a meditation technique that uses no injections, pills, or much money may be seen as skeptical to some people, but do not underestimate the power of the mind. Dr. Kabat-Zinn included that a scientist named Sternbach had recently emphasized that psychological and behavioral strategies for pain control may provide a more satisfactory method of reducing pain than surgery and medicine for most chronic patients. …show more content…
The control of the experiment was the level of pain the patients experienced before any mindfulness meditation was taught and incorporated into the weekly regimen. These statistics were then compared to the level of pain the patients reported after being taught mindfulness meditation and incorporating this practice into their daily routine, just like taking medicine. The patients were first taught sweeping meditation and were required to practice it for thirty to forty minutes per day. This type of mediation is characterized as becoming more familiar with the sensations that arise from the body and being able to focus on the breath as an anchor. Then slowly the patients were taught to detach themselves from their thoughts and perceive their chronic pain as just another sensation. This type of meditation was taught to the patients while noting that they maintain a straight posture and sit on the floor with a cushion under their bottoms. The patients were then instructed to implement Hatha yoga postures along with their mindfulness meditation. Hatha yoga is described as a meditative exercise that is designed to relieve musculoskeletal atrophy. The typical procedure that was implemented in the patients was to start off by identifying a primary object of observation. This object is usually and most frequently the breathing. By taking note of the sensations that arise from the inhalations and the exhalations, the attention is shifted from the perceived pain to the breath. The patients are then reminded to be aware of their breath from moment to moment as attention drifts off into memories. It is the breath that is the anchor when the thoughts drift from the primary object of observation. The thinking process is then observed from a detached point of view without judging the thoughts or analyzing where they came from. These steps were implemented every four